On this rainy spring day, I’m thinking about long ago Etta and my Latty family. It would be dark on the farm at this hour, house lit only by kerosene lamps, no outdoor lights at all. Pappy would take a lantern as he walked through the rain, across the road to the barn to milk the cows and feed them and the horses and mules. That chore finished, he would hang his wet jacket on the porch before coming back inside the house.
This morning, it seems that I can almost hear their voices. It’s funny how the memory of a person’s voice never leaves. Those Etta voices were, for the most part, soft. Not much fussing went on. Some bantering, laughter and high spirits, but nobody’s voice raised in anger.
The lamp would be sitting on the table as the family ate breakfast and the girls washed dishes afterward. What would they be doing, a hundred years ago on the Latty farm at Etta? With rain shaking the leaves of the walnut tree outside the window, Susie would probably grab a book as soon as she had finished making her bed and drying the dishes. She’d settle down close to a lamp in the front room and lose herself in a world of make believe.
Outside, a few chickens would venture from their house, led by their trusted rooster. Then, as raindrops pelted them, they’d hurry back into the henhouse, ruffling their feathers to shed the rain and muttering their complaints.
Looking east from the high porch of the house, the road was a rocky, soggy ribbon winding its way between house and barn. East of the barn, the little spring branch ran down toward the river, and Pappy’s green pasture reached all the way up to the woods.
Rain is like that–sets me to remembering and wondering and taking a little trip backward in time. Rain is sort of a link, a bond between past and present. I can close my eyes and it’s almost like I’m there.
Manos Mysteries have lots of rain in them. Spring rain, summer, fall, winter rain. Also a few tornadoes and an earthquake or two (nothing to do with rain, of course). This could be because I like rain in all its different moods and it puts me in a mood for remembering and writing.
A fun fact about the author: likes to grow herbs.
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