IF YOU wanted to keep your shoes dry walking home, you just took your shoes off (Shutterstock).

You call this … weather?

I don’t mean to disregard the discomfort and danger posed to some by the rainstorm that hit Southern California this week. People who live near the beach and in some mountainous areas found that the downpour was more than just an inconvenience, I know.

However – here comes the old guy grumbling – today’s weather is hugely mitigated by the changes wrought by my rough-n-tumble pioneering generation. We were just a few years from wearing coonskin caps and spitting tobackky … and that was the women!

Oh, OK, a slight exaggeration. But what was true is that in my youth most cities – especially Garden Grove and nearby communities – had few, if any, storm drains. Water simply collected between curbs – where there were curbs – and small lakes formed at every intersection and driveway opening.
Cars stalled in the deep water like sit-down protesters, making navigation a challenge to all but the most stout-hearted motorists.

In today’s world, cars line up for miles outside every elementary and middle school to ferry children door-to-door to class, even kids who live a block from the campus. Double that if a single drop of rain splashes on the front room window.

Ah, for the days when kids got wrapped up in a sweater, jacket (with hood) and raincoat, galoshes over Keds and pushed out the door despite rain so fierce it came in horizontally. We trudged through knee-deep puddles, squeegeed the water from our eyeglasses and stuffed our books and homework protectively into our fleecy armor along streets without sidewalks.

Many of today’s kids are “triggered” by certain words, cringe away from “micro-aggressions” and consider getting a job in adulthood to be optional.

Nothing will knock the prissy out of a kid more than trying to pedal a one-speed Schwinn through a canyon of culverts during a blinding hailstorm. Now – sigh – that was weather.