Flood Waters..."To Recede or Not to Recede"? And memories of Ford Falcons

The sun came out brightly yesterday.  After a cold start, in the upper teens, the sun brought the afternoon temperatures to the lower 40s, which put a dent in the piles of ice and snow that had been plowed into small mountains on the various street corners around town.  The warm temperatures and rains had melted the ground snow, but it will take a while longer to get rid of the ice mounds.

The flood waters are gone from the streets of Celina, leaving some basement and low level damage, as well as the sticks, mud, and debris on the streets and parking lots of town....the city street machines were out and about cleaning that off the various roadways yesterday.  After I dropped daughter Anissa off at the Cheryl Ann building, I headed over the Mercer Residential Services to check on the damage on the buildings located in the far south part of town.   Not as bad as it could have been....both the Adult Day Care Center and the Assisted Living quarters had suffered some water damage, but lucky for us it was confined to the carpets, or at least that is what it appeared to be.  Garry had the wind machines rented, drying the stench and water from the east sides of the buildings, where most of the water had settled.  The insurance adjusters were on their way...and it appears the staff will be looking to relocate the Day Care to another building until the repairs/replacing of carpets can be done.

Once done there, I drove to the south to see what roads were open...and then to the West Bank Road on Grand Lake, to check out the massive flow of brown water, ice, and sticks, going over the Spillway to the Beaver Creek, flooding into the various farms and roads on it's way towards the Indiana state line and the mighty Wabash River....from a bird's eye view, it appears that the waters are receding, but the forecast, after today and tomorrow's sunny skies, will turn wet...Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, are all calling for rain, with the rain changing to snow on Sunday.  How much and how fast it comes will affect the rivers and streams big time...as well as the ice melt, which will continue on Grand Lake.

Baseball Beckons____

I picked up a couple of scrimmage games at Delphos yesterday....whether any of the early season high school games or scrimmages get played is always "iffy"...this year, with the heavy snow, and late winter rains, even more so.  But you take the contracts and hopefully get out a couple of times before the season begins in full through April and early May.  High school baseball is the shortest of seasons...unless you are lucky or good enough to get selected for Tournament Games...so far, at least the past few seasons, I have been working to and through late in the tournament season.  June sees summer ACME(high school summer baseball) and American Legion games, July the tournaments in those levels begin...so what seems like a short season, usually ends up going 4 or 5 months, and you are ready for it to end.  All in all however, baseball, like it was to play in my youth, is by far my favorite sport to officiate.  So, needless to say, I am ready for it all to begin.

Sam's Nissan____

The shop called and Sam's Nissan was fixed and ready for pick up....as I suspected, the Alternator was shot, and the connecting belts needed replaced as well.  Add a much needed oil change, and the final total was $450.17.  It could have been worse...alternators certainly are not like the days of my early driving back in the mid to late 1960s.  If an alternator went out on one of my Ford Falcons, I, even being a total dolt when it came to car repairs, could pull the old out, get a new or rebuilt one for $29.95 and replace it, with nothing more than a screwdriver in hand.  Of course having an old man who was a mechanic and owed or operated a service station for most of my early life, didn't hurt.  I remember blowing up the engine in my 1962 Falcon...let the damn oil light come on and tried to drive it the 5 miles from work in Celina home to Montezuma...didn't make it!  I was working at Marsh Supermarket during my Senior year at Celina High School...one day after the engine blew, I received a refund check from the Government a grand total of $135...Dad picked up a rebuilt Ford 6 banger for the same price, and "poof" my check was gone, and the Falcon was back on the road...Damn, those were the good old days!

A 1960 Falcon was my second car, following a 57 Fairlane, I followed those with the 62 Falcon, by far the favorite car of my youth, before moving on to the Chrysler and Mopar vehicles.  I tore em' up, and dad would fix them....like I said, "Damn, those were the good old days"...what I wouldn't do to go back and visit that time, if just for a little while.  Sure the war beckoned, political correctness had reared it's ugly head, and the country would slowly but surly slide down the crapper, to what it has become today, but that snapshot in time, had some great memories.  Those days of the middle and late 1960s, were indeed "the good old days"....never to be matched again in this lifetime.

back later>>>>

Photos-top left...The Grand Lake Spillway, as the water peaks and flows into the Beaver Creek, on it's way to the Wabash River....note the ice on the lake in the background of the top photo...lots of ice and with this weekends predicted rains, the worst may not be over.  Me, umpiring a summer tournament game a couple of years ago...and a 1962 Red Ford Falcon, much like the one I had in my High School Daze....6 cylinder with a "Mystery Shift" 3 speed on the floor.