WATER MISADVENTURES (1)

Prior to leaving Kansas City, I bought a 1969 Buick, which served us reasonably well, but the old blue sedan had a personality.  For one thing, the driver’s door got where it wouldn’t open.  The driver had to get out of the car on the passenger side, which was something of a nuisance.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.  The location of the distributor made it highly susceptible to engine failure in the midst of rain.  Houston was blessed or cursed with a lot of rain. The city is pretty close to sea level and pretty flat.  It does not have adequate drainage, and street flooding in a common thing.

We lived a block and a half from the church building.  On one occasion, we walked to the building for something and left Jim at the house by himself.  Jim was probably in the second or third grade at the time.   Elliott had gone to a youth activity, and we had the two younger children with us.  A sudden deluge rendered Bonhomme, the street on which the church building was located, totally impassable.  The water was probably waist deep in front of the building.  

Of course there were probably moccasins in the water, and who knows what else.   Besides that it was dark.  There have been times that people have gone down Bonhomme in boats following a rain.  I didn’t see any boats that day, but you could have floated one.  We called Jim at the house and told him to sit tight.  We would have to wait until the water went down before we could go home.

It took about a couple of hours.  Elliott came in on the church bus. By then the water had receded enough to let the bus through.    On that particular night, we finally waded water about knee deep to go across the street and walk home.  We trusted the Lord to keep the moccasins away.

But back to the old blue Buick.  More than once it stalled in the middle of a busy street.  Most people tried to keep going through the flooded streets, but a few like me ended up with drowned out engines.  I eventually learned how to deal with this.  I would roll up my pants leg, get out of the car, raise the hood, seat myself on the fender, take the distributor cap off, and dry it out completely.  Usually the car would start, and I would be able to get home.  More than once I got the carpets wet in the car, and there would be an accompanying smell for days to come.  That kind of thing just seemed to be par for the course in Houston.