I’ve been trying to come up with something humorous all week to write for Sod, but it’s been rough going. I can’t get my mind off of the thousands of people in the Red River Valley who are fighting blizzard conditions and rising flood waters. These are my people, even though I’ve moved away, and I worry about them. I hate that I can’t be there, side by side with them, filing and piling sandbags to hold back the rising water. I have to admit that I feel somewhat guilty for not being there.

It was only 12 years ago that I helped save dozens of houses, only to see my own grandmother’s basement become inundated. The Flood of ’97 was a pretty harrowing time. My hometown of Grand Forks was evacuated and I, at my parent’s house in the country, was reduced to canoeing up to the highway to receive supplies and mail. I remember building a ten-foot dike of sandbags on top of an existing earthen dike at the house of a family friend in the days leading up to the river’s crest, and the satisfaction of knowing that they would be safe. I remember helping my girlfriend’s father sandbag their house to combat the rising floodwater on their street in the next town over. I remember filing sandbags for hours, so that they could be shipped off to other families that needed them to stay dry.

Now, imagine thousands of people doing the exact same kind of things and more, all up and down the valley. These are tough people. These are determined people. They’re also caring people who will go out of their way to help people that they don’t know. The phrase “salt of the earth” is redundant when referring to them. Their fate probably won’t rest on how hard they work to hold back the flood waters, because mother nature is going to do what she’s going to do. They may end up failing, but it certainly won’t be for lack to toughness and trying.

Keep your heads above water, everyone.