Playing in the Rain

September 26, 2019

Do kids play outside in the rain anymore? I bet they don’t. We did as kids. Not if there was a thunderstorm of course, but if it was just your garden variety, softly falling rain, we were often allowed to play outside.

I remember Johnny and I playing in the rain in the front of our apartment when we lived on Mann Avenue in Sandy Hill, when I was in grade two and he was in grade three at Saint Joseph School. It was the year before we moved to 10 Isabelle Street.

There was a kid in my class who we played with a lot. His name was Joseph Flannagan. I remember Joseph came calling on us quite often to go out to play. He was a really good friend and Johnny and I used to walk to school with him almost every day and back home again in the evening. Often, on a Saturday, Johnny and I played outside with Joseph and If it was raining it didn’t stop us. We weren’t pampered the way many kids are today. We had raincoats and rain boots which we put on over appropriate clothing and we were just fine.

One occasion I remember very clearly. I think it was in the fall because there were a lot of leaves on the ground. I remember jumping through puddles and looking for worms with Johnny and Joseph. I think Johnny and Joseph picked up worms but not me: yuk! Some of the other neighborhood kids joined in the fun. I don’t remember if we got very muddy but we probably did. I do remember watching the leaves flowing down the side of the street and we kids running after them as they flowed away.

When Johnny and I were alone, we usually played in the large backyard that belonged to the apartment building, but when there were other kids with us, we were allowed to play in the front. They were nice kids.

We only lived at Mann Avenue for a year and then we moved to the house that daddy built at 10 Isabelle Street in Hull. I missed Joseph when we moved. I think he was my best friend at that time (well after Johnny of course)

Isabelle Street was wonderful because we had our own private backyard where we could play: something the apartment didn’t have.

In the summer when it was hot, mommy occasionally would let us kids play in the backyard in the rain wearing just our bathing suits. I loved the squishy feeling of the mushy grass between my toes as we ran around the yard.

Sometimes it was just Johnny and me, and other times we were joined by Jimmy and Patty. I remember the giggling as we all played together. There was no fighting whatsoever when the four of us played “ring around the rosy" and other games in the rain.” It was noisy though. I don’t know what the neighbors thought of it all. These days you’d probably have someone calling the cops on you. I wonder if Jimmy and Patty remember playing in the rain with Johnny and me?

Mommy would give us plastic pails to enhance our fun and we all tried to catch as much rain as we could and then pour it over our heads.

There was a sandbox in our back yard which daddy made and it was really fun squishing your toes in the sand and then running around afterward to clean your feet off in the mushy grass or by pouring the rainwater from your pail over your legs and feet. Mommy wasn’t too fussy about the sandbox game though, because she didn’t want us to get sand in our hair. “no playing in the sandbox” mommy would say to us and then hose us off. We kids usually had a bath once a week on Saturday evening and we would wash our hair at that time too, so getting sand in your hair was not a good thing to happen. Actually, it was funny to see the hose going and the rain falling at the same time.

Yeah playing in the rain on warm days in our bathing suits was fun but playing in the rain wearing raincoats and galoshes on cooler days was fun too.

I sometimes do my gardening in the rain. It’s the best time for planting. To this day I still like walking in the rain.