Portland Clogs

It’s sometimes amazing, and surprising, and disappointing, and gratifying, how one’s attitudes change with time.  We have had rain here over the past 4 days.  The kind of rain that brings the ordinarily hyperactive squirrel industry to a crawl, the soggy little bastards keeping to their trees and nests.  The birds, too, seem to have taken the day off in spite of the streets and sidewalks being littered with displaced worms struggling for breath.  Across the street the river continues to rise, fast flowing, and the mighty Shiawassee River has become, indeed, the mighty Shiawassee.

Thirty some years ago I moved from sunny Southern California to a very small town in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  (And that’s a whole other story.)  One of the memories I have of that time, however, is that of the rain.  I hated the rain.  I was the high school kid without a car and, most days, walked about a mile to school.  When it would rain, as seemed so often the case, I would curse my existence and the sorry circumstances which had put me in that miserable little town.  Walking along the rudimentary sidewalk, pant bottoms wicking the water up my legs, shoes getting soaked and my feet squishing within: I hated the rain.  Every step was misery. The rain was the meteorological manifestation of everything that was wrong with my life at that time.

The first time I softened my miserable perspective on rain was just a few years later, early on in college. I had a girlfriend with a '73 Mustang and we drove to the beach in the rain.  And, right then and there, she convinced me of the beauty to be found taking a walk on a stormy ocean beach with the waves exploding and a steady mist enveloping all, soaking us through and through.  No sex, no drugs, no booze; just a happy afternoon getting soaked in an Oregon rain.  What a first.

That was the day, and maybe there were others, but slowly, surely, and unbelievably I have come to love a rainy day.  And so it is as I walk up to work, river rising, wrapped in my trench coat, umbrella in hand, clopping along in my Portland Clogs, I feel energized and look forward to the day ahead.  The shoes are a throwback to my days at the University of Oregon and they look like something borrowed from the prop box backstage at a KISS concert.  But they do make for happy feet and happy memories as I walk up the hill and only wish I had all the day to enjoy the rain.