211029 Sentinel, Rain

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Stir Crazy

I haven’t been outside for 2 and a half days now. The rain has never stopped. Instead of my usual 2-3 walks outdoors every day and or trips to the grocery store, I am trapped in a box. I could go outside in the rain, but I fear the rain could melt an old salt like me. I have never liked rain, never had any good come from rain for me.

One time Cal and I were deployed to Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines for 30 or so days during the monsoon season. It never stopped raining. We were housed in an old barracks with no air conditioning, just old style Jalousie windows. The bunks felt like they were damp and were miserable to sleep in. The enlisted men’s club had holes in the roof so severe they had huge wash tubs collecting the water leaks. The only respite was when we boarded our aircraft for our overnight radar watch over the 7th fleet off the coast of Vietnam. The air conditioning gave us a few hours of comfort.

After leaving the navy I bought a place in Camdenton, Missouri that had a terrible roof leak. One night the rain poured after I had removed a large section of the roof for repair. The living room had a fog in it by the next morning. I had to sleep under a shower curtain that night, Joyce sat in the kitchen and cried all night.

The farm we bought later on had leaks that plagued me for decades before I finally figured it out. The roof had been replaced three times to no avail. I dreaded every time the rain fell. I finally did figure out the problem and my son in law repaired the problem. It wasn’t the roof at all. The house exterior was made of stucco and after its many years of weather and age there were small, almost hairline cracks running through the upper parts of the house exterior and with the rain came winds that blew the rain into those cracks and eventually the water came into the kitchen area and at times other areas. That drove me crazy and fed my dislike for rain.

There are places I thought I would like to live, like Seattle or British Columbia or coastal regions of Washington state, but those areas all get lots of rain. I suppose that is why they are so green and beautiful. I had on my request for duty stations for my last year and a half in the navy that I would like to be sent to Whidbey Island Washington state. I wonder if that would have been unbearable for me with the amount of rain they must get? I really wasn’t thinking when I did that. I suppose it was well that the navy sent me back to the San Diego area instead of Whidbey Island. Note here, that request was before I had the issues with rainfall in my life.