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Show 10 indulged only lightly in such luxuries but he radiated happiness at seeing us enjoy them. Oh, I almost forgot one benefit the cloudburst left us. When the ponds froze over I sent to a mail order house for a pair of ice skates. They were not fancy skates fastened to shoes. I simply clamped them heel and sole on my shoes after I reached the pond. We got a pair for Mother too. El Vera didn't care for the sport but Mother often went with me to demonstrate how she had skated on the Cedar River and ponds in Iowa. She did not do fancy skating but she had an easy, graceful stroke that helped me emerge from the jerky, scrambling style I started with. Yes, that was a year to remember. The late spring downpour plus lighter rains made a total of, if I remember aright, 16-plus inches. We never had another year like that one. Despite being named after a noble old priest of yesteryear, the Escalante could lie. Those early "wet" years-wet by desert standards-were misleading. Although after the cloudburst we began to take them for granted, they were passing. We were entering a long dry phase of the cycle. But Father had formed the habit of watching those mid-afternoon clouds pile up over Blue Mountain with occasional thunder and lightning and dark promise of moisture. It was almost as though he thought faith and longing would draw the rain. Snows came in the winters. In the hot windy summers when we needed moisture, when the parching plants pleaded for moisture, it almost never came. |