On those certain mornings when the rain comes, if the sky is just the right blend of lilac and grey and the bluejays are still fast asleep and the crickets have yet to resume their chirping, Mr. Wadsworth sits and waits for the sunrise.

Right on his old porch swing, that's where - still and stoic and utterly silent, and he waits. He waits there every morning, and no one really knows why - some say he's thinking. Thinking about tomorrow, maybe, but mostly thinking about yesterday, and yesterday's yesterday and all the yesterdays before that. They say he thinks about the new subdivision off of 44th and Willow's, that used to be a baseball field when he was a youngster. They say he thinks about penny candy and paperbacks and 25 cent picture shows, thinks about Hiroshima and Bing Crosby and jitterbug dance halls. Some say he sits and thinks about all these things, and sighs.

Some say he just likes sunrises.

On those early mornings when the rain comes - just a little drizzle, just enough to quench the flowers and spite the bumblebees - Mr. Wadsworth sits on his porch swing, and waits for the sunrise. No one knows why he get's up so early, but it feels like he's sat there forever and always, and folks stopped asking a while ago. Folks aren't usually up that early anyhow. The drops spiral down and the ants hide away, and the frog hops on his lillypad and smiles. They say it's easy to find peace in a rainstorm. They say rainstorms are under-appreciated in other parts of the world, like the Amazon and Seattle. Sometimes that's hard to believe, because it's tough to think of the sort of wreck Mr. Wadsworth would be without his early morning nostalgia showers.

Penny candy and paperbacks, Crosby and jitterbug dance halls.

It's mornings like these when a man can really get to know yesterday.