But Doesn't the River Smell Sometimes?

Straight Out of the Appalachians and then Atlanta...

That's what one of the pharmacy techs asked my father the other day. "Doesn't the river smell coming out of Atlanta?"

My father grumbled something as he told me about it.

The river house had a very large pool, but my father had it demolished today and the hole filled in with several dump trucks of topsoil. I haven't been to the river house in a long time and things are coming along very nicely. Dad had all new windows put in last month. The kitchen is next with new appliances.

"I think I am going to sell your mother's house and mine and move into the river house indefinitely," my father told me.

Mom had often alluded to this already...

"Aren't you worried about floods and flooding?" I asked my father.

"We're not in the floodplain," my father told me and I was not sure what he meant.

The house is 10 feet from the water.

"At least get enrolled in the Federal flood protection insurance program."

"Come on, Chuck!" he said with lots of motivation in his voice, "Let's go get your medications and get you fixed up for the night."

I had hoped for this, but I didn't say anything.

"That's not why I came to see you," I told my father, but it was a moment of elation for me.

So Many Passings Lately...

Dad's good friend J.L.Grant passed away early this morning. Liz, his wife and high school classmate of my father, called to give him the news. I expected a somber and melancholy father but he just seemed to be very thankful for being alive.

"Don't you and Charlie go dying on me as you two are all I've got," I told my father.