Frank Gibson
They say the dam was washed out in a horrible rain during the early part of 1887. Never bothered to rebuild it. Nope, the town just washed right away and the people went with it.”
This wisened old man stood before me, defiant in the way he himself had refused to move from this shanty town. The dilapidated nature of his home… more of a hovel really… cotinued to tell his story, even when he fell silent, searching for the words to describe his life. He was a proud man. It was evident in how he would often tell the stories of his childhood, before the flood washed away everything he knew in his early 20’s. The people would come to listen to him tell his tales of a young man, full of promise, excelling in his education, and then having to watch as it all washed away through nature’s unchecked fury.
“I was going to a big man. Go to college, get me one of those Engineering degrees… guess the land had other plans for me, you reckon?”
His gravelly laugh was hard to interpret. Such was the fine and oft-unrecognizable line between good humor and utter insanity. You could tell that he had a vision though; ideas to set the world on fire. How apt that a flood is what put out those burning desires.
His name was Charles and he was now 85 years old. It had been 65 years since the flood, 65 years since everything hew knew changed. This was a man who truly understood the lines “it was a dark and stormy night.”
Greg Adkins Inspiration piece