With our latest rain, I’m hoping it won’t be 1975 all over again. Then and now, precipitation was routed around California by a high pressure ridge for months. December of that year was the beginning of two years of drought conditions. Our reservoirs are now lower than at the same time in 1977, which was preceded by two dry years. Jerry Brown was governor back then; irony or conspiracy?

Without non-stop rain through the rest of our rainy season the coming summer will be one of dirty cars and brown lawns. Communal showering may become de rigueur, perhaps followed by an uptick in births.

Back then I wasn’t fishing as much as I do now. There are a few small streams — only shared with the most trusted — that will go unvisited this year. It’s a given that low reservoirs will push more fisherman to moving waters that remain open which, more likely, will be tailwaters.

Automatic readings last Thursday show the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is now at 15 percent of normal, up from 12 percent on Jan. 30. At this rate, we only need 28 storms of similar magnitude to reach normal levels. And that still won’t be enough.