As the water started to rise, our excitement rose with it.
Every day during the flood of ’65, it was a new experience. Growing up, my brother Glen and I would spend as much time as possible on or near the Mississippi River; we lived only a few blocks away, so it was almost daily. After the flood, we tried asking people at the foot of Laird Street if we could help sandbag to make some money, but we were told we were too young. We helped a little anyways. (I sup-pose, more like “got in the way.”)
We saw muskrats, beavers, and even squirrels swimming to safety. The Paulsons and Stiehls of the neighborhood joined us in spearing big northern pike that made their way up Laird Street, to Second Street. I remember putting a few of the fish that weren’t hurt too bad for safe-keeping in Bob Stiehl’s parents’ basement, as it was flooded. (Don’t remember what happened to them.)
We had a boathouse at the foot of Liberty Street, and my brother and I got hold of a canoe from somewhere and paddled it down through the flooded streets, to the boathouse that was floating high on steel barrels in the floodwaters. We got the boat out of the boathouse and boated around the streets in our area, and parked it on the end of our driveway. The grass boulevard was about as high as the floodwaters reached, which was almost 20 feet from touching our house. All of our basements were flooded in our area and of course those homes in lower elevations had water in them. It was quite a sight for us to see.
I have all fond memories of the Great Flood of ’65. I was a 10-year-old river-rat in 1965, who left with his buddies every morning at daybreak and didn’t get home until dark, having such great adventures every day. The memories are still fresh today to this 60-year-old river-rat!
