The Mighty Mississippi and a much smaller river
I grew up near the Mississippi River and every year it flooded. The high school boys would be asked to devote a day to filling sand-bags to protect the Villa Louis Mansion on St. Feriole Island. Flood stages were measured in far up Blackhawk Avenue the waters reached. I don’t remember every crossing over the bridge into Iowa. At one time, it was a toll bridge. Some locals objected strenuously to that concept and tore down the toll gate building one night—-in those days the only people out that late would be the doctor hurrying to deliver a baby or the veterinarian on a similar mission.
Then there was the Wisconsin River. We crossed that bridge regularly to shop at the grocery store in Boscobel–home of the Gideons. It also flooded but there seemed to be fewer buildings nearby and it was not so impressive.
The Kickapoo also flooded—it was and is a great river to canoe on—we spent early married years vacations canoeing that river. My father or one of my brothers would put us in somewhere up river and then pick us up several days later. The canoe was borrowed from husband’s family—it was a cheap but mosquito filled vacation—some portages over and through trees–and around a dam in Gays Mills—and camping out in pastures along with the cows, cooking over a fire and eating breakfast from the top of a can of pork and beans.
Then there is the more adult version of ‘camping’ with hot showers and a bed and screened in porches and a refrigerator and stove. We did paddle around a bit in one of those paddle boats—those require a lot of energy to go not very far.
But the sun-rise over the lake was lovely.
Sylvia Weir Art 