Hey! What's that sound?

Sometimes things have been they way they are for so long, we forget that it was not always this way.

I was listlessly flipping through the channels on the TV; CNN, the local news, baseball.

Sue was doing something on the computer in the breakfast nook.

September 1 was a night like all the the other nights that have gone before.

She calls out to me, "Hey. Do you hear that sound?"

I say, "No.  What sound?"

She tells me, "I hear a strange sound, like the leaves or something..."  Then she asks me to go investigate with her.

We trepidaciously open the back patio door, and there it was!

Right as rain - as they say.  The magnolia leaves were being pelted with large rain drops.  It's been awhile.  A mere eighth of an inch smattered across the whole long span of dog days of August this year.

I was reminded of a story told to me by a colleague who grew up in West Texas; one day their two-year-old dog began barking and howling something frightening and fierce while cowering inside their garage.  They rushed outside to see what kind of trouble was upsetting the hound so much.  Turned out it was a rain storm - something strange this dog had never experienced.

I guess we kind of know how that dog felt.  

Or maybe after watching CNN, Bashar al-Assad and the "Red Lines" being drawn, maybe I know how Buffalo Springfield felt.

Hey! What's that sound?