HARD RAIN FALLING, GUTTERS OVERFLOWING, NOW WHAT?

I’ve got a hard rain falling in drops you can see.

Not the usual drizzle, not a sheet of water, but individual drops spaced and timed to perfection.

It’s cold out, the kind of day that makes you think of other places you’ve heard about, seen on advertisements, the kind of cold and wet people make the big money working in.

They know how to stay warm and dry and show up.

Around here we like to call them ‘Our kind of people.’

But there’s a problem:

We also like to be ‘Our kind of people,’ the kind who know how to stay warm and dry and show up.

Show up in hard rain? Nooooooo, er, yes.

Show up in the cold? Noooooo, damn, yes.

The rain falls so hard it’s mobilizing the crap on my roof, floating tree-debris downhill toward the gutters and blocking them with leaf and branch dams until they overflow, creating a concentrated waterfall two stories high, and hitting close enough to the foundation to start a sink hole the entire house might fall into.

But not today.

 

What To Do?

No one wants a sink hole anywhere near their house.

At the bottom of the road a sink hole took half the road and took half a year to fix.

I had a retaining wall collapse, but I’m sure it’s not related.

Along with a sink hole, no one wants the house on an eroding cliff, the house on the king-tide-sneaker-wave ocean beach, or the house below South Fork Dam.

I’m thinking about those houses while the hard rain falls, the splattering sound of water overflowing a high gutter hung on the side of a huge roof growing louder,

A call to action seems imminent.

I could bring in a crane like the people do for their show-stopper Christmas lights. But that doesn’t seem like the right spirit in either case.

I could call for an emergency gutter cleaning in the hard rain, but that seems cruel. Too them.

Grab a tall ladder and climb up there with a trowel? Noooo.

After I couldn’t take it anymore, after the splattering sink hole inspiring water started sounding like it was in the house, I did what needed done.

A three section extension pole with a scrub brush screwed into the tip, and a parka treated with water repellent wax spray from REI, and the waterfall are all calling my name.

And lying.

The brush is set at the wrong angle for a good gutter scrub, nothing is water repellent enough, and Multnomah Falls is teasing me.

 

Water: Do it now, in the hard rain, you’ll know you’ve stopped it. If you wait until no water falling, it’s a guess, and you’ll be wrong.

Me: What’ll I do? What would you do?

 

Action, Reaction, Reflection: What Would Bob Dylan Do?

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?

I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest

 

Here in Oregon you can do both.

Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters

I’ve got a rain problem, read some Dylan, and wonder about . . . pollution?

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden

 

From the sounds of it, Dylan has been to Sheridan.

Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number

 

This reminds me of the Iron Curtain documentary I watched where millions of regular Russian citizens suffered due to Stalin’s whims.

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it

 

When I hear the word ‘transparency’ I automatically grow suspicious with, ‘why do you think I need reminding?’

Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’

 

American Baby Boomer First

I’m of the baby boomer generation, a longtime baby boomer blogger with more than enough to say.

Will I ever stand on the ocean? Noooo.

Will I know my song well before I start singin?’ I always aspire to.

Either way, I’ll wing it.

I don’t often use this platform to piss and moan about any and everything, but when something gets under my skin, I flay it open and take it out.

I’ve got the scars for proof.

However, in my history heart of hearts, and good first aid, I carry the hope of better days for us all.

This isn’t one of them:

 

January 6: A Date Which Will Live In Infamy – The White House.

 

Mr. Trump’s new White House page includes:

 

Issued sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans prosecuted for their presence at the Capitol—many mere trespassers or peaceful protesters treated as insurrectionists.

The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as “insurrectionists” and framing the event as a violent coup attempt.

Ordered immediate release of those still imprisoned, ending years of harsh solitary confinement, denied due process, and family separation for exercising their First Amendment rights.

 

Rewriting history, doing revisionist history, or just spit-balling with the fellas, is one thing.

This shit is on the official White House website seen wherever the internet allows.

Like a patient with a serious ailment, get a second opinion if you have questions of veracity.

 

PS: Should you have questions of veracity?

 

PSS: If things prove to be false, are you affected in any way?