One of my favorite things in this whole world is a rainy Sunday. After I get home from church, I get my clothes changed, eat lunch, and if it is raining, that is about the extent of my activity. Rainy Sundays easily become a day of rest.

I usually go onto the porch and watch it pour, but that doesn’t last long on a Sunday. I am soon asleep, or nodding, but this past Sunday with a steady downpour most of the afternoon, I was awake long enough to reflect on places and rains I have known.

The first place to come to mind was Alaska. It rains in southeast Alaska a lot, and for days on end. You don’t find many who complain. It is expected, people compensate for it and go about their lives. Besides, you don’t have to shovel rain, which is what you do with the always anticipated and dreaded winter precipitation. The old joke is that when you move from Alaska you drive south with a snowplow on the front of your truck until someone asks, “What’s that?” Then you know you have found a place where you won’t have to shovel.

The thing about rain in Alaska is there is lots of it, but seldom, seldom do you hear thunder, and I missed that a lot. When the great sound does come, you get to see your neighbors because they all run outside and look up to see the storm. You can’t see thunder, but we all look for it. We do see the lightning, which super heats the air causing thunder, but I never go out and look without expecting to see it. Reason tells me that something that big, making that much noise ought to be visible.

I thought of rain during the monsoons in Vietnam. Winston Groom described it in “Forrest Gump” when he said that it came from all angles; straight down, sideways, and sometimes seeming to come up from the ground. You are wet all the time, and cold.

Nothing compares to rain at sea. While sailing, we were never in a severe storm. We were good at predicting the weather, and avoided foulness by staying at anchor, or in port, but squalls are another story. They can come up out of nowhere, and are an exciting ride. The rain in a squall, unlike a monsoon, is brief, so to get the water out of its system, the storm dumps its rain all at once and from every direction, and you do in fact, breathe it. A squall will make you humble and you will swear if you get out of this one, you will never sail again, but when you come out of the storm, the sun is so bright and pure, the sea is calming and blue. You lie to yourself, and to the Admiral, saying, “That wasn’t so bad,” as you release yourself with shaking hands from where you are tethered with a lifeline, and add, “look how clean the boat is!” The Admiral’s reply is stone cold silence, and a piercing glare. She’ll come around ... later.

I have spent much time in deserts and love them. The contrast of rain, which is to say, there is none, is startling. When you are 30 days or longer without a drop, as we sometimes are, you begin to miss it, even to need it. When you go six months, or a year, without rain, you begin to wonder if it will come again. It will, and when it does, nature plays one of its greatest pranks. The rain all comes at once.

I was once camped in the desert in a low area. When the rain came in the night, it was comforting as it blew against the tent walls, but I woke in the morning to the roar of the dry wash area where we were camped near filling up, and I mean right now. One minute it was dry, the next minute it was full. We broke camp in record time, but not before the water was around my ankles. As we drove out of the low area, water was up to the bottom of the 4x4 Jeep. In the desert, it is all or nothing.

It often seems to be that way with rain, all or nothing. When the ground is so dry and you think that it could rain for days straight and the earth would drink it up, a deluge comes to prove you wrong. They are called flash floods for a reason.

I love sitting on my porch when it is raining so hard you can’t see the street, with lightning flashing and thunder booming. I equally love sitting listening to the gentle patter of drops on hard, dry ground. Both are a delight to me as long as I am protected. I’ve been known to go for a walk in the rain, even bathe in it, and there is nothing like rain falling to put me to sleep.

Mark Twain said, “The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust out doors I would drown him.” I do so hope God has not put him in charge of rain. I would have to stay on the porch.

David Wilson Atwood is a local writer whose human interest columns offer a unique perspective. He may be contacted, and his other works viewed at: www.starchasers.us.