Rainy Day and A Boy Named Sue

The 54th Grammy's were on the other night. Rainy Day missed them. Again. She had her nose buried in a book, and just couldn't bring herself to watch a bunch of really great entertainers she knew nothing about make a bunch of speeches she really didn't want to hear. And, she admits, she didn't want to cry when they did the tribute to Whitney Houston.

Rainy Day liked Whitney Houston. Or at least liked her music, never having had the honor to meet her in person. Rainy Day got to thinking about other singers she's liked through the years – Michael Jackson, Elvis, Ed Ames, Johnny Cash....

Johnny Cash and his marvelous song about "A Boy Named Sue." Oh, Rainy Day could, indeed, relate to that song on a personal level. Perhaps not as strongly as Sue, but nevertheless Rainy Day could and did empathize with that boy named Sue.

Rainy Day's family was a little strange, too.  A time existed when Rainy D, as she came to be called, despised her parents, perhaps even hated them.  Not now. Now, chronologically at least, she is an adult and beyond such childish and immature emotions.

The War to End All Wars raged around the globe.  Rainy D's mom, pregnant by one of our Brave Boys In Uniform (to whom, if it's any of your business, she was married) hobbled to the hospital during the worst rainstorm since Noah's journey.  After a long and difficult labor (aren't they all?) Rainy D's mom produced a boiled-in-beet-juice red, squalling, albeit perfect, daughter.  When the nurse, exhausted after spending the whole night with screaming about-to-be mothers entered her mother's room to fill out the birth certificate and asked for the name, Rainy D's mom was talking to her Hero in Uniform over a very bad telephone connection.  Hero, in Communications, was stationed Stateside and had 'privileges.'  He asked about the weather, she responded it was a rainy day and the nurse dutifully wrote down what she heard before shuffling her weary self out of the room and off duty.

Rainy Day never forgave the nurse or her mother who laughed when she realized what had happened, and saw no reason to correct it.  But then, Rainy Day never bothered to change it either (she did like the name Margo for a long time, or even Sue).  Over the years, Rainy D realized she not only was used to the name, she actually rather liked it.  Her favorite song is still "A Boy Named Sue".