Wharton was the first town I’ve lived in wherein there was street flooding. East Bernard was the second. I guess there weren’t enough streets in Dime Box to have a problem with street flooding. Also, it rained far less in Lee County.
It seems that in 1966 when I moved to Wharton, Fulton Street was at least one of the streets flooding after a big rain. The first time I encountered this phenomenon, I stopped and turned around even though some cars sailed right through it!
One of the parking lots at the college where I taught would collect water, so I learned to avoid that parking area.
After marriage and a leave-of-absence to attend grad school, my wife and I bought a home in East Bernard. It is located on the highest elevation in town, so we had no problems with flooding on our street.
However, between our house and Klecka’s Grocery, the side street which intersects with a major street at the fire station would flood the intersection during a Wharton County “monsoon.” I attempted to drive through the water. It was more than a puddle, and my car drowned out. With a huge bag of groceries in my arms, I started walking in water well above my knees. One of the dear, kind residents of East Bernard picked me up, and drove me home.
That was providential, because we had only one car and no cell phones.
Although there were never any flooded streets in my hometown of Dime Box, in the 1940’s, folks, like my Wendish grandparents, faced a somewhat different challenge when it did rain.
Mud.
The streets in Dime Box back then were not paved, but they were gravelled. And the County roads that took you out to the various farms were also gravelled. The only paved street was State Highway 21 which still runs through Old Dime Box.
It was easy enough to get to the edge of the farm, but the private road from the gate to the farmhouse was neither paved nor gravelled. To visit Grandpa and Grandma after a rain, you had to park your car at the gate, put on rubber boots, and walk the long trek to their house.
My grandfather, not admired for his patience, was known to get in his Model A and gun it through the muddy ruts to the gravel road.
Nobody else but Grandpa would try that!
In looking back at the days of my life, I see that I came to prefer flooded streets to rutted roads of mud!
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.