Rainout

All week long, I've been working extra so that I could get off a little early for my son's coach-pitch baseball game tonight. So, of course, it rains it out after a 6-6 first inning. We get to do it all again tomorrow.

The umpire and coaches looked pretty weary after standing in the rain (except for me -- I coached the dugout, and since the dugout is an inanimate object, that leaves little to do except stay dry). The parents were mostly drenched, for even the ones with umbrellas were soaking up water from the bleachers with their backsides. About the only people who had no problem with this rain event were the kids themselves.

The boys wanted to go slide around in the mud. They were even willing to play in the pouring rain. Their younger siblings ran through puddles. The general consensus of the 8-and-under crowd was pretty much "okie dokie." Apparently kids handle Mother Nature the same way they do baseball -- which is to say just fine without adult interference (and there's a big difference between adult support and adult interference as you can read about in my last column.)

The kids take a natural event over which they have no control and accept it for what it is. We grown folks check radars, grumble about being wet and reschedule this and that. Maybe we should take a cue from the kids. Instead of life handing us lemons and our making lemonade, life hands us water and we add the lemons. Maybe we adults take little things like traffic, coffee and rain way too seriously. Maybe we adults need to go sliding belly-first in a rain-soaked infield. Then maybe we'll understand the kids' point of view.

And when we get through, maybe the kids can wash that red mud out of our clothes.