We've had so many heavy rains this month that everything is lush and green. Those plants that have withstood the pelting downpours are especially vibrant. The more fragile are slowly lifting their heads to determine whether there is any promise of sunshine, I think. Though I am not among the fragile, I do feel a bit timid when I look up these days. Looking through the gap between two trees the other morning, I saw more of the same was on its way. It seems minding the celestial gap is the only sure way to predict the weather these days.
Every year my nephew's bunch of Boy Scouts goes camping in the middle of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Once Connecticut's garden city, this run-down post-industrial blight magnet of a city has been doing its best over the past decade to reclaim some of its former claim to fame. It has also sought to attract sports fans by building a hockey arena and a minor league baseball park. Here's where the camping takes place. After the game, the boys and their families pitch tents in the outfield, watch a movie on the scoreboard, run around in the thick grass, hope like heck they don't need to make many trips to the used up and yucky restrooms way across the dark field, and generally have a very good time.
We joined in with my nephew and their dad two years ago, when we learned the outfield is not as smooth as it looks from our living room or even the stands. Our aging bodies knew every anomaly in the lawn. Still, we had a great time and were ready to do it again this year except that the rains came. And came. And came. In biblical proportions the rain came. Think Genesis. Think Exodus. Think Storm on the Sea of Galilee and you will have a picture of this ballpark.
Lightning flashed as we sat on our metal seats under the metal roof in the stadium flanked on one side by a power plant and on the other by a skyscraper and circled by Amtrak. We felt very, very vulnerable. There would be no camping; we knew it, but who would tell the kids who had informed us that:
1. People camp in the rain;
2. Peopled camped in the rain last year;
3. The rain won't get us because we have air mattresses;
4. It's not really raining that hard;
5. I don't care if it's raining hard....
The cousins wanted to be together. I watched them conspiring and whispering while they were standing at the rail and watching the ground crew rolling the tarp over the infield and listened to the rain bubbling and thumping around us as if were were in some kind of big deep fat fryer. They wanted their outing to go on and on. To us they came one at a time, each with one of the above five thoughts.
The cousins wanted to be together so bad they would sleep in this large fishbowl of a stadium just to make it happen. They did not come to us and suggest sleeping in the car or going back to one house or another or some other moderately more comfortable alternative. It was about being together; comfort had nothing to do with it. They'd lie in a deep puddle under thundering skies just to be together.
"Maybe some other time," was not an option. Della slept at her cousins' and came home the next day. We'll camp another time--maybe when we can light a fire for these three friends.
Every year my nephew's bunch of Boy Scouts goes camping in the middle of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Once Connecticut's garden city, this run-down post-industrial blight magnet of a city has been doing its best over the past decade to reclaim some of its former claim to fame. It has also sought to attract sports fans by building a hockey arena and a minor league baseball park. Here's where the camping takes place. After the game, the boys and their families pitch tents in the outfield, watch a movie on the scoreboard, run around in the thick grass, hope like heck they don't need to make many trips to the used up and yucky restrooms way across the dark field, and generally have a very good time.
We joined in with my nephew and their dad two years ago, when we learned the outfield is not as smooth as it looks from our living room or even the stands. Our aging bodies knew every anomaly in the lawn. Still, we had a great time and were ready to do it again this year except that the rains came. And came. And came. In biblical proportions the rain came. Think Genesis. Think Exodus. Think Storm on the Sea of Galilee and you will have a picture of this ballpark.
Lightning flashed as we sat on our metal seats under the metal roof in the stadium flanked on one side by a power plant and on the other by a skyscraper and circled by Amtrak. We felt very, very vulnerable. There would be no camping; we knew it, but who would tell the kids who had informed us that:
1. People camp in the rain;
2. Peopled camped in the rain last year;
3. The rain won't get us because we have air mattresses;
4. It's not really raining that hard;
5. I don't care if it's raining hard....
The cousins wanted to be together. I watched them conspiring and whispering while they were standing at the rail and watching the ground crew rolling the tarp over the infield and listened to the rain bubbling and thumping around us as if were were in some kind of big deep fat fryer. They wanted their outing to go on and on. To us they came one at a time, each with one of the above five thoughts.
The cousins wanted to be together so bad they would sleep in this large fishbowl of a stadium just to make it happen. They did not come to us and suggest sleeping in the car or going back to one house or another or some other moderately more comfortable alternative. It was about being together; comfort had nothing to do with it. They'd lie in a deep puddle under thundering skies just to be together.
"Maybe some other time," was not an option. Della slept at her cousins' and came home the next day. We'll camp another time--maybe when we can light a fire for these three friends.
More at Blog Your Blessings
15 Comments
It's a beautiful story of love and family. You really are blessed.
ReplyDeleteI like the 1-5 list! very nice post!
ReplyDeleteI need some of your rain. It's so hot over at my side and I'm praying for rain.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, you are very blessed. :)
I love a big family.
We've had a lot of rain earlier, but right now we're only occasionally having the outskirts of what is pouring over Germany, so it's pretty much ok.
ReplyDeleteKids.. I remember camping in the rain, it was great. I hardly remember the sticky itchy wetness of sleeping gear at all. Hardly at all.
Good friends, baseball, camping...what more could ask for other than a sunny day. But then again, the sun is where you make it shine, isn't it...in a tent or in a living room.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your weather there is similar to ours Sandy. I returned from sunny Spain to rainy and windy England - quite a culture shock! I think the main thing is whatever the weather, you are having fun and spending quality time with your loved ones. You can read about my travels by following the link show below:-
ReplyDeletehttp://diaryfromengland.blogspot.com/2008/06/naomis-back.html
The weather is quite crazy I think I now live in the Jungle.IT GET HOT THEN RAINS EVERY DAY. nOW THE mOSCITOES.
ReplyDeleteHow sweet and sad. Camping in the rain is only good if you have a really, really good tent. And even then a sleepover with movies and popcorn would be a lot more fun.
ReplyDeleteIt is wonderful how they love each other so much eh! Beautiful story Sandy, and thank you for sharing it :)
ReplyDeleteA wonderful story, as always... and a wonderful thing that they wished to be together that much. I always appreciate your "blessings"... even when they're here on a Friday, not a Sunday... :)
ReplyDeleteIf only you had asked for rain sooner, I could have sent it. lol I mean . . . we were blessed with rain for day after day and week after week and I thought we should share it. . . Ü Finally a few days of sunshine here.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rug rats situation. . . all good things come to those that wait. . . or something like that. Hopefully, they will get their camping in sometime soon. At Girl Scout camp, we had raised tents -- platforms off ground holding tents and never had to worry about the weather for camping. Now what we could d outdoors sometimes got limited.
Blogger finally let me get my photo loaded so mine is up now.
Now that is what is meant my memory making. Very sweet!
ReplyDeleteAnd the rains came down . . . I wish we had just a little of that down here in Texas. We are in drought conditions again.
ReplyDeleteOur kids have camped in the carport, the living room and under a tarp in the backyard when there plans were spoiled by rain.
I am the most prepared camper, but even a rain flap, a ground cloth and a professional grade tent and sleeping bag wind up sopping wet when the sky opens.
Have a great week.
How perfect! Not the weather but the emotions of the "cousins". :) I remember those times with my cousins. :) I always loved our excursions. We would sleep in the hammock in my great-aunt's yard and get ate up by bugs all night but we didn't care.
ReplyDeleteThat is just great that they wanted to be together. A real unfettered love and bond between them. I'm glad they got to be together, where ever they were.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being here.