“Rain, Rain. Go
Away.”
03-11-2005
A collaborative effort begun by Chuck Ross.
Part 1: By Charles (Chuck)
We were midway through Virginia’s spring rainy season of 1972 and everyone I
knew was just sick of it to include my neighbour and friend Ron when one
Thursday night, it occurred to us that we ought to take matters on own hands
and see if we could stop all this rain.
Both of us being avid readers and experimenters in the vein of Para-normal
Psychology mixed with a minor in recreational mind-altering substances usage,
we came to the hypotheses that if we were to drive up to the crest of
Virginia’s Skyline Drive where the clouds gathered to determine the weather for
the plains the next day, we could possibly agitate or somehow break-up the
formation and provide a nice clear weekend. We just felt then and not sure we do not still believe or feel
that
the combination of aura enhancement and energy placed just so or properly can
change the world. So we filled Ron’s old
Volkswagen bus with wine, oranges, marijuana, our guitars and ourselves (already
filled with LSD) and headed for the mountaintop.
2 hours later, we pulled into a small roadside overlook at the very top
of the Skyline
Drive and sat buoyed by our chemical fortitude as a driving rain beat the roof
of that old bus like a drunken calypso band. After a while we sensed a
break in the deluge and realizing it made no sense to be wearing clothes, we
stripped naked and slung our guitars over our shoulders and ventured out to the
edge the overlook. Then, as if it was
as normal as a thing to do as anything you can think of, we began strumming and
singing to whatever weather gods would listen.
Strumming and singing and singing and strumming, we played on and on in
the drizzle but only got the results of the rain picking back up again and
turning into a downpour and so we sought the warmth of our clothes and the
dryness of inside the bus. What a
disappointment. It should have
worked. The magic of being there, on
top, naked, singing in the middle of the night. How could it have failed, we thought? And then! And then, we
heard it. Some sort of music, faint but
nearby. At first we were not sure we
were really hearing music but rather some trick of the mind as the rain beat
down so hard. But then, again, music
and we knew for sure.
So, armed with the only flashlight we had, we ventured out into the
rain once more and flashing the light around, located a van parked on the far
side of the overlook. Strange. It had not been there when we pulled in and
we had not heard it arrive while we were there. Only one thing to do and so we ran through the driving
rain to the van and without not even thinking about it, knocked on the van’s
side door.
Then apparently, with the occupants thinking no more about it than we
had about knocking on the door in the middle of the night, they opened the door
and stepping inside, we found 3 woman and 1 man laying on various rugs and
blankets and the whole insides had a pretty strange feel to it as it smelled
like wood, sex and perhaps like someone had just gutted or cleaned a rabbit or squirrel.
Hawkeye, a fit, compact, wiry sort of Charles Manson fellow, said that he and
the women were travelling together and could not be happier. Strange but Hawkeye and the 3 woman seemed
to have no more fear of us than we of them in our meeting on this mountain top
in the middle of the night and we talked for a while and we offered up some
oranges and they some wine. Finally,
Ron asked if Hawkeye could do something about the weather to which Hawkeye
replied, “And what would you like?" “No more rain, of course!” was Ron’s reply and then Hawkeye
looked at both of us and in a calm, steady and assured voice said “It will be
as you ask.”
After Hawkeye’s assurances of no more rain, we stayed for a while
longer but then I began to become uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the number of knives hung all around the inside of
the van I had not noticed at first or all the small animal skins which really
were what Hawkeye and the women were laying on and not rugs or blankets. So, we said our
goodbyes and thinking the best of it, when we returned to the bus, Ron started
it up and we headed on back home, feeling we had done what we could do and if
what we had done, singing and dancing in the rain, had not worked, perhaps
Hawkeye would come through.
And you do know what happened, don’t you? Despite the forecast for rain all weekend, the day we returned from the summit, the peak, the pinnacle, the mountain, the clouds broke open and the sun appeared and shone on for days and days.
Was it our energies thrown over that mountain top edge or was it Hawkeye?
And do not even try to tell Ron or me that it was not one or the other or perhaps both.
Oh, by the way, if you have never taken a shower in the rain, you
really must. It is the most refreshing
shower you will ever have.
Part 2: By Ron
When we left that van in the middle of the night, it was clear to me
that Hawkeye was offering or had offered or was getting ready to offer, the 3 women to Chuck and I and I was
surprised when Chuck suddenly said that it was getting late and we should be
going. Perhaps it was the LSD or
perhaps it was all that had transpired up to this point, but I liked it inside
that van and was not ready to leave.
Anyway, once we returned to the VW bus, Chuck turned to me and said, that
guy, Hawkeye, was evil or the Devil and he did not know which but he had to get
out of there and I remember thinking, I had no such sense of evil and could
Chuck be right?
I have wondered about it many times since that night. Could I really have met the Devil and not
even sensed his evil, not recognized him?
Makes me wonder about myself but I do believe that if Chuck felt it,
sensed it, knew it, then it was so.
Perhaps I was overcome with lust and could not see or perhaps I am just
too naïve a person to see evil even when it is right there, right in front of
me.
Anyway, what Chuck has written is true and is only another small story of many, each of us has to tell and share.