Before the Flood

It rained and it rained and it rained.
...It was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder whether it would be coming into HIS bed soon.
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[excerpt, Winnie-The-Pooh. Chapter IX, In Which Piglet Is Entirely Surrounded by Water]
Water edging over roads and into our lives, where I live -- not all from rain, but from some recent rain, some recent snow, & a lot of snow-melt. People finding alternative routes to get places, and speculating on whether or not, soon, they will be able to get anywhere at all.

Last night I stood "in line" (behind one guy) at a store. He was about my height -- five-foot six or so -- and was wearing rubber boots. Brown hair. He spoke with the young lady behind the counter: "My neighbor's road was under water in one spot, you couldn't drive on it."
(mental note to self: stay off country roads)

"The culvert ..." he went on -- [the culvert something -- I don't know...] ..."So he [the neighbor] put down some cement, there, & some gravel..."

I said, "Wow! He laid his own concrete - ? You mean he basically made a road himself?
That's very enterprising of him. And creative!"
(I was picturing one of those trucks where the round, barrel-like thing goes around and around -- a cement truck, or whatever...)
"Well, I mean, he's doing the county's job for them, I suppose the county should..."
"Township's," he said. "That's the township's job."
And he went on --

"And what he did -- he just went and got two big -- chunks of cement -- pieces of an old sidewalk, and he set those there. And put some gravel there. To make it so he could drive over it. But --"
He considered and worried for a brief moment --
"If somebody else was driving and didn't know what's there -- [with a nervous half-smile] if they were to hit one of those chunks of sidewalk, that -- that would not be good."

(mental note to self: stay hell off country roads)
------------------- [In Which Piglet - Surrounded...]: "It's a little Anxious," he said to himself, "to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could escape by -- by Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, surrounded by water and I can't do anything."

...It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say "How do you do," to his friend Christopher Robin.
"I say, Owl," said Christopher Robin, "isn't this fun? I'm on an island!"
"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said Owl.
"The what?"
"It has been raining," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."
"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height."
"The who?"
"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is."
-----------------[end excerpt]

[Winnie-the-Pooh, by

A.A. Milne. Copyright

1926 by E.P. Dutton

& Co., Inc., New York]

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