Storm water came last week for my friend Dave. A foot or more of rain fell over 12 hours. Drainage ditches and retention ponds overflowed. Storm drains choked.
Dave’s three-bedroom ranch house is far from any ditch or creek but lies in a bowl beneath street level. The rain’s abundance, with no other release, poured off the street and into his house. It crested inside at around three feet.
Dave was remarkably cheery when I visited five days later.
“Wow,” I thought. “Could I be as good-natured?”
We carried ruined stuff to the curb, where a mound of furniture and drywall and so much else stretched for 20 feet.
Perhaps most difficult were the books – and not only because, when wet, they are difficult to tote.
Dave mentioned “Collapse,” Jared Diamond’s book asserting that human societies choose to succeed or fail. In that moment, amid the departed flood’s mess, the reference was both apt and funny.
So, yes, difficult. More than a pillow or chair, the sodden, discarded books seemed to reflect the time Dave had spent … making Dave.
