January 22, 2008 8:45 AM
A break in the rain
It’s been a rather dreary week atmospherically over here in England this week. The majority of the past 10 days have been rain-filled, with the occasionally sunny afternoon spent playing football on the muddy pitches of the Maes-Y-Llan.
On Thursday, though, there was a particularly notable break in the rain: a major winter thunderstorm—a meteorological anomaly—blew through Oswestry. As I sat in my morning Geography class with Mr. Croft, we noticed that the rain stopped. There was something of a pause as the air cooled and remained still. Then, all of sudden, the thunder claps began echoing across the plains surrounding the school’s hilltop position. After a few minutes, the torrential rain began. The power went out for a few seconds. Then the sky burst open with about 20 seconds of hail, which bounced around the parking lot outside our windows like thousands of Tic-Tacs.
Now I can’t remember experiencing hail more than twice in my four years at Mercersburg, but the thunderstorms at the beginnings and ends of each year brought with them some particularly memorable moments. My junior—or “freshman”—year at Mercersburg began with soccer preseason. I had played for years, but I’m confident that nothing could have prepared me for a week with Coach Kempe, one of the toughest sports coaches I’ve encountered. A full week of intimidating—yet especially fulfilling—physical fitness work culminated with a rain-filled September 4th, my birthday. I don’t remember every drill that we did that day; what has stuck with me is the final scrimmage. In my first year I hadn’t quite met some of the requirements for varsity—the 21-minute three-mile run, for instance—but I had played soccer since the age of 5 and that showed on Steiger Field that afternoon. I didn’t make varsity, but Coach Kempe did invite me to practice with the first team once a week, along with three other junior varsity players.
That began three consecutive fall terms spent playing for the Mercersburg Men’s Soccer, months of character-building, and an extracurricular activity in which I could meet new friends. The next year—in one of my proudest moments from my four years—I made the three-mile run in 20:08. This came on an early morning during a torrential rainstorm. In my upper-middler—or “junior”—year, the varsity team would slide down the hills around Steiger Field face-first, covered in mud after tough practices in the rain, a practice that led to particularly difficult laundry that night. 
In my senior year, with the brand new Burgin Center for the Arts, we could watch massive thunderstorms from the safety of the Boone and Hershey Recital Halls that face town, walled in by large glass panels. More than once would my friends and I take some homework in there and look out to the mountains that define the western boundary of Cumberland Valley appreciating the naturally beautiful surroundings of our school from within our newest structural beauty.
And finally, one day before graduation, the skies opened up after a very hot day in a cleansing summer thunderstorm… just as formally dressed students and parents left a dinner party at Nick’s Airport Inn in Hagerstown. The young men and women of the Class of 2007, after the Baccalaureate Chapel Service and dressed in the second-best gowns and suits (the best being reserved for Commencement the following morning) spent one last meal together, this before our last night in the dormitories that we called home for our last year in high school—well, for most of them it was their last.
It may sound weird, but I missed big weather. On Thursday, I got my fill.
Posted by at January 22, 2008 8:45 AM