Move the Car

Yesterday I watched as the rain poured down off and on all day, lightening was striking all over and I got zippo work done because I booted and shut down the computer so many times I finally just decided to forget it and chalked it up to an extra vacation day. When Matt got home from work we were supposed to go pick up my Mom so she could take us out to dinner for my upcoming birthday. There was another pouring soaker that started a few minutes after he got here so we decided to wait for the rain to subside before venturing out. Since we are weather freaks we went to the balcony door to watch the lightning cross the sky and check out the “river” flowing down the side of the curb.

A car drove up the street and we watched in disbelief as a wake of white caps followed it. The majority of our street view is blocked by trees and the building next door but seeing the swishing water this far up we knew the street must be flooded. The journalist in me grabbed a camera and flip-flops and ran outside to see the action.


Our street runs perpendicular to a creek known as Mill Brook. The town was incorporated back in the 1600’s and a mill known as the Old Schwamb Mill was built on the Brook in 1650. That mill is still working today and I have no doubt it was double time yesterday.

In the photo above the orange barriers were blocking off a part of the street under construction for the past couple months. The ironic part is that two of them floated all the way down to the bridge and became stranded right in the middle of the road; a perfect location to block traffic from driving through the flood. The little red house and the white house next door had residents home at the time and they all came to their doors laughing because, what else could they do.


I have no patience for idiots as most of you know. I wish no harm to come to anyone but when there is actual moving water flowing across the road at a fairly rapid pace, and a left turn that could have been taken in lieu of driving through that water, my only wish is that your car stalls out and the fire department charges you to come and rescue you from your own stupidity.

In order to get away from the morons who thought they were invincible enough to drive through this raging rapid I decided to walk down through the parking lot of the building next door which borders along side the brook. This little guy came and stood not 2 feet from me. I think he was a bit shaken by the incident too because he kept looking up at me with eyes that said ‘I was not even born when this happened the last time ten years ago so this is kind of freaking me out’. I decided to call him Quack.


Finally I will leave you all with some video I took while down in the parking lot with my buddy Quack. He enters the frame right at the end of the video, our first encounter with each other. We both watched for a while but then my grumbling tummy and full camera card got the best of me so we took off for dinner hoping the fat rain drops beginning to fall again let up before we got back home.