FLOODING THE AIRWAVES
It’s only 100 days until Christmas, so it’s a good time to post.
You may have heard about the floods here in Colorado. Today my nephew Nathaniel was helping those stranded, people and pets, off helicopters that had brought them from various places in Larimer County to Fort Collins. At Mass today we prayed for the poor, stranded farm animals. I could not bring myself to give the common response to that petition. I’ve decided only to pray for animals who pray for me.
Our family farm is in Weld County. One news report said that every road in Weld County was closed. That would certainly limit travel there if that were true. My brother Jim drove out to the farm (apparently roads had been opened) and found that the Kiowa Creek that runs through the farm was not running at all. He decided to leave the road to our farm open.
My sister Wendy lives in Fort Morgan where the South Platte had flooded the Wal-Mart. That would certainly limit the shopping in that city. Riverside Park, so named because it is right next to the South Platte River, also flooded. The swimming pools in the park were already closed. They may have to re-drain them.
I’m not trying to make light of the flooding – it was very serious in many places, but some of the reporting on the flood is certainly easy to make light of. Hours and hours of coverage leaves the reporters desperate. One on-the-scene-of-the-action reporter was standing on the banks of a swollen stream. He picked up a small log and said, “Let’s see what happens when I throw this into the stream.” It floated downstream and then ran into a pile of debris that had backed up behind a bridge. Fascinating. Chesterton was right: Only a living thing can go upstream. So either the log was dead, lazy, confused, wanted to join the pile of debris, or, what I think, was camera shy.
A cubic foot of water is like a 7 or 8 pound basketball floating down the river. I think there are basketball courts at Riverside, so that could be convenient. There are for sure horse shoe pits there. Would be ironic if there are poor, stranded farm animals in the pits.
Speaking of horses, don’t worry, the Broncos game, unlike every other program, was not preempted. The Broncos, after running freely up and down a giant field, were not stranded in New York.
I am proud that Nathaniel is helping those who have real hardships from the flood and helping their pets too. Mom and I have been praying for those who are facing loss from this flood. It is easy to remember the floods of 1965 when I was eight years old – we lost a couple fields of crops to that flood, including the crop of pinto beans very near to the house. I was very scared by that flood. And we pray for the souls of those who have died and their families.
Jezu, ufam Tobie.