It Rained As I Went Up The Avenue
I was going out to church on Sunday, two days ago, when it began to rain. No big deal; I’ve seen rain before, we all have, since my earliest days.
Some of my neatest memories are of being on my grandparents’ full-length porch as the rain poured down, safe in our “outside-inside” viewing box. One other is being out on the upper end of the street in a black slicker raincoat (with a yellow streak, probably picked up from a newly-painted fire hydrant), always overly-warm in it, but happily dry underneath its hood. Still another is rain water bubbling up through the holes in the manhole cover nearly in front of our house during a real downpour.
Well, that’s what Sunday’s rain turned into: little drops, those thick and heavy drops that make you wish you had brought an umbrella because it’s gonna get worse fast. I was in a car and knew it would be double-fast wipers inside of two minutes.
It came down. Like a fire hose it came down. Underneath a waterfall it came down. The yellow lines on the road disappeared, as well as the traffic more than one car length ahead of me. I felt like a fly under a cow’s tail when it lifts and the water cascades out.
There is a spot where the two lanes merge into one and it is customary to drive on top of the lane divider lines for a hundred feet if you are going straight or staying to the left if diverting to the upcoming left lane turnout at the traffic light. It’s safe enough until the weather gets really nasty…
Some of my neatest memories are of being on my grandparents’ full-length porch as the rain poured down, safe in our “outside-inside” viewing box. One other is being out on the upper end of the street in a black slicker raincoat (with a yellow streak, probably picked up from a newly-painted fire hydrant), always overly-warm in it, but happily dry underneath its hood. Still another is rain water bubbling up through the holes in the manhole cover nearly in front of our house during a real downpour.
Well, that’s what Sunday’s rain turned into: little drops, those thick and heavy drops that make you wish you had brought an umbrella because it’s gonna get worse fast. I was in a car and knew it would be double-fast wipers inside of two minutes.
It came down. Like a fire hose it came down. Underneath a waterfall it came down. The yellow lines on the road disappeared, as well as the traffic more than one car length ahead of me. I felt like a fly under a cow’s tail when it lifts and the water cascades out.
There is a spot where the two lanes merge into one and it is customary to drive on top of the lane divider lines for a hundred feet if you are going straight or staying to the left if diverting to the upcoming left lane turnout at the traffic light. It’s safe enough until the weather gets really nasty…
posted by Tom Carten at 2:17 AM
2 Comments:
The old folks used to call that a gully washer. Sailors, especially tin can sailors, might compare it to a cow peeing on a flat rock.
Exit 318
Or as my grandmother might have said,
''My stars and garters, now that was a gullywasher''
Exit 318
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