Brown Water

Most families have a humorous story to tell concerning events in which they were involved, some significant some not. Perhaps a few of these stories might even become a permanent part of family lore. When we lived in Stafford Virginia shortly after I retired from the Army, our grandkids were visiting and while there we had a severe thunderstorm with very heavy rain and winds. Thankfully there was no major impact on us, but that was not true for a lonely squirrel who had sought refuge in a high tree above fast flowing, muddy, brown-colored storm water in a ditch along the street by our house. Young granddaughter Jennifer and grandson Michael sat with me on the front porch watching the rain, wind, and muddy water flow past when a large blast of wind hit and the unsuspecting squirrel was blown from the tree in which it had sought cover. We stared as it flew through the air headed for the muddy drainage ditch. Thankfully for the wet and probably terrified small animal it missed the water, landed in the street and then took off running away to safer territory. That rather insignificant event generated much laughter between us at the time and it still causes us to remember, smile and laugh today years after. Besides the squirrel’s “adventure”, what’s become a part of our family lore is the brown water that flowed past us in the drainage ditch during the height of that storm. Today, when it’s raining hard wherever we are, perhaps separated by many miles, we can convey to each other the severity of any rain storm simply by saying, “Brown water.”