Deluge Deux

This week I started cleaning my barn.  My second flood in a little over a year.  For three months, the mud sat on the concrete, the tools and the supplies.  On several occasions, help beckoned from my neighbors, friends and my beloved church but I turned down that help.  At this current moment, the residue afflicted me with pain from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head.  I took a piece of broken memory and scraped the mud from myself and sat among the ashes.

Predators, poachers, pollution.  The outstanding nemeses at Sawmyl Synders Farm.  When I first got chickens, the predators, in the form of raccoons, opossums, and coyotes, started showing up.  So, I had to start putting them down.  To the acrimony of the animal lovers.  When deer season came one year, an interloper put a deer stand on my back property.  He said it was a mistake.  Also, he could see my house from the foot of the deer stand.  He took it down.  To the rancor neighbors who wanted me to prosecute.

This year before the flood, following the flood of last year, the mischievous creek turned black.  And smelly.  Dangerously black and smelly.  It turns out that the City of Magnolia Wastewater Treatment plant stopped treating the sewer water.  The started dumping effluent into the creek that ran out into Montgomery County that contained E Coli that was twelve times the permitted limit.  The City lied about it.  It took six months to get the water treated properly and for the smell in the air on the farm and around back to tolerable.

Last week I ran into one of the realtors involved in my purchase of this property now christened Sawmyl Synders Farm.  Part cowboy/farmer, all gentleman, and subtly wheeler dealer, Wheeler sat down on a high stool alone in a Tomball restaurant catty-corner to my wife, my daughter and myself.  In no way was he a cowboy in the jungle, “With his shrimpskin boots and his cheap Cheroots And his skin as white as paste”.  Wheeler personifies the real deal. Fine and shiny leather boots, broad seasonal cowboy hat, pressed roped shirt and Wrangler jeans.  I spoke to him briefly, mentioning the flood.  How I recognized him is a wonder. He finished his lunch and spoke quietly to the young waitress before approaching our table.  A good salesman always, he greeted us appropriately, gave me his card, and galloped back west.

I haven’t forgotten that I started this anecdote by telling you I was cleaning my twice flooded barn three months after the last flood.  You might think I sat there in the dust dwelling on the fact that my dream dwelling had become a hovel of dust and mud and flood.  You could surmise the disgust I held for the poacher that got away or the lying city officials who dumped crap on me through the spring, summer and into the fall.  But you haven’t yet guessed that Wheeler the realtor paid for our expensive lunch that day last week in Tomball.

Noah and the Flood Story Retold

And it came to pass that God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  Also, the grifters, deficient and the affected caught a break.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.  And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.  And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.  Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.  And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.  Also, don’t forget the grifters, deficient and the affected.

Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.  Thus, did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.  Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.  Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.  Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth. Also, don’t forget to include seven pairs of the grifters, deficient and the affected.

To this last inclusion, Noah objected.  Seven pairs of the grifters, deficient and the affected.  Really?  You want these rejects to foul the ark for half a year?  Seriously?  God, this is where I put my sandal down.  Just like the unclean, which they are, only a single pair of the grifters, deficient and the affected.  God reluctantly acceded.  And Noah said:  Mark my words, this is a big mistake.  You shouldn’t try to save everybody, because you can’t.

There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.  They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.  And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.  However, God noticed not every pair was there.  And He said unto Noah: Wait a sec, where are my grifters, deficient and the affected?  And Noah said unto Him: Whoopsie, I didn’t think you’d notice their absence since you’re over there busy destroying all of mankind.  Oh well, I’ll put them in the ark, only a single pair of each like we agreed.  But I won’t hold them.

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in.  Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.  And the grifters, deficient and the affected immediately set about plying their dark arts.  The grifters making deals with man and beast which they would not or could not fulfill.  The deficient giving a hot foot to the orangutan, short sheeting the giraffes, etc.  The affected laughing hysterically as they mocked to death the turkeys for their bizarre physiology, the baboons for their crimson asses, ad nauseum.

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;  And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.  And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and went and looked for every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, to offer burnt offerings on the altar.

But there were no clean pairs left of the seven pairs saved.  Through deceit, cruelty and ridicule the grifters, deficient and the affected destroyed the beasts of the boat.  Watching the display for one hundred and fifty days, even the unclean felt dirty.  However, after allowing the grifters, deficient and the affected to join the unclean, the unclean were now their minions and set about populating the earth accordingly.

As for Noah, it would be bad.  Without something clean to sacrifice, God forsook him.  He died quickly after this fiasco.  His dying words to God were: Told Ya.

To provide for sacrifices is the reason more of the clean animals were to be taken into the ark.