Sandbagging

I am going to be sore tomorrow. Who knew sandbags weighed so much?! I joined some of my other east side neighbors at Mercer Park today filling, tying, hauling, and throwing bags. I was impressed with the number and mix of folks out on a muggy Sunday afternoon, but my favorite was little 3-year-old Samuel in his yellow rain boots who stood atop my pile of sand digging with his tiny shovel. He kept asking me, "Have you found the treasure yet?"

"No, Samuel," I would reply. "But you better keep digging!"

I noticed one of the otolaryngology staff in the crowd, and for a brief while, we shoveled side-by-side. I didn't say anything beyond small talk, for today we were all just sandbaggers.

The Army boys made quite a splash when they arrived with their enormous dump trucks to pick up the fruits of our labor and haul them elsewhere. They heckled one another, especially the overweight soldier who took frequent 5-minute smoke breaks and let a teenage girl work in his place. Merciless! But it was pretty funny --- they did a great job entertaining the crowd.

I did a little tourist gawking by foot downtown after we were released from our work site. Several of the campus buildings are still shut down, and the IMU and the Danforth Chapel appear to be standing in quite a bit of water. The most impressive to me, however, was Highway 6 and the businesses south on Gilbert Street. I was just shopping at Aldi's on Wednesday night, and today it is under water ... and I couldn't believe it when I saw two men fishing in the parking lot!

A lady and her husband biked by me and nodded in the direction of the fishermen and said, "There's always a silver lining somewhere, isn't there?"

I just smiled and thought about it --- why, yes, I believe there always is.