I sat down to write at my computer after lunch, but could proceed no further than my first paragraph.
Scarcely had I begun to tap on the keys than raindrops began rapping at my office window, and I was drawn to my front porch rocking chair.
It was a gentle rain that distracted me, not the blustering sort of storm for which spring is better known – a rhythmic pattering on our metal roof, a dissonant trickling down the leaf-choked gutter drain.
At first it seemed not much of a rain – sunlight breaking through the clouds in a muted glow – sufficient, though, to coax robins to forage in the yard and redwing blackbirds to call from perches in the holly bushes.
It was sufficient, as well, to evoke memories of rainy spring days when my brothers and I would build hay bale forts and swing from ropes in the loft of Grandpa’s old barn, rain falling in a deafening rumble on the rusty tin roof.
The rain summoned, too, recollections of fishing with Dad on the Pomme de Terre when it was too wet to make hay, raindrops splattering through the sycamores and trickling off our caps and plastic ponchos as we watched our rods for the slightest tug from beneath the rain-swept surface of increasingly murky waters (We caught nothing at all, but how I wish I could once more toss my poles in the bed of a ’48 Ford pickup and go fishing with Dad in the rain).
As it turned out, that gentle “rapping at my office window” in that March day gave me ample time for reminiscing. Within 24 hours we had nearly 2 inches in the rain gauge, and it was still raining off-and-on.
A full day after the first showers I was still reveling, too, in the overdue “writer’s weather.” That’s any sort of weather rendering it unfit to work or play outside. Of course, dubbing it “writer’s weather” may be a mite optimistic. It could as easily be “old movies and popcorn weather.”
Substantial rainfall almost always elicits mixed reviews. It plays havoc with weekend golfers’ and trail riders’ sport, but on the heels of a dry winter it’s a blessing for farmers, gardeners and rural firefighters.
Too much rain and flooding are a different matter, but these late March showers are a welcome watering, painting today’s pastures greener than yesterday’s and reminding us that it is indeed spring, despite the ice on water buckets just a few days ago.
Rain tapping on my tin roof still moves me from my office to my front porch rocking chair, where memories tug ever so gently on the heartstrings with every drop that falls.
A former feature writer for Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, Jim Hamilton is a retired newspaper editor/publisher. Hamilton was reared on a small dairy farm in Dallas County, Mo. Contact Jim at [email protected].
