I wish that I could walk in the rain again--without looking like a 64-year-old fool, I mean--with a mind to taking a nice hot shower afterward. The last time I frolicked in the rain with sheer abandon was with our neighbor, Rommel Juat, when we were both 12 years old, in San Fernando, Pampanga. It was what freedom felt like: a disconnect from everything else in the world and a merging with Nature.