Flood

In December of 1976, our family moved from an apartment in Atlanta to an old house across a footbridge in the mountains of NC. The next November, the footbridge washed away.

The morning after the storm, the air was charged with excitement. Mom and I (it was just the two of us then) hurried down the hill to see the river. The river was still roaring, though down from its nighttime peak, and the swinging bridge was swinging indeed, boards and cables hanging loosely. It looked like a teenager with braces who's just been punched in the mouth.

The logical thing for us to do, really, was to lose it. Panic. Here we were, basically stranded. But that's the cool thing about living through all we had. To us, this was pure adventure. After all, Dad had left, so we felt safe for a while. We had wood for the wood stove, we had food in the cupboards, and we could walk to a bridge. In fact, we even had choices--the upstream bridge and the downstream bridge were each just a mile away, so every day we could decide on our route: does today feel like an upriver or downriver kind of day? And then it just got more exciting when some friends loaned us a boat, and we no longer had to carry the groceries and laundry in on our backs. It was like we had our own security system--when the boat was on our side, no one could get to us (good thing, since we never locked our doors, and didn't even have a key).

Truth to tell, I was a little disappointed when the state finally came to fix the bridge. I liked it when it was just Mom and me, two survivors, living on our own little island.

Boy, do I miss her.