Cleaning Culverts

I love rain. When I was a boy, you could hear the rain on the roof. I suppose that was because there was not a lot of insulation up there. While I was sleeping, snug in my bed, my father would be out checking the gullies and culverts under the driveways on the place. He knew that if it hadn’t rained for a while, culverts would plug up with leaves and twigs and would wash out driveways.

I remember thinking how cold it must be, out there. We lived in Southern California and probably most of the rains were in the 40s and 50s but what did a kid know? I was always glad he didn’t roust me out to clean culverts. Father was too smart to be very wet. He had rain slickers, hats and boots. But I imagined that it was cold work.

This morning Ruth peered out the window at the rain gauge and reported that we had three inches of rain during the night. I had known it was raining pretty hard during the night, and as I lay in my cozy bed, I thought several times that I needed to go down and look at my culvert. Lots of leaves and pine needles have fallen in the past few weeks.

As I put on my coat and raincoat, I thought of Father. I didn’t have a good rain hat and ended up wearing a stupid baseball cap. We all know baseball caps are useless except for keeping the sun out of your eyes… and today there was no sun. Outside, I located my big pitchfork, and off I went. Lizzy, our granddaughter, was visiting and went with me, apparently braver than I was at her age.

About a half-hour later we came in and even though my lower legs were damp, I found I was warm and content. Cleaning culverts in the rain is good work.