Lord have mercy ya'll! Is it just me or does time fly by at the speed of light?????? Or maybe just the drama filled days and nights run together somewhat. Could be. This has been an incredibly tough month on the home front and I can truly say that I'm really quite ready to be done with it, Christmas and all. Most of the jollies this season have kind of rung a sour note considering what a clusterf**k my life is right now. Again, I'll spare the details. Sometimes it just seems to be a bit much. One friend told me today that Big Ernie never gives you more than you can bear. I reckon he's got great expectations of the old Poopster 'cuz things have been piling on pretty quick and hard. That's what I get for being a smartass like my daddy.
The one event that I distinctly remember like it was yesterday was the hundred year flood that began on Monday, May 4th. I had worked during the heavy rains the previous weekend that moved from west to middle Tennessee with a vengeance. Nashvegas was flooded which resulted in a big gush of headwater with nowhere to go but into the other mud filled Tennessee rivers in the northwest part of the state like the Forked Deer that surrounds our farm. Bubba called me around 10am to give me a heads up on the rising water so babygirl and I headed to town for flood party supplies. Our trip out was through shallow water that I've seen many times before on that stretch of Samaria Bend. We did some errands and came back around an hour later to find the road impassable for my trusty old Camry. About that time Clara came driving up in a county work truck with her mama Mozella and Thelma up front and James Frank ridin' in back. We were desperate to deliver lunch to Mama and Daddy and get on up the hill back to our safe haven. I sweat to you, that truck floated and I spoke in tongues. Pretty soon Mr. Autry up at the cycle shop where we parked our cars called to say we needed to move 'em. That's when we caught a ride in the back of the crackhead's pickup while the baby in the back seat cried his little lungs out. Dude had the nerve to throw all of us around like rag dolls when he mudded through the cornfield over to the golf course road. We were about ready to jump when the truck hit pavement and we headed down toward the DEEPEST part of the water which was at the end of the hill.
When we got to the other side in one piece, there was this huge crew of people on all sorts of transportation like golf carts and gaters and boats... OH MY! We moved our vehicles and got Heath to take us back where we came from but by then the water was bed deep. After that, nothing but a tractor could get in, and that was only for a day. Fortunately, my brother is a smart sort who knows a lot of people so he devised a way in and out using the landing at the airport as an entrance to our farm. Mama and Daddy were down there on the other side of the water, after all. During that week James Frank ferried my daddy to the by-pass for his doctor's appointment. Mozella's house almost got flooded, but not quite. And my parents managed to survive on groceries from the Plaza, just like they have for years. As for me? I moved to Gigi's couch so I could get to work.
The Plaza is gone now, just like the Dairy Queen. Tucker Tire came back home to roost and they've got a brand new wooden fence around all the tires so that it looks a little more presentable on the way to the new and improved downtown 'burg. There's been crews on that courthouse yard for almost a year and it still ain't done. When you first come into town, if you take a left down toward the river there is a farmer's market. That was the first piece in a new vision of this old town and there have been other improvements as well. Some people say the Forked Deer is just a muddy old ruin....a relic filled with sewage from our wastewater treatment plant down on the banks. As I remember it, it was a safe haven for a teenage girl who needed to get away from it all.
^j^
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