EVENING RAIN

The wind is blowing, rain is pouring, lightning flashes followed by thunder, sometimes the long, rolling thunder sounding like an F15 that's probably over Kentucky by the time the sound fades out here. The rain in the trees sounds like tires on the highway. The trees dance like big mama hula girls shakin that thang to the rhythm of thunder and lightning. Aw baby, it's so frightening.

I suddenly felt compelled to go out to the porch and get some rain pictures. Also, I was wanting more pictures of what I see out this window, the landscape I view daily. Jr is quite a bit better today, up this morning, coherent, liberal with the word no. Jr is back. He was up long enough for me to change the sheets and vacuum in the bedroom and bathroom, which I can only do when he's not in bed resting or on the phone. All the time I was at it he was concerned I was working when I hadn't oughta be working. I told him I'm having fun. I've been at a project going over the most worn trails that have flattened the carpet over the years of no woman living here. I'm going over them, fluffing them up a bit at a time. It takes awhile, but when I keep after it, they start loosening up and looking a little bit like the carpet around it. There are not many chances in a day to get at the project, and when I get a good rhythm going, the phone rings.

By now, the wind has ceased altogether. Stillness in all the leaves. Not a leaf twisting the least little bit. Pale gray sky, thunder over the horizon, far away, rain falling lightly, cars sizzling by, slow, distant rumbling overhead. The sound outside is a steady sizzle of rain on leaves and the periodic sizzle of cars. Light rumbling. No threat of a power surge frying the computer's insides, I'm using a laptop powered by battery when it's unplugged.

On the road to and from town, I heard the news today (oh boy) about Obama putting 2.4 billion toward grants to create electric vehicles. Isn't that about what it costs to make a B1Bomber? B for Billions. Make one less and look what can be done with the money. I heard McCain say that for qualifications, credentials don't mean a thing. I'd have never thought of that on my own.

Some really good minds are going to be coming out of the shadows in the race to explore electric vehicular possibilities. We had it going once, but a certain "Revolution" squelched all that absolutely. Now that the 30 year setback is over, we can get back to moving ahead. Hard times can be a good thing. It makes us think creatively. Curious how the pendulum swings from the worst administration in our history, and the most threatening to our Constitution and Democracy, to a creative approach by a guy who went through Harvard Law School on scholarships all the way, whose focus was Constitutional law. I have a fair idea of what that says about a man's intelligence, and can't help but appreciate it and feel assured that our navigator can guide us better than a Yale grad who never had to go to class or take a test if he didn't feel like it.

The whole sky is full of crackling thunder running all over the place like electrical charges in the cranium, dancing all over the massive spread of gray cloud in no hurry. Rain on leaves and passing tires the only sound outside, mixed with the refrigerator motor running inside. One complements the other. Just now saw Dean Richardson sizzle by in his brown land-yacht Cadillac. Dean is one of the characters in the county. He went his own way all the way through his life. He loved to drive, still does, and worked as a Parkway Ranger chasing boys running liquor in really fast cars. Dean loved the chase. In his later years a runner he chased many a time and never caught lived only a few miles from him. They talk about some of their races like you had to be there. Each respected the other's driving, and that was what it was about. For them, it was a race. One having a ball legally, the other having a ball illegally. White knuckle flights. Dean listens to blues and Louisiana zydeco, is a news junkie and loves a good cartoon. His generation, also Jr's, is the transition generation from hillbilly times to modern times. Dean liked to drive fast cars and Jr liked to play fast bluegrass.

I just now spoke out loud, "I don't understand an awful lot." There's no two ways about that. Now I wonder why I spoke that in particular out loud and no one here to hear it, though I do have you to tell about it. It wasn't because it's a new insight. I've known that a long time. Perhaps what brought it through the vocal chords was realizing that I really don't understand anything, especially what I think I understand. I can connect the dots and make a picture, but there's no understanding in that. I think I'm gradually learning that it isn't necessary to understand anything, just go with the flow and don't question how it works, just allow the flow and do my part. Like Jr says, God puts things in front of him to go through and he does the best he can with each one as it comes along, like a mechanic with a new job coming in every day.

The rain has passed. A stillness is in the air. Not a stirring leaf. The only sound a car passing and the crickets in my head. A couple of crows up the hill behind the house had a bark fest, barking back and forth at each other. Your mama wears high-heeled Army boots. Your mama's so ugly she has to pull the sheet up over her face so sleep can creep up on her. Now, you aint talking about my mama like that. I'll talk about your mama any way I want. She's your mama too. That's what I know.