Rain

The weather is strangely warm.  Right now, at 11:30 p.m., it's 58 degrees out, shirt sleeve weather.  And the rain, oh my, today, it was torrential, along with some thunder and wind.

I began singing to myself....."Rain, rain, go away....Come again some other day."

Then due to my cabin fever, I looked up the origins of that verse only to find its been used since at least the 17th century in various forms.

James Howell wrote it this way, in the 17th century in his book of proverbs..."Raine raine goe to Spain: faire weather come againe"

Bored then, I searched "Oregon rain songs" and came up with a tale, from some decades ago, that jarred my memory.  An Oregon woman had been imprisoned in Turkey.   Bill Coleman heard about it and, with his band, wrote a song, that quickly became a national hit and the song helped create publicity for her plight and she was freed in a prisoner exchange.  Otherwise, she had been sentenced to life in a Turkish prison, which is probably something like life in hell.

Later I read Turkish prisons are more like small cities, where inmates often live in community with one another, and women prisoners can even have their children with them, much like at some Mexican prisons.  Families on the outside must provide for the prisoners should they want anything more than bare basics for survival.  All proceeds from the hit song went to the Oregon woman, helping her even complete her degree while still in prison.  Bill Coleman's website describes how his band made sure nobody made one cent off that song except her.

 I recall the incident now and remember about the song, but I did not recall the  song itself.  So I found it on youtube and here it is.

Tomorrow might be a little less, um, torrential, I hear.

The cat yard is flooded and the cats are demanding I entertain them and stop the rain.

Who will stop the rain?  Dan Fogarty didn't.  Bill Coleman's band did, for at least one Oregon girl far from home.