I’m Fixing to Not Do Any More Rain Dances for a While

I’m fixing to not do any more rain dances for a while.

After the paper came out last Thursday morning announcing my intention to do one, late in the afternoon my action came to fruition. There were still beams of sunshine coming down when I heard the first light patter on my deck.

Shortly thereafter the sky got dark, the winds began to roar and a Noah’s Arc type downpour descended upon us. It lasted until well after dark and dumped two inches of rain and hail upon us. Then the storm knocked the power off for the next five hours.

Did y’all know that if you light about eight candles and put them in a cluster they will give off about as much light as a 65 watt light bulb?

I checked the thermostat outside and the temperature had dropped to 72 degrees, making it cooler outside than it was inside, what with no power and no air conditioning. So I opened some doors and was siting beside my cluster of flickering candles reading when I began to hear little popping sounds followed by sizzling sounds like bacon was frying. It turned out to be moths being swallowed up and fried by my candles. It’s amazing the sounds you can hear when there’s no humming of the fridge and no blaring sounds from the TV.

I got tired of frying moths so I closed the doors, but I continued reading by my cluster of candles and the situation seemed to take me back in time, and I liked it.

It put me in mind of a time long ago when I was a little boy and was reading a ragged and worn book of fairy tales by candle light because my grandmother didn’t like the smell of the fumes from a kerosene lamp. I was staying with my grand parents on my daddy’s side–the side that didn’t have any Indian blood mixed in.

Even though there wasn’t any Indian blood on my daddy’s side of the family, some of them didn’t shy away from firewater. But my granddaddy, Poppa John, wasn’t one of them. I think the reason for his abstinence was that one of Momma Nell’s favorite sayings was, “Lips that touch alcohol or tobacco will never touch mine.”

She was a beauty and I think that’s why Poppa John was a teetotaler and never smoked, chewed or dipped.

My grandmother’s maiden name was Nellie Brooks and she was a school teacher. I think that was one reason she was pleased that I like to read. Late that night while I was engrossed in Hazel and Gretel, she served me up a dish of fresh sliced peaches from her orchard topped with fresh cream she had skimmed off the milk from her cow.

Uh oh! The power just came back on. The TV blasted out, the lights flashed or and the fridge began to hum, and I was suddenly snatched away from my trip back into time.

I got mixed reviews on the results of my rain dance. It seems that the two-five inches of rain we received over a two-day period was accompanied by some powerful winds and some folks incurred some property damage. I received word that some folks thought I ought to lay off with the #@%& rain dances, but then one sweet lady called to tell me I had saved her vegetable garden.

A long time ago, a gentleman who has been a great inspiration to me, Mister Mark Twain, said, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”

I think that was his way of saying that Mother Nature is in charge of the weather. I also think he had the great foresight to know that driving SUV’s and eating Big Mac’s don’t have diddle to do with the weather.

I’m fixing to turn everything off and go to bed before the power goes off again.