Dick's Hideaway

Dick MacKenzie - www.dickshideaway.com

I stood in a puddle

On my way across the parking lot getting to the hardware store I thoughtlessly minced my way around a puddle between my truck and the front door.
Two steps later I was in Grade 3 again, on my way to school in a rainstorm, wearing my brand new Hopalong Cassidy raincoat and a pair of rubber boots. I didn’t miss a puddle anywhere between home on Pine Street and Summer Street School. Not one! And I was a happy, happy little cowboy.
“Who walks around a puddle at this time of year?” I asked myself as I turned around in the parking lot this afternoon, strolled back to the puddle with great glee, and proceeded to wade through the deepest, widest spot.
It was a March afternoon. It was heaven!
I forded that puddle twice more - just because it was there and I had rubber boots and I felt as joy-filled as a little kid with a new discovery.
And then, as I was getting into my truck to leave, I suddenly turned around and went back again with my camera. As I wallowed in the water taking pictures of my feet, singing to myself Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore, trembling with the excitement of spring on the way, in the middle of a parking lot, I looked up and discovered people looking at me, staring with some sense of puzzlement.
I could only smile and shrug. “Who walks AROUND a puddle at this time of year?” I pondered aloud as I turned toward my truck to drive home.