The Best and the Worst

My mailman and I were talking yesterday about all of this flooding, and I think he summed it up best. It brings out the best and the worst in people...

Seeing the masses of people volunteering by sandbagging, moving books, giving blood and so on really restores my faith in humanity. I'm still glad that I didn't volunteer for the sandbagging, because the river topped it all, but know this... I will help with the clean-up.

On the other side of the coin... a couple of days ago, a group of us went to the boat slips... boat houses, "garages" for house boats, and so forth. It's a neat little area. Rather, it was a neat little area. You see, the boat houses (in many cases, were) connected to a concrete peninsula with iron rods. This allowed the slips to float, but also kept them firmly in place. As the water rose, the boats couldn't freely rise with the water because of the iron rods. They tilted at precarious angles, which allowed the flotation to pop out from under the structures, causing them to tilt further... repeat ad nauseum.

Many of the boat houses finally broke free and floated downstream. There are about a dozen boats and boat houses that have collected in front of a bridge downstream. But I'm digressing, big time. I was talking about the worst of people...

It just so happened that we were in the right place at the right time, and we saw a boat house break free and begin it's trip downstream. And there was a boat tied to each side of it. My younger daughter said "That's funny." Of course she meant funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha.

This woman standing next to us said "You think that's funny!?! Maybe you need to go somewhere else!"

"Lay off her, she's a kid," I demanded.

"Some of us have property out there," she bitched.

What I thought... what I wanted to say... was "Oh yeah, well most of us aren't rich enough to have property out here, so pardon my lack of sympathy." What I actually said was "Leave her alone. She's a kid." Apparently my increased sternness worked, because she shut her yap.

There was another woman close by, who handled the impending loss of property with a different attitude. She was talking with her husband about her boat house, and the neighbors. She talked with me a bit, displaying none of the sour attitude of the bitch from earlier.

As we left, our neighbor (who was on this trek with us) said that she knew the bitch, and that yes, she was like that all the time. The neighbor said "I felt like saying there are people that have lost their homes, and you're crying about this?"

We've lost all but one of our water treatment plants in town, so we're only supposed to use water for drinking. No clothes washing, no showers, and so forth. When this was announced, there was a small rush of people going out to buy paper plates, sterile wipes and bottled water. The overwhelming sentiment was that everyone wanted to do their small part to help.

But people have differing definitions of "sacrifice." My daughter was pissed when I told her that she could wash her hair every other day... but then again, she's a teenager. And I can't in good faith completely ban everyone from showers for two weeks. I figure a two to three minute shower every three days or so will be good... and we'll save the water in the tub for use flushing our toilets.

And then again, one of this daughter's friends overheard a conversation between her mom and a friend...

The mom: "... took a quick shower this morning."

The mom's friend: "You shouldn't do that! We're on water restriction! We could lose all of our water! But I took one too."

Like I said, the best and the worst.

I'm catching up, but there's more story to come... and don't forget the photos.