Now I have been living in California for thirty years and no one thinks about the open umbrella superstition. In fact, it is common for people (including me) to leave them open to dry in a corner of a room. Of course, my generation was the first to have the benefit of antibiotics and other effective treatments to prevent sudden death from diseases which were always lurking nearby. We must not forget how different things are today from the way they were when a superstition was formed.