With the melting snow and the springs rain came the slop and mush of the thawing earth.  The puddles and ponds of standing water would form and stand in our farm yard.

Most of the year, playing in the mud was seen as distasteful and a distraction from work, but in those first few warm spring days, when the farm yard was a mess, but people wanted to be outside, those magical days were very different.  It was the only time of the year when playing in the mud was not only quietly encouraged, but sometimes overseen by parents and older siblings.

Most of the water from our driveway drained to the west, to the big ditch behind the barn, one of the only clear routes back there was the road that lead beside the barn.  Daily, the tractor and manure spreader would make the trek to the back of the barn to haul out the manure.  In the winter time, it would glide across the frozen ground.  In the spring thaw, the ruts became deep canyons, a perfect path for the melting water from the driveway.

And a perfect place to build massive dams. This was no minor, rinky-dink operation, this was on the verge of full blown civil engineering.

Hoes, rakes, and shovels would come out of the shop by the garden and a massive, thought out effort was underway after the last load of manure was hauled and the chores were done.

The first effort was the back up dike, to keep the water out of the primary work area.  This was usually done in the big puddle in the northeast corner of the milk room.  The area was relatively flat, so a long, low dike had to be built to keep the water from flowing around and continuing down the tractor ruts.

This allowed us to work on the engineering masterpiece.

The tractor ruts had some degree of elevation to them, so you could form a veritable lake in the tire tracks if you did it right.

With the shovels, hoe and rake we would go to work, damning up both sides of the tire tracks, the deepest one (usually towards the barn), first, then followed up with the shallower, back up dam in the northern canyon…er…tire tracks.

At some point, Dad would come out to inspect the works.

“Dumb kids, playing in the mud.  I thought we taught you better then that!  Plus, it looks like you need one more scoop of dirt right there on the south dam, right up on the edge.  You don’t want it to flow up and around too soon.  You’re going to have to do some fill in too between the tire tracks - otherwise its going to right in between - that little channel isn’t going to do you a darn bit of good without some kind of back up dike up there in the middle.  Where you kids learned your engineering skills I’ll never know…”

When the major earth work was done, one, quick digging maneuver with the hoe would break the preliminary dike and the water would quickly break through and widen the breach so that it was a torrent flowing down the tracks.

We would watch with excitement as the water hit the main damn and began to back up and fill the tire tracks…first one, then the other.

Dad and older siblings sometimes shouting with greater enthusiasm then the younger ones - and sometimes grabbing hoes and shovels from our hands to fill in holes and weak spots.

Then we waited as the reservoir filled.

Eventually, the water would lap at the top of the dam in the tire tracks.  The first drops of water would flow down the front of the dam.  The drops would quickly turn into a trickle.  The trickle would turn into a steady stream.  The steady stream was soon a rushing torrent.  Much fast then it had taken the dam to fill - the barn yard was now almost void of water.

“Dumb kids, playing in the mud,” Dad would say with a smile…hoe in hand…

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

There’s bills on the kitchen table that need to be paid.  The pickup needs $500 worth of surgery.  The tires on the big tractor are getting might worn.  The newsman says ag programs will be first in line for the federal budget ax.

It looks like corporations will be the only ones farming before long.  School boards says we can’t afford to keep our schools open anymore.  The county supervisors say cuts in funding for secondary road repairs means those pot holes out front will keep throwing the car’s front-end out of whack.

Still, there’s not much time to worry about that.

Went to check on those new calves this morning.  Couldn’t catch the little buggers.  They sure like to kick up their heels.  I guess they’re happy as I am to see the grass getting green.  Mama looked pretty happy too.  Nice to see them all clean, healthy and not wallowing in the mud this spring for a change.  Guess this dry weather’s not all bad.

Started up the diesel this morning.  Put the batteries back in and she started right up.  Changed the filters and the oil and gave it some grease all around.  I guess I wouldn’t be farming if I was worried about dirty hands.  It’s fun to see these old pictures of dad and his horses, but a big, rumbling diesel kinda puts me in the mood for planting.

Maybe that’s why I already pulled the planter out of the shed.  It won’t need much work either.  Looks like a couple of bad bearings on the press wheels, but that wouldn’t be much to fix.  They even had them on the shelf down at John Deere.  Had to turn the windshield wipers on the way down there.  Wish I had to do that more often, but it can’t stay dry forever.

I went down to the café afterwards.  How long do they think they can afford to sell those rolls for a quarter.  I’d pay five bucks for one, but I’m not going to tell them that.  You can still find a bargain if you know when to look.

Stopped at the west 40 on the way home.  Scooped a handful of mud.  There’s still frost down there.  A good soaker would take care of that in short order.  That mud is cold, but it’s good mud.  Dad knew it when he bought it.  And now, for awhile, it’s mine.

There’ll be corn here soon.  It’s flat here, so the rows will be nice and straight.  Straight rows.  Good corn with heavy ears. It’ll sprout in the row just like when dad planted it with a check planter and horses.  Click, click, click. Don’t know that he ever got it all done.

I can do the book work.  And I worry about the USDA and the ASCS and Brazilian soybeans and corporate farms.  But worries go with the territory.

Lord knows, dad had his worries too.  Farming sure has changed since then.  But some things about it never change.

I like to feel mud in my hands and I like to see long, straight rows of corn sprouting in the field.  And I like to smell the cold, wet spring.

I guess that’s why I stick it out with a kitchen table full of bills, a pickup truck with a bad engine and politicians and economists who tell me there’s no future in farming.

It’s spring.  It’s going to rain sooner or later.  And we’ll get by somehow.

 ”Life is about choices,” one of my co-workers like to remind the rest of us on a daily basis, and indeed it is.  From where we live, the car we drive, the job that we have, the life that we led, to have well we sleep at night based on the fact of how we have treated other people.

Life is truly about choices.

Often times, looking back on those choices, there is a tinge of regret, the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” factor.  If only I would have studied harder in school.  If only I’d have gone for that big promotion.  If only I would have asked that girl out.  If only I would have taken that spring break trip.  If only, if only, if only….it could go on forever.

My folks made choices that influenced how I was born and raised, and often times growing up, I never truly appreciated it.  I just saw the greener grass on the other side of the fence.

That kid had nice shoes (Air Jordans perhaps), that kid had the video game system (Nintendo with Super Mario Brothers!), the other kid got a car for his birthday (I still have to drive the old truck or take the bus), they got to go to Washington DC for summer break, we went to Iowa…

But rarely did I think about that things that I had growing up that other kids didn’t have - thanks to the choices made by my parents.

I got to work side by side with my father almost on a daily basis.  I got to help Mom in the garden.  We ate the fruit of our land and labor - farm raised meat, fresh fruit and vegetables in the summer - and home canned the balance of the year.  We got the run of the farm - sure there was work, but their was walking through the pastures, playing in the puddles, and riding the three wheeler.

In hind sight, my folks made a very wise choice.  Which is one of the bizarre things about the choices that we make - time will only tell…and there are no redo’s.  It is easy to look back and say, “if only,” but we have no way of knowing how it would have worked out.

I find myself at an interesting cross road in my life today.  There is a large batch of my friends, actually the vast majority of them, that have gotten married and are working on raising a family.  More then one of them have lamented to me how lucky I am to be young, single and carefree.  To not be hampered by the burdens of family and all the obligations that go with it.

Every once in a while, a group of my single friends will get together and soon enough, a group of them are lamenting about the fact that they have yet to find the women of their dreams so that they might know the joy of love and the thrill of raising children.

Perhaps I’m naïve, but, in the end, I think they are both wrong.  One isn’t better then the other, they both just are.  Time, maturity, and the power of Providence will lead us and form us as needed.  And while it is made up of the choices we make, there is also something to the old saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

That might be the wisest choice of all.

I’m still not sure when it happened.  One minute, I was slapping sandbags into place, with a small band of people working feverishly.  The next minute, there seemed like hundreds of people working together.The Minnesota National Guardsman was directing people to fill sandbags and form human chains to get them up to the dike.  More sand was being called for.  The first trailer load of sandbags from one of the sandbag filling stations in Dilworth pulled into the lot.

There were hundreds of people working together.

The television and radio broadcast done only about an hour earlier had caused results.  People heard the call and flocked to their friends and neighbors in need…actually, not even friends and neighbors - strangers in need really.  Some were local, most were not.

The sandbags were flowing from the sand pile to the dike in progress.  Over the course of the next hour, more progress would be made - probably twice as much progress in that one hour - then had done in the previous two hours combined.

As I was relieved from slamming the bags - carefully - into place, I looked in awe first to the mass of humanity that had materialized in such a short amount of time, then my eyes went to the river - my point of reference, several ruts made by the skidsteer which had cleared snow the night before - were still in sight, in the last two hours, it appeared to these untrained eyes that the river hadn’t risen at all.

My rest over and a bottle of water chugged down, I made my way into one of the human chains hefting sandbags from the sand pile to the dike.  It was far easier then placing them on the dike, but still labor intense.  From my place in the line, I could see the action around me.  The forklift making its way with pallets of sandbags to the other side of the church (where even more people were working), hundreds of people working to fill bags.  A Red Cross and Salvation Army truck circling the parking lot.  People too old or too young to heft sandbags handing out water and picking up the empty bottles - we’ll be darned if we’ll give the river even an empty bottle, let alone a church.

When the sand ran out, it was announced that there would be a twenty to thirty minute delay until the next load of sand arrived.  I made my way into the church hall.

Soon it was clear what the Red Cross and Salvation Army had been doing - they were supplementing the work of the group women who had been laboring in the kitchen.  Funeral hotdish (though light on tomatoes), ham sandwiches, baloney sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, energy bars, pop, water, Gatorade, bars, and cakes were piled on the counter of the church hall and a few other tables.

One of the ladies serving food handed me a steaming hot bowl of Funeral Hotdish.

“I can’t eat this!”  I said, “It’s a Friday in Lent - this has meat in it.”

“Father says if you are saving his church, you can eat anything you want!” She replied, “Just look at the sign down there.”

Sure enough, there was a sign, “Meat ok to eat for anyone sandbagging today,” signed by Father Mike.

It might have been that I was cold and sore, it might have been that I was eating “forbidden food,” but that hotdish tasted pretty darn good.

A little comment about the sandbags.  A properly filled sandbag should weigh between 35 and 40 pounds.  It should be four inches high, ten inches wide, and sixteen inches long.  That is probably what they averaged, but in reality, with thousands of volunteers filling them, they ranged in size and weight, from light softballs, to something that at times seemed like a water heater.  98% of the them had one end open, for two reasons, first, it was quicker and easier then tying them all shut - and time was of the essence, and second, the open flap allowed the sandbags to hold together - another sandbag placed on the flap would tie the bags together.Dikes are often built in areas that are not easy to get too, so the sandbags are carried into place by chains of people.  Sometimes a few people long, to sometimes a hundred.

We started out with only a few people on the sandbag line, taking them off the pallets brought by the forklift and passing them towards where the dike should be.  The guy at the front of the line was responsible for putting the bags in place.  It was hard, tough work.

Soon, I was the man in front of the line, slapping the sandbags into place.  A line of people were handing them from the pallets back to me, and I with a quick twist of the wrist and heavy slam, the sandbags were put into place.

With each pallet that was emptied came a brief respite from the flurry of activity.  With each respite came the calls from the armchair quarterbacks.  Critiquing and commenting on the proper placement of sandbags.

“You need to have the butt end to the river - always.”

“You need to fold those flaps under.”

“You need to have the flaps out so that you can stack on top of them and tie them together.”

“Your section of the dike looks pretty messy.”

“You need to make sure everyone is putting them in place the same.”

It was a chorus of people all experts in laying sandbags (though in truth had about as much experience as the rest of us).

We were saved by a young soldier in the Minnesota National Guard who had been sent to help us, he walked up to us during one of the breaks, looked over the work we were doing, and said, “that looks about perfect.”

The armchair quarterbacks melted away.  Those of us who were laying the sandbags, or who had laid them previously, had a puzzled look on our faces - if I was doing it right, what did it mean for the hundred feet of dike that had been laid before that was done differently.  The guy that I took over for asked me, “If this section is perfect, do you think we will have to redo that section?”

The national guardsmen stopped back after the next pallet was in place and the next one was being brought up the front, during one of our brief time of rest.

“Looks good,” the guardsman said.

“What about the other section of the dike, will we need to redo it?” Someone asked.

The guardsman smiled a little and said, “Naw.  You can lay these things about ten different ways.  As long as they aren’t frozen, they should hold.  But it shut up the armchair quarterbacks didn’t it?”

The five of us, my brother, sister-in-law, two neices, and me, walked from the car to the church, carrying our stock of flood fighting tools and food.  Not quite sure what the day would bring, but confident that we would do our best.My car thermometer reported a balmy ten degrees Fahrenheit.  A few snowflakes, big and beautiful, floated in the still, spring air.  Almost the perfect day for a hard days work of throwing sandbags.

Inside the church, a group of ladies were already working in the kitchen, preparing food and refreshments for the sandbagging crews.  My brother and I went out back to see the river we would be fighting.

There was about twenty of us there at 8:30 in the morning.  We surveyed the scene.  The river was within about ten feet of one corner of the church, the first place the river would strike in the neighborhood.  In the other back corner, a storm sewer was precariously close to the church - if it back up, there could be some real trouble.  Off to one side, an earthen dike protected one neighborhood - put in place before the last crest projection had been changed.  That neighborhood was below 40 feet.  The new area of focus, our job for the day, would be those threatened if the river rose to 43 feet.

Snow covered the ground, up to eight inches deep from the last snow storm that hit earlier in the week.  A frantic call for help the night before garnered a forklift and skid steer loader and two people that knew how to use them.  The snow had been cleared where the dike was to go.

There were twenty of us.  In the cold.  The river still rising about 1/10 of an inch an hour.  We unrolled the first sheet of plastic as the first pallet of sandbags came out of the church garage.

The battle begins.

The church had four pallets of sandbags delivered the night before and they were placed in an unheated garage.  They froze.  You can’t lay down frozen sandbags.  They won’t form a good seal and will quickly succumb to the pressures of the river, like trying to stack misshapen bowling balls - heavy, but not stable.  Each sandbag had to be stomped, smashed, and kicked to loosen the sand.  People from eight to eighty kicked and fought with the frozen bags.  It was a slow and arduous process.

It looked like it was going to be a long day.

More people showed up.  A truck load of sand, delivered earlier in the day, started to dwindle as sandbags were filled.  As we fought with the frozen bags, the new volunteers filled bags.  The forklift operator delivering them on pallets to those of us working alongside of the angry river.

About nine-thirty, a news crew showed up.  I image that the image seen on television and described on the radio was a desperate one.  Fifty people, filling sandbags and manhandling them into place.

As I was driving in that morning, one reporter stated that Fargo-Moorhead would need 50,000 volunteers to raise the dikes and save the now vulnerable areas after the crest forecast had been risen the night before from 41 to 43 feet.

As we wrestled the sandbags into place, I imagined the same desperate fight taking place up and down and on both sides of the river.  One last desperate stand against an ever rising foe.

Looking at the river, it seemed to be inching higher.  Light snow continued to fall…

 As I continued northwest in the predawn darkness, the lack of traffic was disturbing.  I’ve driven Interstate 94 back and forth from Fargo to Minneapolis for sixteen years, it is always a busy streatch of road (by rural standards) at all hours of the night and day…but little traffic plied the pavement this day.

The radio kept me updated on the recent developments.  The hospitals had been evacuated.  Large sections of Moorhead had been evacuated.  Storm sewers were backing up.  The river was rising at about a 1/10 of an inch and hour.  FEMA was called in.  More national guard troops were being asked for on both sides of the river.  Voluntary evacuations were still being called for on both sides of the river.  Backup dikes were being built as fast as possible.  A breach had already occurred the night before, but with the help of volunteers, the flood waters were beaten back.

I had been through this is 1997….but something seemed ominous this time.

I placed a call to my brother at exactly 7am, the prescribed time we had set the night before.  About thirty miles outside of Fargo, we had to make a decision…which route to take to get me to his home in Hawley, about 20 miles north of my present location.  The easiest was up the four lane cut across between the Interstate and US Highway 10.

“I think they have water over the road there.”  Tom advised.  “Better take nine.”

Minnesota Highway 9, a curvy cut across from I-94 to US 10, less then thirty miles from the heart of the flood fighting action.  Taking the Barnesville exit and turning my car north, it was clear where the counties efforts had been - the highway was covered in snow and ice.  For the next twenty miles of that snow covered road, from Barnesville to US 10, there was one car on the road.

But oh the trucks.  Going through the little hamlet of Downer, a convoy of sand trucks raced through town, full and heading west.  As I pulled up to US 10, the same sight, three gravel trucks, making their way to Fargo with all speed over the icy roads.

Pulling into my brothers driveway about 7:45, the garage door opened for me as if by magic, walking through the garage and opening the door into my brother’s kitchen, the family was wolfing down breakfast, packing up bars, and getting their clothing together to fight the mighty Red River.

Within twenty minutes, my brother Tom, sister-in-law Mary and my two nieces, Abby and Sarah were piled into my Trailblazer, along with five pans of bars, a case of water, three shovels, and some extra clothing - just in case the day got too soggy - the families fight wouldn’t have to come to an end.

We made our way into Moorhead on the icy roads in the cold of a winter that just didn’t want to end - counting the sand trucks as we went and listening to the latest news, forecasts, and evacuation notices on the radio.  Wondering about my sister far away, much farther then it normally seemed, on the other side of town - we had gotten a text from her early in the morning saying simply, “I am ok.  Was out filling sandbags.  Will call 2morrow.”

No one knew in our little band knew what roads were open and which were closed.  We took Highway 75 on the western edge of Moorhead.  This was going to be a surgical strike - take the road far away from the river, then a direct shot on the main drag into the heart of the north side of Moorhead on 12^th avenue, right into my brother’s old neighborhood and up to the neighborhood and church that sat right on the banks of the swollen river.

The road was open.  As we got within eight blocks of the river, water sat on the side of the roads, back up from the storm sewer system. The closer we got to the river, the more water sat on the intersections.  We pulled into St. Francis’ church parking lot - a parking lot with far too few cars in my mind to fight the rising flood waters.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

Participants in a successful marriage must have different interests or the marriage will go stale.  I believe that and so does my wife, Mary.

She likes to bake cakes and cross-stitch.  I like to write, pretend I’m a handyman and collect toy tractors.  Mary’s finished products are always masterpieces.  She’s got talent and I’m her biggest fan.  But I’m not terribly interested in all the stuff that goes n before the finished product.

Mary loves to shop for the newest cake pans, decorating tips and frosting colors and I haven’t even mentioned all the patterns that go with her cross-stitching. If we go to a mall or store, we always wind up looking at these items.   “Ooo, look, she squeals, “They have that new mini-loaf pan i’ve been looking for.”

“Yes, that’s nice, ” I politely reply.

“Oh, look at this wonderful pattern book,” she exclaims.

“Yes, dear, that’s nice,” I politely reply.  It’s the best response.  It shows your interest in her hobbies, but doesn’t display your ignorance.

Once in a while, I make a suggestion.  “Hey, look at this nice pattern.”

“Yes, dear, that’s very nice,” she replies, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

Of course, by the time we’re finished looking at all those cake pans and cross-stitch patterns, there’s not enough time left for my two shopping passions-bookstores and hardware stores.

Tools and books.  Books and tools.  I love’em.

But we take a quick run through and it’s, “I’m done shopping.  Lets go home,” from Mary.  In the interest of financial stability and marital harmony, I rarely protest.

But I thought I had finally found a way to get even.

“Do you want to go up to Jewell this afternoon for a little while,” I casually asked.  I held my breath, waiting for an answer.

“What’s going up there?” She asked.

She hadn’t flatly refused, so I still had a chance.  If I could word it diplomatically, I’d be home free.

“It’s Sunday.  It’s a beautiful spring day.  The sun is shining.  The birds are singing.  The trees are starting to bud and I just want to share it all with you, my love,” I said liltingly.

“Oh, I almost forgot, there’s a little toy show going upon at South Hamilton High School.  I thought we could take it in as long as we are up that way.”

“Sound nice,” she said.

“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard correctly.

“Sure, it sounds nice,” she repeated.

Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  She said yes!

So off we went.  We got to Jewell.  We found the high school.  We paid admission and went inside.  The place was packed with farm-toy enthusiasts.  We got into line and began shuffling around the tables.

“That’s one like one of yours, isn’t it?” Mary asked.  “That’s a commemorative edition.  Model A.  Yours has a box so it should be worth more than that,” she added.

I scratched my head.  My mouth hung open.  How did she know about toy tractors?  That was my hobby.  But Mary had already moved on to the exhibitor.

“Did you see the price on that?” She whispered.  “Too high.  If you’re to buy anything, you better shop around a little bit.”

I was speechless.  I recovered soon enough and we spent the next couple of hours looking over the treasures displayed there.  We stared incredulously at the prices of some of the real antique toys.  We admired the handiwork on some of the homebuilt and modified models.

Mary listened intently to everything I said and displayed a pretty good knowledge of toy collecting.  I was amazed.  I was thrilled.  I thought I was going to have to drag her around while she stared longingly at the door.   But when we got done, she asked me if I wanted to look at anything again.

We had a wonderful time.  But I was troubled.  I just couldn’t figure it out.

“Did you have a good time?” I asked as we were leaving.

“Yes,” she said.  “But remember this the next time I want to look at cake pans.”

She doesn’t have to worry about that.  Gratitude and confusion should keep me humbly in place at every cake shop and cross-stitch display between now and next year’s Central Iowa’s Toy Show.  Wives.  Go figure.

The conversation is usually pretty similar.”Hey Dad, how are you?” I say.

“Good, what’s new with you?” He’ll respond.

“Nothing.  Anyone one sick?  Anyone died?”  I’ll ask, and this is usually followed by the normal damage assessment from my hometown.

But that conversation changes in March.  

“How is the ditch?”  I’ll ask.

Yup, spring time always means talking about ditches and water, and in our family, no ditch gets more airplay then the one that cuts across our home forty.  Dad then gives a detailed description of the status of the ditch that runs behind our barn and back behind our grove of trees, a typical description may go something like:

“Getting full.  The culvert up on Juniors land opened up last night, so all of that water is now sitting and backed all the way up onto the old Hull eighty.  The back pasture is darn near full and I think there is water all the way up to where that old Massey combine used to be parked behind the grove, not quite up to the threshing machine line like it did back in ‘97, but pretty high, almost like it did back in ‘89.  Still not in the trees, but if it doesn’t break open soon, we could have some issues.”

For eleven months out of the year, the ditch is an innoculous thing.  It takes water away from the farm and drains several miles north and east of our farm.  In the spring, it is something quite different.  When that ditch breaks open, like the robins returning, it is a sign of spring.

The culverts, frozen by snow and ice after the long hard northern winters, break open and the water flows from one section to another.  When the culvert north of our farm breaks, all that water surrounds our farmstead on two sides - and if the culvert just west of our driveway doesn’t free up in time, the water can pour over the road and wash it away.

Sometimes, it is a slow process, with the ditch behind the house filling slowly.  Sometimes, with a good warm, south wind, we can go from a winter wonderland to a near island overnight.

Regardless, it is always the main topic of conversation in the spring.  It has been fifteen years since my main address has been on our little farm on the edge of the prairie, but still, the water level in the ditch remains, even for my brothers, one of the main conversations of spring.

The calls home pick up a little more.  Dad fills his duty very well, giving us a play-by-play as the water rises and finally pushes through.

Late last week, the call we had been waiting for finally came through (Dad calling us is fairly rare, so we knew it had to be a death or the ditch breaking open).

“How are you?” Dad will ask.

“Good, what’s new at home?”  We’ll ask expectantly….

“Ditch broke open.”  He’ll reply.

“Bust through the road?”  We’ll ask.

“Nope, but almost, flowed over.”  He’ll say, then quickly follow it with, ” I gotta go and call your other brothers.”

Spring has arrived.  Even if at home, they suffered through another eight inches of snow, even if the cold set in again, even if….

“The ditch froze up again.  Looks like we are going to have two thaws this year.  Water could get high again, and the road already is weak from the last one.  Haven’t had this since the spring of ‘83.  That was a fun spring.  I gotta go call your brother.”

 I had no intention of heading up north to help with the sandbagging efforts in the Fargo-Moorhead area.  I had done my time in 1997 and while I cared deeply about the area, the twin cities on the Red River, and the people of the Red River Valley.  This didn’t seem to be my fight.

As late as last Thursday, I had friends and co-workers asking about my family and friends.

“They are all fine,” I said, “they know enough to build on high ground!” I joked.

About 8:30pm last Thursday, I called to talk to my Dad and get a run down on the latest and greatest news in northwestern Minnesota.  Far from the flooding, he seemed like the least likely source of information on the happenings in the Valley.

“A lot of people have been asking about you and the family, I just keep telling them that our family is smart enough to build on high ground!” I said.

“Your sister is in voluntary evacuation area,” he replied.

I had forgotten about my sister.

Not really forgotten, just believed that she was so far away from the river, she was out of any harms way.  But as luck turned out, the high water and the encroaching storm had the city officials of Fargo worried.  A 43 foot crest could over run the current dikes, so they were putting up secondary dikes…and my sister was caught in between.

With some frantic phone calls to my brother and his wife outside of Moorhead, trying to determine if she was in harms way or not, it brought the situation home.  My little sister, still the young girl of sixteen in my head (though really closer to thirty), was in harms way.  And worse, we couldn’t get a hold of her.

About 10:30pm I talked to my brother, fresh home from filling sandbags with my seventh grade niece.  I asked one simple question, “Should I come up or shouldn’t I?”

There was a long pause.

“You wouldn’t have too.” My brother replied.

How can you argue with a compelling argument like that (those of you that know Minnesota speak understand the message - a loud and clear “yes”)

A couple of quick phone, a quick email or two, a few things thrown into an overnight bag, and a collection of necessary cloths to throw on in the morning (long johns, jeans, insulated socks, t-shirt, long sleeved t-shirt, pull over sweatshirt, zip up sweatshirt, work boots) and a pile of cloths to take to the car (Carhart jacket, stocking cap, gloves, insulated boots) and off to bed I went…with alarm set for 3am…about four hours of sleep.

The alarm rang, and the first thing I ran to do…without even shutting off the alarm…was to make a pot of coffee.  It was going to be a long day.

By about 3:30am, the car was packed, the last couple of emails to take care of things for work were sent, and I was on my way in the chill of the early morning filling my lungs and the sound of talk radio telling the heroic tales of the people far to the northwest in Fargo and Moorhead.

Stopping for gas in Clearwater, MN, about sixty miles outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul, I was surprised to see two ambulances from central North Dakota filling up with gas.  They were a long way from home.  Back on the road, a couple of Minneapolis area ambulances rushed past me, heading northwest.  In the other lane of traffic, the flashing lights of ambulances racing to Minneapolis in a short convoy drew my attention to the southbound lanes.  Soon, small packs of ambulances were a frequent sight heading south - away from the flood, away from the looming disaster.

When I could finally pick up KFGO, the main radio station out of Fargo, the truth hit me between the eyes, the hospitals in the Fargo area had been evacuated.  It was a ominous sign at 5am in the morning, the day before the might Red River of the North was to crest…