BUILDING MY ARK

The day started innocent enough, no sunshine, but no rain. As the morning progressed, it started to get darker and darker, until an almost midnight cast completely surrounded the house, bringing a stillness, that helped to define each leaf in the trees, giving intensity to its color as it stood in the calm before the storm.

I decided to sit and read the morning paper first, before doing anything to start the day, so with my cup of coffee and sports section, tired achy back and legs, I began to read. Suddenly the rain began dancing off the sky light and started a downpour, nothing that was new to me, since it comes every year about this time, and I thought I’d finish the coffee and go take my shower.

After my shower I got dressed and was putting on my shirt thinking as I descended down the stairs and walked over to my sliding doors to look out into the yard that the rain must be over by now, I was surprised by the intensity of the rain and being surprised that it was still raining so hard.

Suddenly I had an even bigger surprise. It is raining so hard that the pool is literally overflowing! Yes, water is now way over the edge of the pool and building quickly in the back yard. In less that one hour I had experienced over a foot of rain. Floating on the top of the pool was broken branches and leaves, along with acorns and what ever else Mother nature decided to toss in there. The water worried me now because it would soon reach the basement windows and start to seep down into the basement. My yard was flooding!

Quickly I ran inside the garage to get out a pump and extension cord, worrying that the cord had to be connected from the inside of the house and the connection needed to be dry. Would it reach? I ran outside looking for the hose and disconnected it from the sprinkler and ran one end to the pump, the other to the driveway that runs along side the house. Taking the pump connections I brought it into the den and connected to an extension cord. It reached! I could safely run the pump from the house! But the pump wouldn’t be fast enough, I had to get the water level down by at least 2 inches in a hurry. Flying back into the garage, I searched for a big pail that I keep, and while running back out to the pool area, I am peeling off my very wet shirt and finding a old UNC sun hat to keep my head from further soaking.

Dipping the big multi-gallon pail into the pool, I start to heave the water into the driveway, one heavy load at a time, working furiously, and thinking I could back wash the pool to lose some more water, but where would it go with the ground around the backwash hose saturated with water already?

One pail at a time until I notice I have made some progress between the pump and the hose, and now I’m feeling sharp pains in my back, legs and chest! The pain in my legs and chest have been there for a few days and tomorrow I will see the doctor about them, and the pain in my chest was from the incision from my by-pass operation almost 4 years ago.

I stop and retreat into the house after first checking the hose that it was pouring out water.

This afternoon and again this evening, the rains will return, and are predicted to be as severe as they were this morning! Oh boy!

I should call the undertaker and tell him that I should be pretty clean by the time I arrive, and to use an 18” neck size for my shirt, 17 ½ is too uncomfortable to lay there like that.

joedelbroccolo@yahoo.com