Thunderstruck

A rare and exciting thing happened this morning: it rained, or tried to.  Many Dutch and German tourists come to Samos to hike the mountain trails for exercise, or to bathe naked on clothing optional beaches to replenish the Vitamin D to their sun starved bodies.  I’ve come here all the way from sunny Florida, to mourn those brief afternoon thundershowers which fall there every summer.  On Samos a lone cloud in the summer sky is a remarkable occurrence, but this morning we woke up to a totally overcast sky.  I set out on my morning walk determined to take full advantage of the rare shade that the cloud cover offered. 



This cloud appeared the day before the
story.  It was such a  rare occurrence that
 Kathy actually took this picture of it.

I saw a woman pinning damp laundry to a clothesline, and a man mixing cement from paper bags of dry mortar in an uncovered street.  I stopped to pick a few figs from a curbside bush and walked on.  A breeze began to stir and the air was charged with those negative ions which produce that feeling of euphoria you experience just before a cloudburst.  Then I heard it, faintly at first, like the distant sound of a mechanical cement mixer.  What are those people thinking?  Don’t they understand that in a matter of seconds the bottom is going to fall out of the sky and these streets could be ankle deep in water?

I stopped to be sure my footsteps were not creating the sound, and there it was again, no doubt about it, a low rumbling peel of thunder off in the distance.  Then I felt what I thought could be a rain drop. I looked down and saw small droplets of water splattering on the flat dry paving stones at my feet.  I immediately changed directions and started for home.  About half a block from the house I almost broke into a sprint as the sound of thunder and the spattering of droplets increased.  I reached the door and fumbled with my keys.  As I stepped across the threshold and into the house, Kathy asked incredulously, “Was that thunder I just heard?”

“Yes, a minute ago I didn’t believe it either, but it’s already starting to rain. I just beat a downpour here by seconds.  This is amazing!”

I grabbed a half-full cup of cold coffee from the kitchen counter and sat down to the keyboard to document this wildly unprecedented deluge that was about to occur.

photos by Newell and Skaggs

That was about thirty minutes ago and the streets are still dry.  The sun is out, the clothes on the line are almost dry, and the mortar piled up in the open street has probably received more moisture from the workman’s brow, than it did from the sky.

What happened?