"Who'll Stop the Rain" | Eastern NC Now

Regarding the great deluge of September 21, 2016; one day removed from the great deluge of September 20, 2016, the perspective of my immediate world is a bit muddied.

    As a 61 year old, new guitar player, I have begun by picking songs that I have long liked, and are relatively easy to play. After the obligatory "House of the Rising Sun", the second song that I became accomplished in was Credence Clearwater Revival's "Who'll Stop the Rain"; a song written specifically to chronicle the abundance of rain on Yazgur's Dairy Farm, on that mid August weekend in 1969, near Bethel, New York.

    Rather than contemplate rain soaked, muddy hippies strung far too cosmic on the "Brown Acid", I kept hearing the refrain of John Fogerty's classic tome, beginning in E minor and finishing in a full G - "Who'll stop the rain?" (John Fogerty singing lead, and Robbie Robertson playing lead on his stratocaster) - his tome of too much rain in those terribly crazy times:

Who'll Stop the Rain

        by John Fogerty
Long as I remember the rain been comin' down
Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun.
And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.

I went down Virginia seekin' shelter from the storm
Caught up in the fable I watched the tower grow
Five year plans and new deals wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.

Heard the singers playin', how we cheered for more.
The crowd had rushed together tryin' to keep warm.
Still the rain kept pourin', fallin' on my ears
And I wonder, still I wonder who'll stop the rain.

    Similarly, with the rain falling here as fast and as hard in this near catastrophic rain event, here in eastern Beaufort County, on September 21, 2016, I was reminded of Fogerty's prophetic tune of that time, his time, and in some smaller way our time far past. It was a rain of Biblical proportions; it was a rain of closed roads; a rain of fat, swollen creeks and ponds; a rain where the bottom of a darkening cloud just drops out; a rain where inches fall in the span of minutes; and all I have to show for it is a partially flattened winter garden, a front driveway fully disappeared under feet of water, and further questions as to how I might better drain where we live to where we don't.

    And again, I am reminded: "Who'll Stop the Rain?"

Here we have a great expanse of my yard in Mac'swood, Washington, Beaufort County, North Carolina under much water: Above. My small pond bordering the front of my 2.25 acre yard, which at its normal highest level is about 6 feet deep at its greatest depth. After the Deluge of September 21, 2016, I estimate my pond's deepest depth at 12 feet. Hey, where did my front drive, bordering my pond, disappear to? Below.     photos by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    As I write this, the rain is still sprinkling down, the distant rumble of thunder is in close earshot and constant; it has been nearly 3 full days of intermittent sun and clouds and rain, and only the unceasing billowing clouds know when it will end. All I can do is record it as best I can in words and images and remember: There will come a day that I was happy for this rain, and that I will pray for more, just as soon as God will deliver it.
To make this image, I walked onto my submerged pier (about 20 inches deep) that spans part of my pond, which is normally about 1/6 of the size of what is represented in this photo, and then, I shot the picture back up the hill toward the southwest side of house: Above and below.     photos by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.