Margie's 90th - Dale

Mom,

Just a quick note to wish you a happy birthday and to say thanks for all you have done for me. I couldn't have asked for a better mom. I was thinking about you the othyer day. We went camping and when I had finished cooking pancakes for everybody, I dumped the rest of the batter in the pan and cooked up a huge pancake. I thought to myself, "Now there is something that I picked up from my mom." I thought of all the times we used to give you a bad time about feeding the biggest pancake to the dog and couldn't help but laugh. There were so many good times that involved just small everyday things that I just can't help but remember what good times we had at home. Thanks again for all you've done and all you've taught me. It has really helped me to be a better person. Have a happy birthday.

Lots of love,

Stretch

Teton Dam Memories - By Dale Shirley

My memory of the Teton Dam collapse begins on that Saturday Morning. Mom and Dad had come to Salt Lake since we were planning on giving Chris a name and a blessing in church on Sunday. They had arrived on Friday night and stayed that night. (Scott's Notes: The picture at the left shows the water as it is hitting Dad's house at top center of photo. In the center of the photo is a house that has been circled. That is Ron Kinghorn's house. It hit Grandpa Shirley's house, Grandpa Kinghorn's house, and my apartment at almost the same instant.)

It was customary at that time for me to work half days on Saturday so I left early and went to the house we were working on and set up the tools and went to work. I turned on the radio as usual and it just so happened that an employee of the station that I was listening to had left early that morning for a vacation in Yellowstone Park. When he got to the Rexburg area, word was out that the dam was breaking up so he posponed his vacation and was calling in real time information on the events to the radio station. I immediately rolled up the tools and went back home to tell Mom and Dad what I had heard. We listened to the radio for a while and kept surfing the TV stations until one of them finally got some people up there and got some pictures on the TV.

It was interesting to read Neal's account of that morning. From my end of the conversation, I don't remember Dad saying anything about getting his Colt Python. What I remember is Dad telling him to forget everything and just get his butt out of there. In Nephi"s account I noticed also that he failed to mention that the chest freezer that he loaded in the back of the truck had just been filled up with beef that had just been butchered. I once asked him how he got a loaded freezer in the back of his truck by himself and all he said was "Well... the adrenalin was flowing."

Another interesting event was a call that we got from Jan in the hospital in Idaho Falls. She had just had a baby and was unable to get a hold of Scott and was wondering if we had heard anything from him. A while later Scott called and said that he was okay. We told him that Jan had called but he said that he was unable to get a phone connection to the hospital. We then called the hospital and got through and told Jan that we had heard from him. I thought it was quite interesting that both of them could get connections out of state but could not call each other.

Sunday morning we went out early to get a paper and the front page showed an aerial photograph taken of the flood waters going through Sugar. We could see Dad's house in the photograph about a hundred yards from the edge of the water so we were sure that the house had been hit. We decided to forgo keeping the Sabbath Day and set out to get supplies and load up the trucks with stuff that we thought we might need in Idaho. When it came time for church, we dressed up and went to the church. j At the appropriate time, we filed up to the front and gave Chris a name and a blessing. Then, instead of returning to our seats, we all filed out and went home. I've often wondered what the other members of the ward thought, but knowing me it was probably nothing out of the norm.

We went home and changed clothes and farmed out the kids. I can't remember who had them but Janene and I and Chuck Lush, a neighbor of mine, and Brent Ekins, an old missionary companion, and Ard and Jan and Mom and Dad took off for Idaho in a convoy packing everhthing we thought we might need. We drove to the Port of Entry near Pocatello where we were informed that the road was closed to Rexburg and we wouldn't be allowed through. We went back to McKammon and went up through Lava Hot Springs and on up to Driggs. We then took the road above the dam and reservoir to Ashton and then down the other side to St. Anthony and Nephi's house. We arrived very late at night and there was nothing to see because it was so dark. We bedded down in sleeping bags in the family room. I don't know about anybody else, but I didn't get much sleep, but it wasn't because of the accommodations.

When it started to get light I got up and that was when I began to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into. The first thing I saw in the early morning light was the railroad tracks standing on end just down the road. When everybody else was up and ready, we got in the trucks and started on the way to Dad's house. As we got near the tracks, it was amazing to see them raised up on end for a while, then turned completely over for a while. Then the ties had been stripped off the rails and floated away, leaving these bands of rails running at random out through the fields. Where they crossed the road, somebody had unbolted the rails and taken a few sections out so we could get through on the road. We went on down the road to Hawkes' corner where we turned west. I noticed a house there that had been torn in half. I noticed that the plywood on the roof had been pulled off the trusses like bricks. Being in construction, I made a mental note on the importance of making sure the panels are nailed according to specs when I install them.

We drove to the road that turned south to Dad's house and drove to Harding's house where the road was washed out. The river bridge was packed with debris both on the bridge and under it, so the water had been forced out of the channel and was now running around both ends of the bridge. We used whatever we could find to construct a make shift bridge from the bank to the north abutment of the bridge. We packed up everything we could carry and crossed the bridge to the abutment. We then had to clear our way across the bridge and then construct another makeshift bridge from the south abutment to the south bank. As we were getting off the bridge, Mom stepped into the mud and it pulled off her shoe. We hunted around in the mud but never found it.

The hike from there to Mom and Dad's house was really strange. It was sunny and calm and was what you might think was a a beautiful day, and yet everything else was almost surreal. Some of the utility poles had been pushed crooked. Fence lines were draped with debris or missing entirely. Farm equipment and parts of buildings had been scattered at random everytwhere. All of the old familiar landmarks had either been altered or destroyed. j Overhead was a constant stream of helicopters each with the carcass of a dead farm animal hanging by a cable underneath it. I had never thought about it, but the rotting carcass of a dead animal in standing water could very quickly create a big problem, so I was glad somebody thought about it and got right on the problem.

As we got past Browning's house and Dad's house came into view, my spirits were lifted because the house was still there and apparently intact. I first went into the shed with Neph and Dad. As we began to look around we began to feel pretty good that things were still there, even though they were caked with mud. Apparently, the boat had floated inside the shed with the trailer still strapped on the bottom and then settled back down on the ground still upright when the water receded. I then went to the house and saw the message Scott had left in the mud. He had broken a window to get in the house only to find the door wasn't locked and we gave him a hard time about it for a long time after the flood.

Our spirits were also lifted as we looked around the house. About three feet of water got into the house, but a lot of stuff had been moved upstairs after we kids moved out, so a log of stuff was spared. We began pulling up the carpet and washing it out in the water 6that was still covering the front lawn. We even found the cat hiding in the garage. The dog was never found but somehow the old cat, even thought it was freaked out, managed to survive. It took quite a while before it calmed down and would allow anybody to pick it up.

After working for several hours, I became curious about an object I could see in the water about twenty feet west of the front of the garage. It was humped out of the water and I had looked at it several times and thought it looked like the bottom of a cast iron sink. Having worked under a few sinks, that is what I thought it was. It was so difficult to walk around that I hadn't investigated it before. There was about six inches of fine silt on the ground covered by about a foot of water so it took a lot of effort to pull each foot out of the mud to walk anywhere. In light of losing her shoe, we just didn't go anywhere we didn't really need to go. Finally I decided that if it was a sink there would be a hole in ;the bottom and there clearly wasn't so I went over to investigate. As I approached it, I could see some shoes under the water on the far side and I thought, "Boy, if that is a coincidence, it isn't very funny." Another step or two and I realized that I could see the color of flesh under the water on the near side and that is when I realized that it was a body. He was wearing a pair of coveralls and thee gray color was what reminded me of the bottom of a sink. We had all tried that morning to be optimistic and keep Mom and Dad encouraged but that discovery completely deflated me. It had never occurred to me that we might find a body there. (Scott's Notes: The picture at left is me taken from the bathroom hallway looking through Mom and Dad's bedroom into the kitchen).

Knowing how sensitive Mom is, we decided not to upset the women so we approached Dad privately and told him what we had found. He went out and turned the body over to see if he recognized the guy but he didn't. A passerby who saw us out there came over and said he was sure it was somebody that he knew but it turned out it wasn't who he thought it was. The body had been face down in the water and was swollen and hard to recognize. It was then that I realized just how helpless we were. There were no phone lines to call anybody and we had just built a bridge and hiked in to get there and now what are we going to do with a body? We decided to keep quiet and keep working and so we did.

Earlier we had taken a break and made some sandwiches out of stuff we found in the house. We sat in chairs in the water on the front lawn and ate. Quite by coincidence we are all sitting facing the body but nobody knew at the time that it was there.

We worked for a while longer. In addition to the choppers carrying out the dead animals, there were choppers owned by the sheriff patrolling the area. The next time one came close to the house, Dad went out and flagged it down. Mom was embarrassed and asked us what on earth he was doing but we kept our mouths shut. They checked out the body and that let the cat out of the bag to the rest of the group. As you might have guessed, Mom's eyes filled with tears even though she didn't even know the guy. They told us that the chopper was too small to take the guy so they would call in some help and they took off.

A few hours later, an Army four wheel drive ambulance came bouncing and sloshing through the mud and debris and arrived at the house. They took a body bag out and rolled the guy into it, but due to the silt and water it was way too heavy and difficult to carry out. A few of us were pressed into service and we took a hold of the handles on the body bag and struggled through the mud over to the road where the ambulance was. On the way a helicopter overhead zoomed in and I looked up to see a guy in it taking pictures just as fast as he could click the shutter. I wondered what kind of morbid guy he was. It turned out that it was a press chopper chartered by United Press International. One of the pictures was picked up and printed on the front page of the newspaper in Orem. My in-laws recognized the house even though they had only been to the house once for our wedding reception, and the picture was taken from the air, so I really don't know how they recognized the house. It is the same picture that Scott has on the blog. It is the only time in my life that I have ever made the front page of the newspaper.

One of the first things we noticed when we arrived in the morning was that the old house trailer parked in the yard was missing. It was pretty much to be expected that a house trailer would be an easy victim to a flood. One would expect that the water would roll the trailer over until it fell apart and scatter the remains downstream. That afternoon, I think it was Neal that got Dad's binoculars and spotted the trailer about half a mile away from the upstairs window. The water had picked it up and carried it upright until the wheels caught on something so the water set it back down still intact. Neal and Dad later went over and got it and towed it back home. It is interesting that some of Mom and Dad's food storage had been kept in the trailer. A few bags of grain had gotten wet but a lot of stuff was still okay. It sort of makes you wonder if it was being watched over, doesn't it? (Note from Scott: The above picture shows Dad retrieving the lost trailer. Between the tractor and the trailer is our house in the distance).

We worked the rest of the day and then hiked back out and went back to Neal's house. I know I slept very well that night. We all had to get back to work so we went back to Salt Lake and that was pretty much the end of my Teton Dam Experience. I felt bad that I couldn't stay and help. A lot of people from Salt Lake went up on excursions to help but I could always say that I was there first.

Most of the rest of the stuff I heard about the event was second-hand information. I had heard that trucks owned by the company that built the dam had rocks thrown at them as they went on their way up to the dam site. There are two stories involving Dad. I once heard him talk about being assigned to do patrol at night to help prevent the looters from coming in. He remarked about how quiet it was at night. Every field mouse and other creatures of the night had been washed away and whenever he even heard a twig snap it gave him a start. I also heard a story about someone giving Dad a hard time using the old "Why did God allow this to happen to a bunch of Mormons?" argument. Dad's response was a simple, "God didn't build the Teton Dam."

Dale Ward Shirley - by Scott Shirley

Introduction by Dale Shirley: Just a comment or two on the nicknames. "Stretch" was not my first nickname. When we were a lot younger, Nephi called me "littlie" or "little little." The "Stretch" nickname showed up one year at the Treasure Mountain Camp of the Tetons scout camp near Driggs. I had one of my growth spurts and when we went to camp, we were all lined up for flag ceremony and there I was a whole head taller than all the other boys in line. One of the camp staff called me stretch and everybody laughed but we pretty much forgot about it. Then a few years later we were sitting around at school and talking about old times and one of the guys remembered when the councilor at camp called me stretch and everybody laughed and the nickname stuck ever since. It should be noted however that 1) - I am a construction superintendent, 2) - I have been divorced, and 3) - I have raised five teen-agers by myself. I have been called everything you can imagine and a few things your can't imagine, so "Stretch" is one that I feel pretty good about.

Biography: For so much of his life, Dale was known as "Stretch." He was the tallest of the family at 6'3''. He was born a year and one month after Neal, and three years before Janet and I came along. Mom said that because Dad was 34 and Mom was 25 when they got married, they were anxious to get their family here. The four of us were born within a six-year span. We lived just inside the border of the Sugar Ward, but Mom and Dad attended the Salem Ward. No one objected.

My first recollections of Dale involved me trying to follow him everywhere. He watched out for me many times. I remember people lining Dale and I side by side and laughing about how we looked so much alike (except for the fact that I was less than half his size).

Stretch was a builder. He loved to spend hours putting together model skyscrapers from a building set he got for Christmas. The little blocks were inter-locking half-inch blocks, with little doors and windows that actually opened and shut. The floors where checker-board red and white. Stretch would create building about 3 to 4 feet high, following the directions for the most part, but adding his own creations as well. He and Neal also built model cars, which were on constant display across the curtain rod cover above the picture window on the east side of the living room. They also built WWII models of various airplanes (which Janet and I packed with firecrackers and threw from the upstairs window years later - I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at he time).

Stretch took two 55 gallon drums that Dad had in the back and built a wo0den frame around it. He created a raft and launched it in the canal, securing it to the support wire that kept the power pole on the canal bank straight. An outrigger was added with inner-tubes on each side to keep the raft from tipping. Dale often got into the canal and pulled the raft up the road a couple of hundred yards to the check so that Janet and I could ride back down to our house. That is where he and Neal taught Janet and I how to swim.

Stretch was also a mechanic. He and Neal asked Dad if they could take the old baler engine (the "Wisc", short for Wisconsin) and overhaul it. Dad allowed them to do it. When they had questions, they asked people who knew. They spent many hours out in the garage working late into the night with Jim Cutler. I remember the day when they finally got it ready and had to start the engine with a hand crank. Everyone cheered as it roared to life. It never was used to power anything, but it taught the boys 1) how to overhaul an engine, and 2) anything you decide to accomplish can be done. It is also an example of how Dad let us tackle the impossible, helping when necessary, and encouraging us through our many failures. He often mentioned how many times they could not sleep because of the mechanics that were going on outside their bedroom window. Oh, the price of parenthood.

Dale was on his back underneath his '53 Ford when he noticed what he thought was the cat moving from his heels toward his head. Looking closer he could see it was a skunk. The only thing he could do was freeze, turn his head to the side and close his eyes. As the skunk waddled past his head its tail brushed his cheek. Still, he kept his composure until the animal was gone. That is what I call courage under pressure. Years earlier, Neal had gone up the road in his '59 Chevy for a date, only to return quickly to use Dale's car because he had hit a skunk. I remember a few nights waking up to the stiff stench of skunk odor. The dog would eat with the skunks in the back until he thought we were aware of him consorting with the enemy. We all paid the price of that turn-coat.

Stretch and Neal were both athletes. Stretch got his nickname from one of the coaches at Sugar Salem. Stretch played tackle, Neal was a guard. Many times they played both offense and defense. Dale was very calm and collected, but when he played football, he was a force to be reckoned with. One time a guy on the opposing team blind-sided Dale after the play was over. Stretch got up and when the next play went the other way, he took the guy to the ground, and with his face-guard interlocking the offender, informed him in no uncertain terms what would happen for the rest of the game. The guy stayed away from Stretch from then on.

I learned how to work by watching Dale. Everyone had a pipe-moving job. We just naturally expected to make our own money. I earned 5 cents a pipe and a penny bonus if we stayed all year. We always stayed the entire year. Stretch worked for Parkinson's. Many times he would have to move the line from one side of the field to another, so he would load the entire line onto the trailer by himself. He and Neal were always in "training" for one sport or another, which meant they had to watch carefully what they ate and report any violation to the coaches. They never broke training, to my knowledge.

One of the first jobs I had was working with Dale for our cousin, Jim Shirley. He bought loads of used house brick and dumped them in a field just north of the cement plant. I was about ten, Dale about 13. We would go to work chipping off the mortar from the bricks and stacking them on pallets. We were paid one penny per brick (which meant we were not getting rich). I was always trying to catch up to Dale, who always presented the example of "dogged determination." I never once saw him slacking off. I always wanted to be like Dale, and still do today.

Dale and I moved sprinkler pipes together for Ralph Pocock when Dale first got back from his misison. On the way to work I was telling him about a girl in one of my classes that I wanted to ask out on a date, but she was "Miss Manitoba," so she probably wouldn't want to go out with someone like me. Dale looked at me and said, "You are never out-classed until you think you are." I believed everything Dale told me, so I asked Miss Manitoba out on a date. She turned me down (something about washing her hair), but the important thing was that I asked her out. I have remembered not to sell myself short. Oh, Canada!

Neal and Dale both got mission calls to the Brazilian South mission. Neal went shortly before Dale. We were amazed that they would be called to the same mission. They were given the opportunity to work together and served with distinction. They sent home two Amazon parrots, which quickly became part of the family, calling Janet and I to get out of bed each morning. Often when we said the blessing on the food and began the prayer with, "Father in Heaven...," a voice from Mr. Bird would say, "Hello?"

Dale and Neal were great examples for a younger brother to follow. I remember avoiding potential problems and temptations with the idea, "My brothers will kill me," and they would have. Neal and Dale frequently went hunting and fishing with Dad, something that never did appeal to me very much. We often ate wild meat, including deer, pheasant and duck.

Dale and Neal set another example in terms of music. Stretch and I learned how to play accordion. Mom also played. Neal and Dale played trombone in the Sugar Salem school band. They also sang in Madrigals (choir group). Dale was Senior Class President. He was also into calculus and trig, competing in Mathlete competitions at the college. His former math teacher, Mr. Romrell, still talks about how smart Dale was.

Dale is a master chef. He loves to cook "Conference Cuisine" for family members. Kids, cousins and assorted family members meet during General Conference at Stretch's house for a meal as well as good family fun. He follows the same tradition Dad had of making his home a place where family and friends want to gather. The love Dale has for his family is obvious in the things he both says and does.

Dale has been one of the most influential people in my life. I couldn't have asked for a better example of all the things I wanted to become. He exemplifies true Christianity. His personal integrity is unquestioned. I asked him once when things were rather grim how he was managing. He said, "I read Section 121 and 122 a lot." He is not a complainer, nor ever has been. He makes the best of every situation. I still want to be like him when I grow up.

Grandma Ward

Mina Ward was an identical twin. She married and had a daughter, Rayola. The man she married decided he would go to California and obtain work there. He would send for her later. My mother said, "I guess he forgot." Mina met and married Grandpa Ward and they started their family. Grandpa Ward was a "day-laborer, so he was always looking for work. Grandma did what she could to keep the family fed. Grandpa knew the scriptures well. He was also ward clerk for many years. At the same time he had a problem with tobacco. Mom said, "He never smoked in front of us kids." She said he would go outside into the outhouse for his "necessities." The first photo shows Grandma Ward. The caption on the back says, "Mina at Margie's place, 1950."

This is Margie.

This photo shows Grandma Ward holding Dale, at 7 weeks of age. Did you notice a third person in the photo? To their right and to the bottom of the photo is Neal, age 15 months.

This is Grandma holding Dale at 5 months of age.

This is Grandma holding me (Scott).

This is a five generation photo. It shows Phebe (Grandpa Ward's mother, who was a second wife), Art (Grandpa Eberhardt Ward), Rayola (Mom's older sister, known as Ray), her daughter Betty, and her son. The photo was taken in June, 1952.

To give an idea of Mina's personality, I am including some correspondence between her and Mom. I left as much of the spelling and punctuation as possible:

Dear Margie and Ross, I am taking a chance that you may be getting your mail. My thoughts are with you all the time since I heard of the awful flood. The pictures on the T.V. nearly makes a person sick and I guess to see the real things are still worse. I sure hope you can reach your home and find some things that you can redeem. It is tragic but I am so grateful that your family are all safe. The life of one member would be worse than it is now. I hope you are not making yourselves sick worrying. Just plan on coming out OK. I sure hope you are accepting aid from the church and red cross and in the end get some money from the government who seem to be to blame. They are such liars, there's no telling what they will do.

We have had a real hot day today. It keeps me busy running the hose on my garden and flowers. I haven't heard from any of the kids for a day or two and I am sure they are all thinking about you. If there is any thing I can do or any thing that I have that you may need please tell me. I forgot to give you your plum preserve also a bottle of dill pickles and rheubarb. I don't know how to spell it but you will know what I mean. Tuesday. I got this far last evening then decided to go to bed. I have been out this morning looking to see if my vegetables had grown another leaf. It is cloudy so we may get some rain to-day.

Max Anderson's wife called me Sunday to hear what I knew about you and the flood. I ask her if she was the lady that ask about you when she saw me in Tremonton and she said no, so I don't know who it was that talked to me and ask about you when I was in Tremonton so that shows that you have friends around our valley. I am fine I don't know just what I will do today but it will be some thing. By the looks of the T.V. pictures there is a lot of mud for some one to shovel out. I hope your house still stands and that I could help you clean up. I imagine some one will come to your aid.

The other day when Gwen called she said she was coming up one day this week and take me to a show then stay here over night. I hope I hear from you before she comes and besides I am not interested in night life. I would rather go to bed. It is real good of her to do it but young folks don't realize that old people have lost interest in such things. Maybe not all old folks but I sure am past enjoying such things especially a picture show. I never did care of them. I would rather lay on the bed and watch T.V. Well I guess this is all for now. I hope you two are taking care of yourselves. I need all my kids. Thanks for all the nice things you do for me. Love to all. Mom. Please excuse mistakes and read this as it should be. Wish I could help you.

New Letter: I got my new colored T.V. and love it but I am half afraid to use it because it has snow looking dots on it. I am waiting until Paul comes up some time and take care of it. I daresen't mess with it and I wouldn't let any one else. I put it on for one show and then use my radio. Margie after talking to you the other day nothing has happened around so this will sure be a short note. I will keep thinking until some one comes so I can mail this. Take care of yourselves. You sounded good the other day. Hope Ross is OK also all your kids and grand kids.

The Pre-flood Floods - By Dale Shirley

It was great to get the pictures that Scott sent me of the floods we had before the Teton dam was built. I didn't know the pictures even existed but I glad they do. With the full realization that I am now a senior citizen and subject to senior moments, I decided to write down what I remember of the floods. Hopefully the years haven't distorted too many of the facts. I remember two separate times that the floods surrounded the house.

It seems that the first one was the worst, but it could be that I was just older when the second one hit. My memory of the first one starts with a warm day in the spring of a very cold winter that had a lot of snow. There was a warm wind blowing out of the south and the playground at school became a sea of slush that we played in for a while until we got wet and cold. The wind was very strong and I remember sleeping upstairs and listening to it rattle the shingles as we went to bed. I remember being awakened in the early morning hours by mom. As we got dressed we could hear noise outside and looked out the window to see a National Guard dump truck dumping sand in the driveway. We went outside and helped dad build a barricade around the entrance the basement. It seems like we had a no sandbags so the barricade was built with straight sand around the steps to the basement.

It was still dark when I went back to bed and I slept late. As I woke up I noticed that the wind had stopped and it was light outside. As I looked out the house was completely surrounded by water. It seemed weird that it was so quiet and peaceful. I went downstairs where mom cooked us some breakfast and we watched dad sloshing around in some hip boots and tending to the dam and other concerns around the house.

I soon got bored hanging around the house so when I heard dad was going up the road, Neal and I went with him. We walked up towards Sugar and then followed the railroad tracks up to the overpass. There we found a source of our problem. The ice in the river had broken up into big chunks due to the quick thaw and because the railroad bridge and the road bridge were close together, the ice chunks had become clogged in the pilings of the bridges and were forcing the water out of the channel. There were a group of National Guardsmen there working on the ice. They had one of the men who was a bit heavy set standing out on the ice dam with a crow bar in his hands and a rope around his waist so he wouldn't fall through the ice. He would chip away with the crow bar in the ice and I remember the sweat just rolling off of him as he worked. When he would get a hole down a few feet in the ice they would put some dynamite that they had down the hole and put some sand bags on the hole and set it off. It would blow the sandbags up in the air and accomplished little else. We watched for a few minutes and then dad told us to come on and we went back down the tracks into Sugar City. We went to a house and as I remember, dad called him Stub Sondregger. Apparently dad knew this guy had some experience with explosives and dad convinced him to come with us. We went back up to the bridges and if anything, the situation was worse than when we left.

Dad went over to the National Guardsmen and probably with his connection as the Reserve unit CO, convinced them to let him give it a try. I don't think he had to talk very hard since I suspect that they were pretty discouraged with the progress they had made. Stub took a handful of dynamite sticks and wrapped them together and inserted the blasting cap. They walked along the banks of the river and found a place where an eddy in the water indicated that the water was moving down under the ice. They then pulled out several arm lengths of cord and then threw the dynamite in the eddy and fed out the cord and when it pulled tight he knew it was down under the ice. We all moved away from the river and took refuge behind a billboard that was beside the road. We were told to stand with our backs to the billboard and put our fingers in our ears and they set the explosion off. I got my first lesson in physics when they set it off. I learned that shock waves travel faster in water than they do in the air. We were standing knee deep in water and when the charge went off, it felt like two giant hands gave my legs a squeeze under the water and I just about jumped out of my boots. But then the sound of the explosion hit and it was the kind of boom that pounds on your chest and just about knocks the wind out of you. That was followed by rain as a mist of water came falling down all around us. Even though I was standing with my back to the blast I could see chunks of ice and debris splashing down into the water well beyond where we were standing.

When we were given the all clear, we looked around the sign and the sight was impressive. Huge chunks of ice had been lifted out of the channel and were piled on the bridge and banks of the river. I remember thinking that it almost looked like a giant birds nest. The National Guardsmen were pleased with the progress that had been made and grouped around dad and his buddy as they set up the next charge and they repeated the process again. This time we got near the end of the sign and peeked around as they set off the charge. They must have gotten the charge too close to the bridge because it looked like the whole bridge jumped when they set it off. Maybe it didn't but it sure looked like it.

As we walked back to the bridge, we could see that the remaining ice against the pilings had been pretty well shattered and was beginning to wash through the pilings. We left the National Guardsmen to handle things from there and walked back down the tracks to the Salem highway where we parted company with Dad's buddy and walked back to the house.

The only other thing I remember about the flood is being really bored, so we would go upstairs with dads .22 and look through the scope at chunks of wood floating by the house and when we found a mouse on one of them we would shoot at them. I rarely hit one, but cruel as it sounds, the shot would usually knock them off the raft so I would follow the rodent as he swam around looking for something else to climb up on, and when he did, I would shoot at him again.

The other flood I remember was the one that came a few years later. I found out after dad had left that he had gone up to the overpass again so I took off by myself to see if I could catch up. As I got to the tracks I could see some men walking along down the track so I assumed it was Dad and took off trying to catch up. I came to a spot where the railroad ties had been pulled out from under the rails and the water was flowing under the rails. There was a man standing there as I got there but I didn't pay much attention to him. Determined to catch up to Dad, I started across the rails hanging on to the top curved part of the rail with my hands and walking on the bottom flange of the rails. The man asked me if I was sure I wanted to do that but I went ahead anyway and worked my way across. As I got out near the middle of the rail it started to oscillate from side to side. That coupled with the water moving from right to left just a few inches below the rails made it difficult to concentrate and keep my balance. I managed to get across and as I turned around and looked back, the man was no where to be seen. I don't know if guardian angels really exist but I have often wondered if the man was sent there to keep an eye on me while I did something stupid. I hurried on up the tracks and caught up to the men about the time they got to the river bridge only to find out that Dad was not among them. I looked around the river bridges and he wasn't there either so I went back down the tracks. I evidently didn't learn anything because I went over the water on the rails like I did before. I don't know how deep the water was but I do know that it was cold and moving pretty fast. I had no other idea where Dad had gone so I just went back home. The only other event I remember about the second flood is that a big caterpillar tractor pushed an opening through Uncle Fred’s ditch bank down the road between our house and Browning’s house so the water could move through there and I heard later that Fred wasn’t too happy about it.