When I was a kid, I’d gripe incessantly about the weather.

It rained seemingly forever in my hometown of Portland, Ore. I’d whine to my parents. “I hate the raaiiin,” I’d say in the whiniest voice I could muster.

Dad’s response was usually the same: “Go talk to God.”

Gee, thanks Dad.

Over the years, I moved away from home. I went into the Army, traveling to Virginia, to Vietnam, then back to the Pacific Northwest to finish my two-year hitch. ‘Nam produced some interesting weather: buckets of rain, followed by stifling heat, then more buckets.

Years after that, my career took me to the Texas Gulf Coast. It rained a lot there, in heavy quantities all at once. Then the clouds would break, the sun would come out. The humidity was, shall we say, stifling.

Then we came to the Texas Panhandle.

Unlike the Gulf Coast, where the weather routinely changes day to day, the weather patterns here have fallen into the same kind of sameness that the rain did when I was a kid.

Then it occurred to me some years ago: It wasn’t the rain that bothered me in Portland, it was the monotony of it. A similar monotony has settled over the Panhandle in recent years. All that damn sunshine is making me whine, “I wish it would raaiiin.”

Fortunately, my wife hasn’t told me to talk to the Almighty, at least not yet.

Well, today the weather turned. It’s pouring rain as I write this. The TV weather folks say it’ll be raining for the next few days.

Bring it! Our farmers and ranchers need it. My neighbors and I need for our lawns and gardens. A brief downpour, followed by sunshine, followed by more rain … that would be heaven for us.