Rainy days and Mondays

Dan Verner
Published: June 22, 2008

OK, kids, I know that the Carpenters are so old school that they’re off the radar. Much of what I like seems to be old school. I had my Martin D-28 out around one of the young guitar players at church
recently. I had wanted a D-28 for about 45 years when I finally got one a couple of years ago. Boomer that I am, I am buying the things I have wanted but couldn’t afford until recently. (A Lionel train is
probably next.) Anyhow, this young fellow looks at the D-28 and says, “Wow-a Martin.  How old school!” I suppose Martins do qualify as old school since they’ve been making guitars since 1833.

Anyhow, the Carpenters did some great music in spite of wearing bell bottoms and those unfortunate hair styles of the early ‘70’s. Our daughters look at the pictures of us from then and ask, “Why did
you dress like that? It looks like the Brady Bunch come to life!” The only answer I can think of is everyone dressed like that, and we were incredibly groovy. Yeah.

So, I was thinking of the Carpenters song written by Paul Williams, “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Part of the chorus goes, “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” The singer goes on for several
verses about how everything is bad but what else can you expect on a rainy day or a Monday? We had a rainy Monday recently but, you know, it wasn’t bad at all.

Being old school, when I was younger, my moods seemed to be tied to the weather. When it was sunny, I was happy. When it rained, I was sad.  When it snowed, I was happy because we got out of
school (as a student and a teacher). As I grew older, though, I grew to appreciate most kinds of weather. I do not appreciate extremes of weather — heat, cold, tornadoes, floods, droughts, hurricanes,
monsoons, typhoons and so on. But a nice rainy day makes me happy.

There’s a secure and cozy feeling being warm and dry inside when it’s rainy and cold out. The rainy Monday in question I woke up fairly early for someone who has no real job and ate breakfast. Then I
went through my e-mail. For a marginally employed person, I have a lot of email — maybe 40 or 50 messages a day. And not all of it is spam. I know, that’s not much by employed people standards —
I’ve talked to people who receive over 200 messages a day. So I’m not complaining. I like email — it’s like getting a letter several times a day, like when the mail used to be delivered twice a day (old
school). But I do have to keep up with it or it will run away with me.  I know people who have shut down their e-mail accounts or who take e-mail vacations. Not me. I’m nosy and might miss something.

That done, I tried to make some sense of the piles of paper that clutter my office. I’m a proponent of the piling filing system, which I understand many people are. Between my ESOL class that I teach,
the Sunday School class, weekly devotionals that I write for my choir, this column and my (sort of) job scoring SAT essays for the College Board, I have plenty of paper and it needs to be organized
occasionally.

Then it was off to the library to snag some books. I keep 3”x 5”cards with the titles and authors of books I want to read. I have about 350 titles so I don’t think I’ll ever catch up. I don’t mind.

I met my wife for lunch about noon. We have about seven or eight places we like to eat at, rotating them among type of restaurant. There’s American, Chinese, Tex-Mex, Italian, and seafood. We ate at
the Chinese place that day. It has good, inexpensive food and faster than fast food service.

When I came back, I did a little writing and editing and then went out to schlep through the rain for some office supplies and groceries. I put those away and went over to visit my dad, who has recently
moved into a senior apartment. He likes the place — the people are friendly and the food is great. It’s good to see him settled and safe.

I came back and took a nap. We had leftovers for supper, but they were left over from a family birthday gathering, so they were very good. In the evening, I read and we watched an episode of House. I
tried to explain the motivations of the characters to my wife, but I can’t explain them to myself so they went unexplained.

Then, more reading and, as Samuel Pepys wrote, so to bed. It was a good day. But then, rainy days and Mondays always bring me up.

Dan Verner is a Manassas resident. He be contributes his thoughts and stories to the Perspective page on the second and last Sunday of every month.