Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Spring

Spence said, “You can always count on a gully washer in June.” I'd been in Meadville chatting with my friend and testing quilt stitch patterns. Rain had pattered on her metal roof but hadn't pounded be-alert hard. I turned the Subaru onto West Creek Road and met a “Road Closed” sign. A muddy pond covered the pavement. No worries. I'd cross Carlton Road and drive home from the other end of Creek Road. “Road Closed.” Muscles tensing, I drove up New Lebanon Road to a dirt road that wound me back to Creek Road. Deer Creek had become a swirling brown torrent that roiled a foot below the honeycomb bridge. I scooted across. Then, with wipers and defroster on high, I crept past branches, puddles, rocks, and mud trails. A quarter mile from home, water hurled over the pavement. I turned around, drove to a neighbor's house a half mile back, and splashed across her yard. She opened the door. “I can't get home,” I said holding back tears. She ushered me into the kitchen, gave me a towel, listened to my saga, and handed me her land line. “Call anyone you want.” I called Mom in Florida to say I was okay and Spence in Ohio to warn him about the road. My neighbor made tea. We sipped and talked till the rain stopped. I still couldn't drive the car through, but I could walk home. An hour and a half later on North Road, Spence put on flashers to follow an Amish buggy packed with seven passengers. He paused on Creek Road to let baby groundhogs escape from the flood plain. Water, that had stopped me, was a trickle for him. But the culvert for the creek on our north boundary had collapsed and left a ditch across the road. Pavement crumbled around the culvert for the creek to the south. Contractors replaced both drains during the week. Spence's gully washer had been a culvert wrecker.