O/T: Conversations With My Father

[Lew Hodgett]

The flooding along the Mississippi River, as devastating as it is, brings back memories of conversations while fishing with my father when I was a young boy.

My dad grew up along the Ohio river in southern Indiana during the first quarter of the 20th century.

This was during the period when many of the levees had not yet been built and yearly flooding was to be expected.

Dad had some interesting stories to tell about the big floods of 1927 & 1937.

During WWII, there was some rather extensive flooding in NE Ohio which provided some unique fishing opportunities.

One of the many fishing tricks I learned during this period from my dad was how to "gig" frogs using just a fly rod and a fly.

No muss, no fuss, no gigs, just lots of frogs.

Strange the things you remember from your youth.

Lew

[Lobby Dosser]

Whereabouts in Indiana. Spent some vacation time down around French Lick.

[Jim Artherholt]

Same question but for NE Ohio. I grew up in the Warren/Howland area.

[Joe AutoDrill]

We used to do that here in NJ too. ...Haven't taught my kids how to do that yet though we did wrestle a huge snapping turtle together yesterday.

Check out the photo:

that's my ugly face.

Regards, Joe Agro, Jr. [phone]

01.908.542.0244 Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: Spindle Drills: Tapping: Site:

[Larry Blanchard]

I was born in 1937 and grew up in Louisville from 1940 on. Stories about the '37 flood were heard frequently. My favorite was told by the local druggist, Mr. Hardesty. He and his family were trapped in the second floor of their home. The Red Cross came by in boats and distributed supplies. They even included a bottle of bourbon - this was Kentucky after all :-). Mr. Hardesty thought that was mighty mice of them until he spotted the price tag on the bourbon - it was from his store! They had confiscated his entire stock. He did eventually get paid for most of it, but it took several years.

On a less happy note, my father owned a weekly newspaper in Ironton Ohio, also on the river. He had just bought new presses and had no insurance on them yet. The flood ruined them and put him out of business. He spent the rest of his working life as a linotype operator.

[Lew Hodgett]

-------------------------------- Nearest civilazati> Same question but for NE Ohio. I grew up in the Warren/Howland > area.

---------------------------------- Wayne, Ashland & Richland counties,

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

--------------------------------- It was a very good year.

Lew

[Larry Jaques]

Wow!

That sucks.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to strip the river edges of homes and move them out of harm's way, then put up wider, taller, competent levees?

Flooding tens of tousands of acres of vital farmland so some pissy little town doesn't get flooded (until the next week) is just so far out of my sense of decency that it's not funny.

The gov't shouldn't be involved and our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on keeping people in dangerous flood areas. This same shit happens every year.

-- If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. -- Samuel Butler

[Steve]

Here's an intersting photo by Russell Lee of the U.S. Farm Service Administration from the 1937 flood -- don't know where your father was in Southern Indiana, but this is from Mt Vernon, near Evansville.

more here: so we're on topic, ruined furniture:

[Steve]

Well, there's a bar or two there and you can find a good breaded tenderlion, so that MAY qualify it for "civilization"...

Wonder if there's any persimmon pudding? "cause if there are any dishes that rank as true Hoosier soul fool, it's 1.) breaded tenderloin, and

2.) persimmon pudding. Runner-up medal for real, honest-to-God Sassafras tea!

[Lew Hodgett]

--------------------------------- Had an uncle who did some farming in North Central Indiana.

Raised hogs and cattle as well as some cash crops.

His butcher schedule for a year was as follows:

1/2 cow for every member of the family plus 1/2 cow for the minister and a half cow for company and hope neither one showed up.

1 hog for every member of the family plus 1 hog for the minister and a

1 hog for company and again hope neither one showed up.

Still remember coming to breakfast while visiting and my aunt serving slabs of fried ham as they came out of a cast iron skillet straight to the serving platter.

Of course there was a platter of fried eggs along with a platter of toast.

Talk about soul food, it doesn't get any better than that fried ham.

Lew

[Larry Blanchard]

It's been said that things were better without any levees. At least the pain was spread evenly. Once the levees started going in, every town had to have one in self defense. Louisville didn't have any when I was young, but put them in at some point before I grew up. The first flood after that they had a comedy of errors. Some of the pumps worked the wrong way around and some of the floodwall gates were stored on the outside of the levee and a diver had to go underwater to hook them up to the crane so it could set them in place.

We were about 1/2 mile from the Ohio and I remember every spring my father moved everything out of the basement as a standard precaution :-).

[Lobby Dosser]

Beautiful country! French Lick is about 30 miles due north.