Memories: more and more precious

At the think tank meeting the other day, rain was mentioned, as it usually is… . Anyway, it made me think of THE rain, the protracted  meeting rain.
I was five or six. I know we didn’t have a car, so we were in Grandpa Sanders’ Model T. The summer had been  unusually dry. Crops were drying up. Farmers had prayed individually for rain, but without  results..
We always got kind of squinched up near the end of the service, afraid that cousin Mary Todd would be called on to give the closing prayer, knowing that it would  last at least a half-hour.
She was called. Her main subject was rain and how we needed it. After about 20 minutes, it started raining. It got harder and harder. The patriarchs opined that they had never seen a rain like this.
People hesitated about trying to go home. Should we or shouldn’t we?
Daddy decided to try it.  There are two little creek valleys between Mt. Pisgah and home. The first one is below Grandpa Boman’s house, down where the men would shoot sweet gum balls with a .22 at the big Christmas gatherings.
Twas water from the foot of the hill all the way  to where the road curved around to go up to Uncle Kent’s.  Daddy drove right on through it.
The next one was more challenging. It was down at the Pierson Place, where two little branches run together to form a little creek that runs into another little creek and then on to Yellow Creek.
There was a mass of raging water from hill to hill.  Daddy stripped down to his union suit and waded out through the water , in the flickering light put out by the Model T, to see if the bridge was still there. I was scared to death that dear old Daddy might get swept away.
But he made it back and we chugged on across.  We found out the next day that bridges had been washed out all over the Community. Even creek beds had been changed: It washed out a hole so big at that first bridge that they held the baptizing there, instead of the usual place in Cousin Bailey’s pasture.
Another thought: It’s getting almost to the point that I’m the only one who remembers these events.  Cousin James E. remembers; but, heck,  Uncle Grady’s house was on the other side of Mt. Pisgah. He didn’t have to go through any water.
Also, cousins Anna Banks  and Polly and mean old Wynell (the prototype of Lucy in Peanuts) and  Virginia Dale may have been there that night, I’m not sure. They may have ridden to the meeting on Mr. Reeves’ flatbed truck.
At any rate, I’m beginning to be the only one who remembers these things…and it’s a little bit scary. If this keeps up, pretty soon I’ll be recognized as the last graduate of the EAMC. No, that’s not the hospital, it’s the East Alabama Male College.
Bob Sanders is a veteran local radio personality, columnist, author and raconteur of note. He can be reached at bobbypsanders@gmail.com.