BEST OF TIMES? WORST OF TIMES? OUR SPIRIT ENDURES

One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver not aloud but to himself that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, "Go here," or "Go there," and make it obey; cannot save a shore which has been sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.

Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi"

Living on the banks of one of the world's great river systems, we have had many occasions to reflect on Twain's succinct wisdom. Few of the great River's lessons, though, have ever brought that home the way we've had them re-taught this month of July, during the Great Flood of 1993. The River has taken us all back to school, not as per usual, in springtime flooding but rather in an extremely rare summer session.

One of the towering men of 20th century letters mused on mankind's tendency to forget the awful power of our rivers, and what they mean for us all. Listen to the late T.S. Eliot, native of the great river metropolis of St. Louis:

I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river

Is a strong brown god sullen, untamed and intractable,

Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier;

Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyer of commerce;

Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.

The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten

By the dwellers in cities ever, however implacable,

Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder

Of what men choose to forget. Unhonored, unpropitiated

By the worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages"

It helps, in grasping the sheer enormity of God's power, to get airborne. A one-hour ride in a small aircraft Saturday morning gave me that perspective. From the Cape Girardeau airport, we headed south along the river, past the flooded and unprotected town of Commerce, past the breach in the Miller City levee, on our way toward the Lower Mississippi Valley, which begins at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio, near Cairo.

Aloft, looking in any direction, one instantly grasps Vice President Al Gore's metaphor. This summer's uncommonly heavy rainfall has left us with "a new Great Lake" in mid-America. Eight to 10 million acres are under water.

We turned back north near Wickliffe, Ky. Heading back up the river, we passed over Thebes, a threatened Illinois Highway 3, a flooded SEMO Port and a dry Scott City to the Diversion Channel. What some call the "Big Ditch" is now a vast inland sea, backing up many miles from its mouth at what the Indians rightly called the "Father of Waters."

Heading over the City of Cape Girardeau, past a flooded South Cape, you can see Cape La Croix Creek backing up, its waters like so many others up and down the Mississippi Valley with no place to go. Continuing north over the city, your heart goes out to all who are fighting a dreary battle in the ghastly heat and humidity, such as the hardy people of our Red Star district. You mumble a silent prayer that there will be no three- or four-inch rainfall.

Continuing north all the way up a flooded Highway 177 to Procter & Gamble, from the air you can see that that enormous plant has more water, nearer to it, than they ever thought they'd see, or ever want to again.

Many great and inspiring chapters have been written this summer. There are stories of volunteers traveling long distances to help people they have never met, stories of extraordinary effort, of day after day of round-the-clock vigilance. They tell of such as Dutchtown's Bill Geiser, leader of a volunteer effort that over the last 17 days has filled and stacked 400,000 sandbags. Uncomplaining, asking for remarkably little, how valiantly they have fought this pitiless river!

Dickens wrote, so long ago, of an era that was, "... the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." It's been like that this summer, with uncomplaining National Guardsmen, wrenched away from their jobs and families, to help their neighbors. And there are the good people of KFVS-12, whose response was a selfless weekend of extra effort called "Heartland Cares" a telethon that will probably have topped $100,000 in donations by the time you read this.

The whole, incredible scene these last three weeks tells a story with an awful lot of good in it. Midwesterners are tough. Though tempered with realism, they are optimistic. More often than not, they get the job done. They roll up their sleeves and go to work, looking for and usually finding the best in others.

The good news of the last three weeks reminds me of a story President Reagan told during a national TV address from the White House in 1981. Seeking to capture the true American can-do spirit of voluntarism and willingness to help neighbors in distress, the Great Communicator told of a group of American farmers who were touring Europe. Taken to view an active volcano in a mountainous part of Italy, they beheld the fiery majesty of the peak. Looking down into the angry mountain, one unimpressed farmer turned to his guide and cockily observed, "We've got a volunteer fire group back home that'd put that sucker out in no time!"

That's been our unquenchable spirit. May it always be so.

MDBR