A good night’s sleep has escaped me lately folks. You wouild think with all of that time lying awake in bed I would have come up with something more appropriate to contribue to this year’s Annual Morse Bluff Eagle. Instead I’m sitting at my window, several nights lately, watching the beautiful rain come down, listening to the thunder, and admiring nature’s free-for-the-taking, light shows.

Rain blasting loudly through thunder-cloud-darkened nights! Rain coming down lightly for hours throughout a steamy, August day! Rain pouring down in sheets during afternoon thunderstorms! Rain sprinkling through, seemingly, without a cloud in the sky! I remember, as kids, we used to run out to the sidewalk in front of our house and we three blondies would perform our own rendition of the sacred, traditional rain dance. Our small fingers out-stretched at the ends of our uplifted arms, stomping our bare feet in the fine dust that normally coats everything on the farm in the late summer, imitating the American Indian ceremonies that we had been shown over and over again on the reel-reel movies during Social Studies classes at good, old District 14.

The shear joy we felt escalated as every precious, wet drop touched our skin and as we continued to sway and chant in the front yard, we each knew, deep down, what that rain really meant to Mom and Dad and all of the farmers that lived around us. When I see smiling, well-rested farmers during this time of year, I can’t help but think that it wouldn’t hurt to go outside and revel in it for at least a moment.

They are shutting down the pivots and turning off the wells early and there can’t be any better feeling than that right now with the heat and humidity reaching their highest points. The cost is the main thing but there is also the day after day maintenance of the the pumps and machinery, the high pitched annoying, constant, buzz of mosquitoes in your ears, the water in your boots and mud in other unmentionable places, the middle of the night monitoring, the foregoing of vacations, parties, and family gatherings for the care and upkeep of the life-sustaining, irrigation systems and the constant worry that in spite of their diligent efforts; the crop will succumb to the ever-oppressing heat and yields will decline because of it. No wonder the mood collectively lightens around here as with each passing day we add thirty hundredths, or an inch, or even three inches to the total rainfall for August 2007.

I was caught in it a few weeks ago as I had to get out of my car to help a friend with something. It was during one of those afternoon downpours when the sky suddenly darkens and there’s that thick, sweet smell of moisture as the barometer quickly plummets. The water-balloon-like drops began to descend and I was sure that, had I been able to measure them, they would have amounted to about a pint apiece. I got out and the two of us did what we had to do, taking just a few seconds scurrying around with our heads bowed as though that would have kept some part of us from becoming thoroughly drenched. We shouted our good byes over the deafening splashes and thurnder claps and I was about to grab the handle of my car door and jump in out of the squall when the urge to dance overcame me. As you know, that sort of urge takes over pretty often, but this was different. I did what anyone else would do; I raised my hands toward the generously, giving sky, spun around, kicked the water up in an arc; first with my right foot, then with my left and shouted a quick thank you to the heavens before retreating to my driver’s seat completely, deliciously, delightedly…..soaked to the skin and smiling.

Rain in August, in Nebraska….something for which we can all be truly thankful.

——–Morse Bluff Eagle, 14 August 2007