Learn how to listen to the rain

Early on in my surveying career I was a wayward young man with a restlessness that ached. A spot in a trailer park, a wife that hadn't quite made 21 and two screaming babies kept me jumping from job to job...looking for "more money". In the late '70s and early '80s I wound up with a telecommunication engineering company that was taking care of thousands of miles of "design-build" buried cable routes across the South. It was a long ways away from my little spot in the trailer park; but the money was good. One particular fall the work seemed concentrated on a stretch of river bottom called the "Atchafalaya Basin". I wish I had a dollar for every time I had to drive the 50 or so miles between Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

I had been rotated back to the Oklahoma City office for a week to pick up plans and some better equipment. I drove back down there in a cold rain and spent the night in Lafayette. The next morning I talked with a crew that was in Baton Rouge. They were going to meet me on the west side, in St. Martin Parish, near Henderson, somewhere along the levee road. We had a short amount of time and a long way to make line for this outfit and I was chomping at the bit to get going. I woke up to more chilly November rain...

If you're as old as I am you can remember the days before cell phones and even pagers. People got their signals square with each other over a land line and then executed a schedule. Sometimes with less than desirable results. Today was one of those days. I wound up waiting for a crew (that never showed) in a dark little bar along the levee road at a place called "a landing". You could either get their by boat if the water was up, or drive there. Didn't seem to matter 'cause there really wasn't anybody in there.

About every thirty minutes I'd get up and drop a dime in the pay phone that hung on the wall between two doors that said "Messieurs" on one, and "Dames" on the other. I was trying feverishly to call the only number I knew, the hotel room in Baton Rouge where the crew had spent the night before. It was now well after noon and they were a no show. I was starting to get really twisted. There was a big window that looked out over the bay or lake (I heard it called both, although a Okie would probably call it a swamp). There was just as much going on out there as inside the place...nothing. I was frustrated and on my third or fourth beer. I'm sure my agitation was evident.

The only other person in the place besides a barkeep was an old man that was perched at the end of the bar, occasionally sipping from a lowball glass. He startled me when he spoke loud enough for me to hear, "You makin' me jittery now, stop it." He apparently was talking about my hopping up to the phone and fidgeting. I half-heartedly apologized and turned back to looking out the window. Next thing I knew the old man had left his barstool and was pulling up a chair at my table. He told me his name was Uncle John, and he also said my name was going to be "died at a young age" if I didn't settled down. His Cajun and Scotch was a little hard to understand.

I tried to explain my predicament, probably in way to rationalize my agitation. He cut me short...

"Everybody got someplace they think they gotta be", he said, "Nobody take time to be where they at."

I told him about the crew, and the contractor, and all my woes. I pointed out the window and lamented there wasn't a damned thing going on out there but the rain and it was costing me valuable time. He laughed an told me there was plenty going on out there, I just couldn't see it.

He pointed out a big snapping turtle, perched on a log. A skinny dog went trotting across a puddle with his head down, trying to keep dry. In a few seconds an egret swooped in and landed on some wooden piles that jutted out of the water. He flicked his feathers and preened after he shook off the rain.

Uncle John said, "See that water under that tree? They's fish under there that old bird usually wanna eat. But he's not eating right now. Why you think that be?" I told him probably because it's raining.

It startled me when he slapped his palm on the table. He gave a quiet "eeyah" hoot, smiled and told me. "Thas right! Now God give us this rain to feed the ground and all the creatures. including us. If a dumb ol' bird can listen to God, why can't you? God don't want any of us to do nothin' while it rains. It's a gift from Him to you, like a break. Take advantage of it! Learn how to listen to the rain."

We talked a good ways into the afternoon and the rain never let up. A young girl came to work the bar in the middle of the afternoon and put some Clifton Chenier on the juke box. Uncle John left and I drank too much beer. On wobbly knees I drove in the rain ten or so miles back to my cheap hotel room in Lafayette. The crew never showed until the next day. My day was lost.

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Here in Norman, Oklahoma we've had a couple of rounds of thundershowers that have rolled through the last two evenings around 1 or 2 in the morning. They always wake me up.

The other morning I had gotten up to look at the radar on tv. I chuckled to myself that I had to look at a tv to see what was going on. I muted the tv, turned the lights off and opened the door. All I could hear was the rain. It was beautiful. I sat there listening to the music of the rain and watching the lightning reflect off the water charging down the gutters in the street....and remember old Uncle John's words. He's gone by now. His eyes were so blood shot back then he may have left this Earth the day after I saw him. But I want him to know something. It took 40 something years, but I think I finally learned how to listen to the rain.