We are experiencing a good long spring rain.  The kind of rain that finishes melting snow, greens the grass and waters the gardens to wake up the flowers.

I lived across the border in what is now called Aroostook Village from 1956 to 1958 and  I still have a few memories of that time.  In our climate here we get summer rains and often it’s still warm enough to remain outside (especially if you are a kid).  My childhood playmate back then was my cousin, Karen, who lived about a mile or so south of our grandmother’s house where I was living.  I would walk down to play with her and we would go up behind her house to play in an abandoned homestead.  It provided us with shelter when it rained and I can remember singing:

It’s raining, it’s pouring
The old man is snoring
Bumped his head and went to bed
And couldn’t get up in the morning

Another time we got caught outside in a thunderstorm.  Karen’s cousin, Doug, lived just up the hill from my grandmother’s and we often played anywhere and everywhere in between.  This particular time we got wet and I smelled something… it was me and it kind of smelled like something burning… Doug said I had been hit by lightning – what did I know?  I was only six!  I ran home crying and hid under my grandmother’s kitchen table.  When asked why I was scared I repeated what Doug had said.  The grownups just laughed indulgently and told me I was smelling my wet woolen sweater.  But ever since I have been terrified by thunder and lightning.