Don't Complain About the Rain...

I sometimes hear people complaining about the rain, and worrying about flashfloods (quick & sudden flooding). I just laugh and think about the summer of 1960 when I was a boy. It rained so hard and for so long that the entire town I lived in was underwater. We actually had to live in the trees for a whole month. It wasn't an easy thing to do. Have you had to build a fire for warmth in a tree when everything was soaking wet? Food was another problem. We managed to make spears from some branches & sharpen them with a pocket knife. Using the spears we were able to catch a few fish once in awhile, but mostly we had to eat insects as well as any fungus we could find growing on the trees. We thought about eating one of my cousins who wouldn't stop crying, but decided not to. Although it was very tempting, even if it was just to stop his crying which was becoming very annoying. Living in the trees was difficult and made doing the simplest things a great inconvenience, but we actually got used to it after a couple of weeks. In fact, when the flood waters had gone down, and we were able to climb down, we discovered that we had forgotten how to walk on solid ground. But it came back to us eventually. That's why I scoff (make fun of in a slightly derogatory manner) when I hear people complain about a little rain. I want to tell them that they should have spent that month during the summer of '60 living in the trees in my hometown. Then, maybe, they'd know what a little rain was...