El Nino

There's a lot of talk going on about El Nino right now (the Southern Oscillation) and how it's looking to shape up a lot like the winter of 1997-98. It makes me miss my dad.

That year in San Diego, it rained so hard everything was flooded. I don't mean like Mississippi floods. I mean city streets that can't handle the drainage demands sort of flooding. I put on my dad's black mud boots that came up to my knees and jumped around in the puddles. I was 17. I don't think I'd ever seen so much rain.

There's a picture on my wall of my dad standing in a big puddle at his flooded work site, with his jeans tucked into those boots, wearing a white hard hat. I don't know the story behind that photo. The boots come to his knees too.

Though his feet were wider than mine, they were the same length. I stole his fuzzy slippers that Grandma and Grandpa got him for Christmas, so he had to buy another pair. We were the same height, though we argued over quarter inch differences that probably neither of us had.

Come to think of it, I was probably a pain in the ass kid. I always got to the mailbox before he got home from work to steal the Discover magazine before he got to it. I would hand it over when I was done, as I ruined the surprise about the exciting scientific discoveries inside.

Like how time exists on a continuum. Maybe that's true. Maybe that night splashing around in the puddles still exists. When I had finally established firm footing on life. In boots too wide for my feet, feeling the glee of younger days. With my dad just inside the house.