Easy grow.
Grow easy.
Go easy.

How can we grow easier in our lives and our skins?

African goddess mask emerging from Botswana basket…greeting and welcoming guests as they enter the Goddess Gathering Room. —JGR

The phrase “Outer, Inner, Secret, and Innermost Secret” comes from a practice sequence in Tibeten Buddhism.

OUTER

In the design of space in my apartment, the Outer room in the front room…what most folks would call the “living room.” But, for me, it is my Goddess Gathering Room.” This is where I recieve guests, entertain, commune. It is my public salon.

INNER

The Inner room is my bedroom…very simple. Just a bed from my fathers house and a basket collection from Botswana.

SECRET

The Secret room is the back room. This is my study, my workroom, my den…my screen room…where I work on the computer and watch TV. This room would conventionally have been the master bedroom.

INNERMOST SECRET

The Innermost Secret room is a walk-in closet I’ve converted to my meditation/shrine room.

What are the Outer, Inner, Secret, and Innermost Secret areas of your life as reflected in your living space?

From July 4th to July 12th I’ve posted 12 entries written by Erwin A. Thompson giving a historical perspective on the Mississippi River floodstages through the years.

I sure hope you’ll have a chance to look through these as a series. It’s been a pleasure posting them. Hats off to my father, Erwin A. Thompson for writing these for Riehlife and our loyal daily readers. —JGR

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2008-07-12

1) 1943 Floodstage “Home on Pass & Nearly Impassable,” by Erwin A. Thompson
2) 1943 Floodstage: “Me & My Brother,” by Erwin A. Thompson

2008-07-11

3) 1973 Floodstage Mississipi River, “Never Happen?” by Erwin A. Thompson
4) Floodstage! How our Old Gate Road became a life line to higher ground…by Erwin A. Thompson

2008-07-10

5) 1993 Floodstage…500 year flood damage on a human scale, by Erwin A. Thompson

2008-07-09

6) 1993 Floodstage Tribute: Bob Sanders, Garbageman—He went beyond the call of duty because it was the right thing to do, and got new business.

2008-07-08

7) 1993 Floodstage Tribute: “Dog Mike,” poem by Erwin and Ruth Thompson for a brave flood fighter
Mississippi Headwaters Postcard

2008-07-06

9) 2008 Mississippi River Floodstage, by Erwin A. Thompson (& Janet Riehl)…floodstage series continues

2008-07-05

10) River Love from Childhood & Changes in the River, by Erwin A. Thompson
11) Floodstage Mississippi River, 1903, 1943, 1973, 1993…add 15 years = 2008: “Man, the Meddler

2008-07-04

12) From Floods to Flames…series on Mississippi Floodstage starts tomorrow just as I go towards the firestorms

The first time that a flood really affected my life was the flood of 1943. That was one of the big ones.

INBETWEEN ARKANSAS & TEXAS TRAINING CAMPS IN WORLD WAR II

Ruth and I were coming home from our tour of duty at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. Our unit was being moved from that location to Camp Fannin, Texas, near Tyler.

No provision had been made for non-commissioned officers of my grade to transport their families from the Little Rock location to the Tyler one.

We had no arrangements made for living quarters in that area, either and did not expect to get any since the grapevine told us that rents for apartments were seventy dollars a month, and then you had to find one!

COMING HOME TO EVERGREEN HEIGHTS, SOUTHWESTERN ILLINOIS, THE RIEHL FARM

So we were coming home. Our “treasures” that we had so proudly collected in our year of marriage and housekeeping there were all tucked safely into the little two-wheeled trailer that we were pulling behind our faithful 1939 Hudson.

We were in good shape, or thought we were. We were babes in the woods!

WORLD WAR II GAS RATIONING AND RATION STAMPS

First problem, we stopped in a filling station along the route to gas up. We had ration stamps, but we running afoul of the law! No gasoline was to be sold to pleasure cars after nine o’clock P. M.

Ruth’s brother Lloyd lived in Saint Louis at that time. We stopped at his house, woke him up, and bummed enough gasoline to get to Evergreen Heights. One hurdle jumped over.

To properly appreciate this brotherly act one must go back in history to those times and conditions. The cash value of the gasoline was minimal, seventeen cents a gallon. But gasoline was rationed. To buy it one needed ration stamps.

In order to get ration stamps one needed to document the neccessary travel miles and have the authorities decide how much gasoline to allow. These were not transferrable. They had to be torn out of the ration book by the person pumping the gasoline.

ALTON BRIDGE OUT FROM FLOODING

The second hurdle we faced was that water from the 1943 flood had inundated the Missouri approach to the Alton Bridge. We got directions to the Chain of Rocks Bridge, fortunately before we arrived at the Alton bridge and found it closed.

RIEHL LANE IN DISREPAIR AND NIGH UNTO IMPASSABLE

Riehl Lane had suffered mightily from my absence. The culvert between the Foree driveway and the Stiritz corner had washed out so badly that they were traveling through the Foree asparagus patch instead of the road.

Fortunately we had already been told of this detour. But from the Foree drive on to our property line there were recent washouts that were frightening, especially at three o’clock in the morning in the rain.

TODDLER JULIA & WIFE RUTH WALK HOME…IN POISEN IVY

I didn’t want to risk my wife Ruth and our toddler Julia, so they disembarked and walked. I drove past the treacherous gullies with no ill effects.

Their walk proved to be a major disaster. Along with the neglect of the roadway, the poison ivy had taken over. Ruth got as bad a dose of it as she ever had. Fortunately, Julia escaped it; that was purely providence, as neither of us had considered the walk to be potentially dangerous.

After Ruth and I unloaded and settled in at home, I prepared to fix the road. It was a hopeful venture. I was trying to use the trailer to haul the rock. I must have also quarried the rock.

But disaster struck again. I got stuck! Down on the Upper Bottom Road. There was no handy team of mules. Then I heard an unusual sound down in the west Bottom, along the railroad tracks. It sounded like somebody in trouble with a car.

My inquiry determined that it was Dick Lock, with his little Ford tractor. Beltrees Road was closed, and he was taking the milk from their daiy to someplace where it could be picked up.

Dick had tired of bumping along on the railroad ties, and tried going along side them. This maneuveur had proved to be a mistake. The ground beside the railroad ties was all soaked up from the flooding and the only place that he went was down!

The two of us retired to the Riehl barn and secured the various tools of our trade to rescue his tractor and dairy milk.

It’s remarkable what two healthy men, working toward a common purpose that they both understand, can accomplish. We rescued the tractor, and he delivered the milk.

Afterwards we took his tractor up to where my trouble was. We unhooked the trailer and rescued the car, getting it safely up to the top of the hill. Dick hooked onto the trailer with his tractor and helped me fix the road.

One time Dick told a mutual acquaintance that I was like an older brother to him. This reminds me of the joke of the little smart alec youngster whose friends gave a hard time: “How come you don’t know that? I thought you said you knew everything!”

“Naw,” the young boy replied. “I never said that. I said me and my brother knew everything. That is one of the things that my brother knows!” So between the two of us Dick and I solved both of our problems!

In 1937 they closed the Alton Lock and Dam.

This dam had been loudly touted as the last thing needed for flood control.

I remember asking: “What are you going to do with the extra water coming down stream? Pump it out over the top?”

“No, it will never happen,” was the answer.

In 1973 it did happen.

The water got high enough that my friend and neighbor, Duke Cummines took me with him to raise a trammel net on Stanka Lane in front of his house. We went over the guard rails of the Great River Road in his little boat, and did not touch them.

The water did get in under the floors of the O’Flaherty house and do some damage, but did not actually get into the living quarters.

EVERGREEN HEIGHTS LAYOUT: The Hilltop & Bottom Lands…and the Field Roads

HILLTOP

A lesson in the topography of our property would be helpful in understanding how these changes in river levels affected us and the community.

The Riehl farm at that time consisted of a hundred and fifty four acres. The original farm house (the Big Brown House) that E. A. Riehl built is located on top of the river bluffs, probably two hundred feet above the river level.

On the East side of the Big Brown House there’s a small white cottage.

EAST BOTTOM

The East line of the property coincides with the East line of Jersey County. This area was always referred to as “The East Bottom.”

The East Bottom had never been flooded except perhaps in 1903. I never could get a truly accurate reading on that on a local basis. In 1993 it was flooded at least half.

There was a little “field road” to it from our house on the hill. This was used also by neighbors needing to catch the steamboat at “Riehl’s Landing” or in later years the train at “Riehl’s Station.”

WEST BOTTOM

On the other end of the property was the “West Bottom.”

The West Bottom was bounded on the West by Piasa Creek. There were probably twenty-five acres of overflow ground, tillable when it was not under water of muddy from the receding waters. The West Bottom also had several acres of softwood timber which was also overflowed.

SECOND BOTTOM

Then there was the “Second Bottom” which meant that it was low ground, but not overflow ground (until 1993). To access this land from our home there was also a “field road” which was used by the person who was farming the Lock property on the east side of Piasa Creek, and occasionally by the people who lived at Lock Haven on the other side of the creek. It was a private road, never opened for public use.

In the 1973 flood the tenants who were living in mobile homes in our West Bottom got together and put crushed rock on this field road so that they could have a better access to their homes during the high water. This road, called “The Old Gate Road” in our famly,” was also used by some of the people on the other side of the creek.

In 1993 the State of Illinois came in and improved it more, along with many loads of crushed rock. It became almost a highway, with people from all over that back country using it.
People came from their homes by boat to where the road went under water there in the West Bottom, and then retrieved their cars and proceeded on to their destination.

Some people parked on top of the hill. I can’t count the cars that I pulled out of the mud because there was no provisions made for parking on a hard surface.

Riehlife’s FLOODSTAGE SERIES continues with Erwin A. Thompson’s explanation of sandbagging, pumps and dumps, and fixing up houses after the water goes down. –JGR
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In 1993 we had what they called the “five hundred year flood.”

SANDBAGGING

We tried sand bagging, there in the East Bottom, and it worked for awhile. But there are problems with sand bagging that are not clearly seen at first glance.

1) The water gets in behind the sand bagged bulwark.
2) Some of the water seeps in through the sand bags, but a lot of it comes in through the ground.
3) The same septic system that allows the waste to seep into the ground allows the river water to seep in behind the sand bagged area.

PUMPS

We used pumps.

We might have made it, but we were using electric pumps and there was a 24 hour power outage. We lost.

FIXING THE HOUSES AFTER THE WATER WENT DOWN

We owned three houses at that time threatened by the flood: 4200 Stanka Lane, #7 Gibbens, and #10 West Bluffline. I used our boat and rescued the water heaters and furnaces from all three houses.

When the water receded, we went back in and rehabilitated the dwellings. This was mostly work. There had been probably three feet of water in each of them.

The Government furnished a “dump” where the trash could be deposited, up by Grafton. This was a big help.

I got my three dwellings done in a couple of months, at a cost of around a thousand dollars for materials for the three of them. I had very little help except for a young man who had been displaced over across the creek who helped me with #7 Gibbens.

And so, the five hundred year flood of 1993 became history.

This is a continuation of the RIEHLIFE FLOODSTAGE SERIES written by Erwin A. Thompson. Read on! —JGR

How We Got a New Garbageman, Because He Did the Right Thing in Hard Times
by Erwin A. Thompson

Garbage in any flood is a major problem and in the 1993 flood it was a problem for the people still living in the flooded area.

At that time we were using Whiteway Sanitation from Jerseyville. They used Stanka Lane and the River Road to come in on. I told them how to come in Riehl Lane, our back way in emergenncies. They told me to tell them when the waters had receded. I told them “Never mind!”

Bob Sanders came in here and picked up whatever garbage there was. I had it gathered up by our parking lot for the Upper Cottage. I don’t remember that he ever even billed me for it. I had not been one of his customers.

One of the benefits of a real emergency is that you find out what is in people. Bob Sanders behavior in the 1993 floods is a prime example of that. He has had my business ever since, and the business of all of the tenants that I am responsible for.

Bob Sanders: I salute you!

DOG MIKE
by Erwin and Ruth Thompson

For Mike Sztukowski
remembering his heroic efforts during the 1993 flood

There’s names, sometimes, that I can’t spell,
They’re hard enough to say!
So we just call him “Dog Mike,”
He answers, anyway!

He looks just like a pirate,
Long hair gathered in the back;
His eyes a bright and piercing blue,
His whiskers are jet black.

The dog: That’s Sadie, has to be his ears;
Her step is clean and neat.
And Sadie is a lady,
Although she has four feet!

He should have been a blacksmith,
Back in the days of yore.
He drives a nail: two easy licks
Would maybe take me four!

The river rose, he started in to help
To save his neighbor’s homes;
Never dreaming at the time
The worst was yet to come!

The battle lost, the river won;
It rose up overnight.
And breached their sandbag levee
They lost their gallant fight!

His own home, then, was threatened;
And then the one next door.
More sand, and sandbags, running low,
And then we got some more.

Friends and neighbors came to help,
It was a dedicated fight.
They built a levee three feet high,
Sometimes they worked all night!

The seepage overcame the pumps,
Al Golike brought his with a smile.
Ruth’s nephew, Court, brought his;
It looked good, for awhile!

And then it rained, the power failed,
There was no reassuring sun.
It was a serious outage,
The pumps were quiet, all but one.

And still they fought,
With courage and a thread of hope.
They’re in there, strainin’ sweatin’ tryin’.
When just at dusk the levee broke!