Kirk Ross
(This is the second part of a rambling story about a recent summer road trip. Thank you for your indulgence.)
We stood at the top of the levee and pondered the course of the river by the little town where my father grew up.
The view prompted him to remind me of one thread of the family history. “That’s the power plant where your grandfather worked,†he said, pointing upstream toward Cincinnati. Then, turning downriver, “and that’s the power plant where I worked.â€
The Ohio River was low that day, deceptively non-turbulent and, as always, the color of mud – a light brown that always reminded me of chocolate milk (Quik, not Ovaltine). The river is not just a river of water, but a colloid carrying dirt and runoff and debris gathered from the little streams that feed it down to an even bigger river and on down to the Gulf.
When it’s low, you can see all sorts of junk, including whole trees and chunks of old docks, piled up along its banks, the kind of place that would beckon any kid to explore. The kind of place your mother wouldn’t want you going anywhere near. And God forbid you should swim in it. Every summer, that stretch of the river takes a life or two or more. My dad still remembers getting caught swimming and how angry his folks were. I suspect most people from there have a similar story.
We were on the levee for a reason and not to just admire the new monument atop it and walk through the newly painted and wide-open floodgates below. The great flood of his childhood, the one that temporarily wiped out the town, has been on my dad’s mind. He’s trying to put his recollections to paper. On the levee that afternoon, we shifted from the calm, late spring of the present to the chaos of a winter more than 70 years prior.
“That’s where it came over,†he said pointing to the spot on the levee where the river topped the sandbags on top of the old levee and the river won the battle, and all the bells in town started ringing and it was just time to gather what you could and walk to higher ground.
Structures made of wood were destroyed. For the most part, the masonry and brick buildings survived, but everything in them had to be replaced. We turned our backs to the river and looked over the town. My dad pointed out the buildings that remained from those days and recalled how high the water was. The floodwaters didn’t recede for several days. Many of the newly homeless lived in a tent city built by the National Guard. More than 20 folks, mostly relatives, were crammed in my grandparents’ house up the hill. On our way out of town, we drove up there to see the old place, which we’d heard was for sale.
On the way, the thick, sweet air around the distillery – still cooking mash after all these years – told us both we were close.
The porch, the location of the bulk of my memories of the place, was gone, and the house had new siding, which made it stick out in a neighborhood where about every place bore some residue of the sour mash and highway traffic.
Dad gamely climbed up on the slab where the porch used to be and got his picture taken. Neither one of us gave a second thought about buying the place.
On the way back, we talked about the flood, the town and how it’s changed. We took a back road to the interstate and stopped near an even older family homestead, in a little place that barely exists as a town anymore. When my family first arrived there, it was a notable gathering point for new settlers along the Native-American trail system – the first stop inland after the river crossings. We stayed for about 150 years.
My dad recalled the big family reunions in the old town meeting hall and I got out and took pictures of its dilapidated shell. We drove on to the interstate, mostly in silence, as we each digested the day and reconciled our memories with who we are now.
It’s good to remember things and places and, especially, people; good to walk where they walked; good to feel the same breeze they felt, the one coming up slow and cool from the river.