A Rain Dance for the Rainless | People

While other parts of Arkansas were enjoying rain in the early summer, North Little Rockers were getting rain drops.  I have seen much of our yard in Lakewood wither away, our house's internal heat works like a steam engine to keep the temps at a modest 80 degrees, and the rear view mirror on my car fell off due to the glue being melted in the dashboard!

Desperate times call for desperate measures..

I decided to perform a rain dance on the deck of my back yard, a tradition that originates from the Osage and Quapaw Indian tribes of Missouri and Arkansas.  While they wore feathers and turquoise to symbolize wind and rain, I only had a flannel shirt, which symbolized the need to do laundry.

[See video]

After a couple of weeks had passed, I had all but given up on hope that my rain dance had resulted in any rain, until this week.  I was driving home on JFK Blvd, when it started pouring down rain like it was Spring again.  I'm normally irritated because of lack of visibility and risk of getting in a wreck, but I was rejoicing in my car as I turned the radio up.  It worked!  The rain dance had worked!  As I was performing a post-celebratory dance inside my car, someone honked at me from behind for driving too slowly.

I guess the temperature is cool enough to re-attach that mirror now.

-Henry Petty