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Arcadia Weekly Nov 07, 2014
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Dorothy Denne
Rain: Water falling in drops condensed from vapor in the atmosphere; also, the descent of such drops.
That’s according to my old (1949) Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary that I have saved since my high school days.
Rain: Water that is condensed from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in drops. That’s according to a much newer 21st century Webster’s Universal College Dictionary.
The formal definition of rain, like a lot of other things, hasn’t changed much over the years. Just a little tweaking and changing in the order of the words.
Rain, by any definition, is something we haven’t seen, or heard, much of in the past few months and years in southern California. So as I laid in my bed last Friday night and listened to those drops of condensed vapor landing on my aluminum awning, I just luxuriated in it. Kind of had the same effect as dozing in a rocking chair with a cat in your lap.
Wanna hear my definition of rain? When I was teaching the very young kids back in Michigan in the ’50s, we used to have some pretty severe storms. They could be scarey. So my definition or explanation of the storm was: “The angels are cleaning house.” When it thundered: “The angels are moving their furniture.” When lightning flashed: “Ooops, one of them bumped the light switch!”
Maybe Mr. Webster, old or new, wouldn’t agree, but it worked for me every time. The kids would giggle and someone would say, “Ahh Miss B., you’re joshin’ us.”
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