Guessing: Will It Rain?

When I was a kid, my mom supplied the rain gear we three boys had: rubber raincoat (with hood), rubber pull-over boots with little metal clasps--boots we pulled over the shoes we were wearing. When I wore that outfit to Adams Elementary School, I felt a little ... childish (what an odd thing for a child to feel!) ... but I still remember the little cloakroom in each classroom, a cloakroom with hooks (we each had one), and there we would hang our raincoats (or, at other times, other outer wear) and line up our boots. The teacher would check to make sure everything looked neat and orderly.

They sort of looked like this--
but not nearly so ... fancy.

I never saw a kid with an umbrella (my dad called it a "bumbershoot"). In fact, I didn't see many men with them (though my grandfather used one--but he was, you know, old). It was kind of women's protection--or so I thought in my dunderheaded years.

As I got older and became a sophisticated adolescent, I never wore rain gear. If it started raining when I was outside, I simply ran for cover. (These dizzy days, I could run about two steps before I hit the pavement, face first!) And this continued for years--decades, really. Sometimes I got awfully wet, always blaming the heavens, not myself, of course.

But eventually I bought raincoats--wore a baseball hat or something.

No umbrella.

And then I did, started buying umbrellas. I crossed the rain-gear Rubicon.

And the older I got, the more often I carried one (in fact, I carry a collapsible one in my backpack at all times). In most recent years, I check my weather app, see what the percentage of possibility is: If it's 20% or higher, I carry one with me.

We also keep one in each car. And our umbrella stand inside the back door is jammed with them. (See pic at the bottom of this post.)

Adolescents in town, I've noticed, still eschew rain gear (as they do winter coats). Near the coffee shop where I go every day, I used to sit (in pre-COVID days) and watch high school kids from Western Reserve Academy walking down the street, many of the boys not wearing coats in winter, never carrying an umbrella in the rain.

The girls are different--though not always. A few years ago several girls from WRA were in the coffee shop when a cloud broke open, and we could hear Noah hammering in the back parking lot. The girls had no umbrella--they were worried about being late to class. I--gallant soul--offered them the one I'd carried in (I would use the one in my backpack to get home). They graciously accepted it.

And I never saw it again.

No worry. I had its twin at home.

This morning, before I walked over to the shop, I checked my weather app: 20%. So I pulled an umbrella from the stand--well, pulled my umbrella from the stand (Joyce and I have different, uh, standards concerning what decoration is on the device).

As I walked over, I passed some younger men, some of whom looked at me, looked at my umbrella, allowed their eyes to form a look that very clearly said, Why does that Old Guy have an umbrella? Then they paused a moment. Never mind--it's an Old Guy--that's why.

It didn't rain this morning during my walk. But I figured this (which, actually, is what I always figure in such situations): If I hadn't carried the umbrella, it definitely would have rained.