"It's a DELUGE!"

I ran my hand across the bent and crumpled metal, the large tanker not having moved in thirty-six years, lying along the now-placid river where it had been deposited all that time ago. It looked much like a twisted and smashed beer can. Now on its side, with pieces of trees having casually dropped onto it, there was still lettering visible. It had carried oil or gasoline—some kind of fuel that people used to heat or make things go. The park’s visitors had taken their toll on the heavy piece of metal, as people will do: They’d tried to tear at it, yank it apart, use whatever puny destructive power they had available, but to no avail. The thing would not budge; it had been a heavy tanker truck and still was heavy—although its trucking days were long gone.

I remember that night when the rains came and wouldn’t stop. My mother had gotten someone on the phone and was frantically describing what was happening.
“It’s a DELUGE!” I remember her saying, over and over, to the unfortunate official who’d had the bad luck to pick up the phone that night. Yes, it was a deluge, but it’s not as if it were raining only at our house. The local official on the other end of the old-fashioned rotary-dial phone stayed on the line, listened to my mother’s repeated descriptions of what was happening outside. All over—including no doubt at his location—the rain and wind were relentless. Out front the creek had risen, had taken big bites out of our driveway, then had started on the little bridge that crossed it. Taking everything way too personally, the young boy that was me had had enough, went to bed as much of the state became submerged. Only less than a mile away, the river was taking what it wanted, whatever it could get hold of. Whole houses were swept away, never to be found again, cars and trucks and whole eighteen-wheelers were gushed down the angry torrent like sticks in a fast-moving stream. The neighboring town, which straddled the scenic river, got mired in muck up to its second-story windows—with everything in the homes and businesses ruined. A few days later we would go out, us kids, and see what havoc that night had wrought. With the muddy water receded, we marveled at the cars and other vehicles poking out from unlikely places; we picked through the cheap toys that sold for about a buck in the stores, but now gaped from a loaded semi-trailer washed up on the banks of the river. These things were not interesting enough to go out and buy, being mostly novelty items you see hanging from hooks in the grocery store, but the fact that they were there and free was the most marvelous thing. I loaded up on the most useless junk: Plastic pop-guns, little toy horns, other things wrapped in cheap cardboard and plastic, and greedily slogged through the mud with my looted treasures. I was not aware at the time that there was such a demand for these items, but my recollection is that the whole truck—measuring about forty feet in length—was jam-packed with these things.

On this day, with the river quiet, the crumpled metal of the tanker was a reminder of that time—a giant key-chain souvenir of the catastrophic flood—but one that would stay always in the gift shop, never to be moved. You could go and visit it, but don’t try to buy it or take it away. I’d gotten on my bike for the first time this season, rode leisurely to this location, saw the big thing in the woods. I hadn’t stopped in to look at it in years, so I paused for a few minutes in the shade, with my bike plopped over in the weeds. The river at this location had had an indescribable fury, had probably been witnessed by no one, as even the railroad tracks—which were quite high above the river banks--were torn away at and ended up sagging down the embankment from up high. Even up there, about thirty feet above the river’s normal level, you weren’t safe.

The only thing threatening me this day was a group of geese that had set up shop along the river. They were banded there, with their growing goslings still downy with the fine feathers that make them look a little bald. As I rode past, one of the larger adults reared back his long neck, made as if to peck at me. I know from experience that these geese can be formidable opponents, not hesitating in the least to make aggressive moves towards unwelcome visitors or passersby. Get too close and they will beak you something fierce. I gave the big Canadian wide berth, thought to throw out some words about his being in my country now and maybe he should mind his manners, but he didn’t seem to want to hear it. I rode on.

I need to buy a special saw for the home improvement work that continues at a snail’s pace. There is much to be done, even without this saw, but I’ve used the lack of a miter-saw or “chop-saw” to halt all activities over there. I’ll head over tomorrow to see what can be done. It’s likely I’ll find something to putter away at. The hedge that was once over at the side of my house is gone completely; the trash people came and hauled away my many bundles of twigs, branches and hedge clippings on the designated yard waste day. It was voluminous. But there is still more that I hadn’t bundled up then, but that is now ready for taking away. Yet more bundles, waiting for the next “weed pickup,” as the half-wit refers to it. She and the band of folks who wander about over there never avail themselves of the recycling services—no cans or bottles are ever set out, no cardboard or newspapers or anything else for that matter. It all goes in the trash.
“You should put something out for the weed pickup,” I say to her. “They’ll take yore weeds and it don’t cost nothin.’”