CATCH A RAINDROP if you can

It'll soon be spring. Hard to believe winter is almost over. It's been a mild winter where I live and we feared we'd get no rain at all. The state is under drought warnings and I have to wonder how much water we have in our well after the rains of a few weeks ago. I won't take it for granted.

Spring, when the weather begins to warm, the blossoms come out, and you can dance between the raindrops without fear of them turning into snow. Okay, so the weather here has been warm a lot this winter, the peach and nectarine trees have been in blossom for weeks, and we get snow once every maybe 20 years and we all go nuts running around with our cameras.

Click image to see it larger.

These little boys are clearly enjoying walking in the rain somewhere in Japan. I know little to nothing about this photo, and what I do know is speculative.

A few years ago I went to an estate sale. It was a large house, Victorian style. It was quite beautiful out front, the interior not so much because it had been modernized and nothing flowed right. I bought a stack of photos, many of a young blond boy and his sister. I also bought wedding pictures of his parents. When I got them home I became fascinated with this family. Somewhere there had been wealth, I believe on the mother's side. I poured over the photos trying to gather evidence as to who this family had been and how all of these family photos had ended up being sold jumbled in a stack to complete strangers. There amongst all of it I found an old newspaper clipping of the mother and daughter. From that I had a name and my search went to the net. 

Bits and pieces began to fall into place. The young man had grown up in what appeared to be a very loving well-to-do family, been in the military during the 60s, had traveled to Japan where I believe he took this photo along with several others. He was a good photographer. It turned out he was good at a lot of things. He owned a winery, a restaurant, and had been a pilot. I had photos of the winery being built, a building I'd often passed and admired.

It was a bit intoxicating having the lives of these people open up before me like a mystery. I stared into their faces wondering what had happened to them. And then I found the information online which ended my search and brought an abrupt end to my sleuthing. I'd just grown attached to these people when I discovered that the young man had died tragically in a plane crash in 1988. The man who took this wonderful joyous photo died tragically.

Though I know his name, because I have no concrete evidence that the story I put together that day is reality, I won't put his credit with the photo. I'd love to do it, but there's the chance that I'm wrong. The whole story was as transitory as a spring rain shower.