American Pie: Waiting For The Raven
Connecticut has taken a bath this summer, John Merchant reports. “Some days it torrents, others it drizzles, and then there are just the regular rainy days.’’
The frequent and prolonged downpours make living on a boat, as John does at this time of year, a daily challenge. “Any cool surface on board is a magnet for droplets of condensation, including, in my case, my glasses. Canvas awnings and covers are a nesting place for fine green algae, and it’s only a matter of time before tree moss hangs from the rigging.’’
To read more of John’s columns laced with his deliciously dry humour please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=john+merchant
Every few years the Connecticut summer takes a bath. It has become very plain that this is one of those years. With the exception of a day or two here and there, the rain has been almost incessant – night and day. It sounds monotonous, but it isn’t; even rain has variations. Some days it torrents, others it drizzles, and then there are just the regular rainy days. To add yet more variation, occasionally the rain is accompanied by gale-force winds.
By the end of June, the cumulative rainfall had reached 24 inches, the largest proportion of which had fallen in April, May and June. There’s some speculation in blogs that Connecticut, this year, rivals the state of Washington as the wettest place in the USA.
If you’re fortunate enough to live in a house under these circumstances, this kind of weather is simply depressing and inconvenient. OK, so your vegetable garden is a total failure, and the backyard barbecues you had planned had to be held in the garage, but at least you have somewhere to dry your clothes, and you can turn on the central heating to take the chill off the air and kill off the mold.
Living on a boat, on the other hand, as I do in the summer months, it’s a daily challenge. A walk along the docks to the marina locker room guarantees you a soaking, and the return trip destroys any glow you might have acquired in the hot shower. Once you’re back on the boat, finding somewhere to dry your clothes is mentally and physically testing.
Any cool surface on board is a magnet for droplets of condensation, including, in my case, my glasses. Canvas awnings and covers are a nesting place for fine green algae, and it’s only a matter of time before tree moss hangs from the rigging. Opportunities to go sailing are minimal, and the brave, or more likely crazy, souls who do venture out, return pale faced, with that glazed, faraway look in their eyes that only a bad trip can engender.
Conversations about the weather, which are a staple on the docks at any time, have been reduced to monosyllabic exchanges, accompanied by an upward rolling of the eyes. “It’s another one.” “Yep.” “Is it ever going to stop?” “Not likely.” Even the jokes have subsided, e.g. “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” etc. haven’t been heard in a while.
There are two other live-aboard couples in the marina, both of whom have homes in Florida, as do my wife and I, but unlike the two of us, they also have relatives nearby they can go to when cabin fever strikes. This season I imagine the relatives are getting to know their sailing cousins just a little more intimately than they would like.
The rain falls against a visual and audible backdrop – lowering grey clouds, the hiss and patter, drip and plop of the precipitation, and the slatting of halyards in the wind – there are few more mournful sounds. For a treat we go to the local shopping mall and walk around in the air conditioning to dry out the clothes we’re wearing. The town library has become a frequent haunt, and we’ve almost worked our way through their inventory of DVD’s.
On a rare day when the skies clear and the sun shines, everyone comes out to play and gets a little giddy. The marina pool does good business, leaving me to wonder why anyone would voluntarily get wet after being involuntarily soaked for weeks. The golfers are eager to tromp through the now knee-high rough in search of balls, and to persuade a putt to roll for more than a few inches on the squishy greens.
Reservoirs are full to capacity for the first time in a few years and the town is considering offering incentives for people to wash their cars more regularly, and to water their lawns, even in the rain. Just kidding. Like most coastal towns in this part of New England, the railroad follows the shoreline. When the tracks were laid, to save money, any roads that ran perpendicularly to the line were dug under the tracks, creating a hollow sometimes four or five feet deep that, in a summer like this, regularly fill with water.
After several years of having to rescue motorists from these sumps, the local authorities now pay close attention to forecasts of “flash flooding,” and close the roads. This of course makes a lot of sense, but adds considerably to the aggravation everyone is feeling this year.
With a full moon scheduled for today, August 5, the hope that springs eternal is that nature will finally relent. But I have my doubts. Several times recently I have observed animals and birds in two’s, and the local lumber yard sold out last week, so we may get to go to Mount Ararat whether we want to or not. For my money it’s a little too close to Iraq and Iran for comfort.
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