One of Those Rare Times I Mention Work in my Blog

Oh, goodness.  Where to start?  Somewhere in the midst of all of the graduation festivities and shooting up the diabetic dog with insulin at our house, I said to some coworkers last week, "Hey, let's gather up some cleaning supplies for the flood victims."  And they said, "Sure."  So we did.  And we had a whole Field of Dreams if we build it they will come experience. 

We rented one semi for the two day event that started Monday.  By lunch time on the first day, it was full and we ordered a second truck and by lunch time yesterday we ordered the THIRD truck.  We filled three semis, people. THREE!  People came in droves.  They brought van loads, and truck loads and pallets of bleach, cleaners, mops, rags, brooms and rubber gloves.  People emptied store shelves of some items, and I think our load of buckets would have stretched a city block if we had placed them all in one stack.  One the cool scale, it was right up there with bungee jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.  Not that I've done that, but wouldn't it be cool?  Right before the puking part? 

Here are just a few pictures.

School kids helped us.  Scouts gathered up supplies.  Civic groups and businesses gathered up stuff and brought it.  It was a great two days, and now my heart is warm, my nose is sunburned and I'm a little dehydrated because it's over 80 degrees here this week.  Summer heat and humidity arrived just in time to start the mold growing in flooded homes and to breed the millions of mosquitoes we're bound to have following all of this water.  Oh, joy.  And have I mentioned several folks around here are finding snakes in their flooded homes.  Good old cottonmouths.  I know one lady who went into her still flooded living room to find a big fat, black snake lounging on the fireplace mantle.  I would have broken my neck trying to get out of there and then messed my pants.  And I'm not even lying about that. 

It just goes to show the effects of all of this flooding will be around for a while, but hopefully, all the stuff this region gathered together in the past two days will help some.  It was all delivered to the Red Cross today for distribution, and if you're the giving kind I would encourage you to give to the Red Cross, UMCOR or another reputable agency helping with flooding all along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  They're going to need it.