Hearing the Bible story of ''Noah and the Ark'' and having a mind that made movies to my thoughts or to what was being read or said to me, there were plenty of odd things I wondered about from this story. Especially after my 18-month-old cousin/nephew (another story for another time) drowned at the farm in an irrigation ditch. The thought of the entire world drowning, except for Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives and only two of each animal species, male and female, I was in awe of God, and more than a little fearful. And let a big rainstorm come up and I would become so afraid I would be sick to my stomach.
Once, when I was about 7 or 8 it rained non-stop for 3 days. The creek that ran a half mile south of the house was over the banks by several feet, and had it not laid in a wide 'U' canyon, and our house been uphill from there, we would have been flooded out. A mile or so to the east the creek wound around to the north and passed under a long bridge that had to be crossed to get to church or to school. On the third night of the rain, which happened to be a church night and just like the post, come rain or shine, we were headed to church. The water had topped the bridge and was running several inches deep over the road, even my Mother was telling my Dad we should turn around and go back home. I was absolutely possitive we were going to die that night.
We did make it to church, everyone was singing and clapping their hands and enjoying the service while it continued to rain outside. All I could think about was how much more water would be running over the bridge on the way home and asked my Dad several times through the service if we couldn't just spend the night in town with some relatives and go home tomorrow. Since he and my Mother drove a school bus and the next day was school, the answer was no, we had to go home. In my minds' eye I could just see the newspaper write up about this family, who determined to attend church, had been swept off the bridge on the way home and were nowhere to be found, nobody to drive the bus the next day and no one to call and let them know.
I knew that God had put a rainbow in the sky as a promise to Noah that never again would He destroy the world by water, but that didn't cover one crazy family on the way home in a station wagon! At that moment I was really very upset with my Dad, but of course, could not tell him that! I knew, even then, that someday when I was a Mom, I sure wasn't going to do crazy things like this with my children along.
Seems rather odd now that one of my favorite songs is ''Over the Rainbow'' by Judy Garland.
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