A Flood of Memories 
I cleaned out a closet the other day and ran across a series of things that reminded me of a time ten
years ago. You see, it's been ten years since the flood. For me, “The Flood” was the Flood of ‘94, the
Hundred-Year Flood, and it happened a decade ago in southwest Georgia. I had five feet of creek water in
the first floor of my home. It took a week for the water to recede enough to see what had happened
inside. It was not a pretty sight.
In my current cleaning quest, I found the pictures I took (for insurance purposes) of all the ruined
things I had to throw away. There's the one of my Commodore 128 computer. Isn't it amazing how much
computers have changed? There's the one of the dehydrator that I never used. And there's the one of all
my DMC thread. All of it neatly cut to the optimal length. All arranged in numerical order. All
organized into three LoRan thread books (I had too many threads to fit into one). I was well on my way
to having one of every color. Those were the days.
I must have lost a bunch of pattern books too. I don't remember which ones. I didn't lose all of them, I know that. Even then, I had projects stacked around my bedroom. The bedroom's on the second floor and the flood waters never got that high. Anyway, I have design books dating back to the early 80s so I know some survived.
Back in my closet, I found the project I was working on when the flood came. One of Teresa Wentzler's
designs—a dragon wrapped around an island. I only got the bottom half done... there's a dragon's tail, but
no head. And it's still stained by the flood waters. I tried everything to get that thing cleaned. Red
Georgia clay is just that stubborn. I can't believe I kept it all these years. It was a beautiful
design, but I'll never finish it or do another like it.