If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
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The Levee's Gonna Break, Bob Dylan, Modern Times.
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make.
Well, I worked on the levee, Mama, both night and day
I worked on the levee, Mama, both night and day
I got to the river and I threw my clothes away.
I paid my time and now I'm good as new
I paid my time and now I'm as good as new
They can't take me back unless I want 'em to.
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some of these people gonna strip you of all they can take.
I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
Riches and salvation can be waiting behind the next bend in the road
I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
You say you want me to quit ya, I told ya, 'No, not just yet.'
Well, I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me
I look in your eyes I see nobody other than me
I see all that I am and all I hope to be
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some of these people don't know which road to take
When I'm with you I forget I was ever blue
When I'm with you I forget I was ever blue
Without you there's no meaning in anything I do
Some people on the road carryin' everything that they own
Some people on the road carryin' everything they own
Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
I tried to get you to love me, but I won't repeat that mistake
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Plenty of cheap stuff out there still around that you take
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I ain't got enough room to even raise my head.
Come back baby, say we never more will part
Come back baby, say we never more will part
Don't be a stranger with no brain or heart
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some people still sleepin', some people are wide awake.
Sandbagged, by Joe Blair, June 21, 2008, NYT.
You pay attention when you live on a floodplain. If the previous winter’s snowfall was especially heavy, you think about the reservoir. And the spillway. You notice when the river is high. You pay attention when thunderstorms come every day. This past spring, the talk was all about the reservoir level. “It’s five feet from the top.” “It’s three feet.” By the time it overflowed the spillway, we were already building the levee down in Mosquito Flats alongside the Iowa River.
Normandy Drive, where I and my family had lived for seven years before we moved up the hill, had become a war zone overnight. Heavy equipment churned up the lawns we had been so proud of. My son’s math teacher, a big, tough-looking guy, seemed to be in charge of the levee-building operation. “Where do you need me?” I said.
“Bagging,” he said. “But you won’t want to wear those.” He jutted his chin at my new leather Redwing work boots. “Why not?” I said. Again he jutted his chin, this time toward the river. Fifty or so people in a line were passing sandbags one to the next. Some were already waist deep in the rising water. “Ruin ’em,” he said.
“We need a guy here!” someone shouted. I hesitated, looking at my boots, then waded into the swollen, brown Iowa River. The first bag was heavy, maybe 50 pounds. I received it from a tall guy in a beard, turned and passed it to a woman wearing a Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap. I had started my sandbagging career on the bottom rung. I didn’t feel too bad about it, because, as I quickly discovered, there is only one rung. The tall guy in the beard was already passing me another bag. I turned and passed.
Passing sandbags is a personal thing. You’re face to face with the person passing you the bag, as well as the person to whom you pass it. The line may be 300 feet long. But it’s not long for you. It’s intimate, a three-person event. You take. You turn. You give. You get to know people. Not through conversation, but by the way they hand you the bag — the way they work.
No one spoke much, even when we had a break. We’d wade out of the water and gather between pickup trucks. Some would stretch. Some would fall on the ground, arms wide like little children. I took some stabs at conversation. “They were supposed to be good this year,” I said to the woman in the Brewers hat. She frowned. I motioned toward her hat. “Oh,” she said. “It’s not my hat.”
By 9:30 at night, when the sun had swollen into a large red blob, and it was cool, and everyone was wandering back to wherever they had come from, we were proud of ourselves. Everyone was hugging and shaking hands. I chatted to some of my old neighbors. Louise Wolf-Novak, whose boiler I had installed a year and a half ago at Christmas time, thanked me for helping save the neighborhood. I felt like a big hero.
I went home. But around midnight, I came back to the levee. The heavy equipment was silent. Everything was still except the water. As I stood in the darkness, a guy rode up from behind me on a bike. He dismounted and pulled off his helmet. It was the tall guy with the beard. He didn’t say anything. We stood and looked at the river. After a few moments, someone else approached. He was a big guy who earlier had been singing along to the radio while he waited for the next truck. We all stood together, looking out. “It’s a nice wall we built,” the big guy said. We nodded.
Two days later, my son William and I paddled our canoe through our old neighborhood. We paddled through what used to be City Park and is now a lake. We paddled over the four-foot picket fence I had built in our old front yard, over bushes and mailboxes. Strange to say, the neighborhood was beautiful, half submerged.
I spoke to Louise after she was evacuated from her home. “I was O.K.,” she said, “but then I saw the boiler you installed. It was my Christmas present that year, you know. We decorated it with Christmas lights and bulbs. When I saw that, I cried.”
A friend of mine is angry about the time we spent bagging sand. He says our levee didn’t matter, the water having risen well over the top of it. “Just more to clean up when the water recedes,” he said. “It was a waste of time.”
And he’s right, I know. But he’s wrong, too.
Joe Blair owns a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business.
Down.
The Levee's Gonna Break, Bob Dylan, Modern Times.
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna breakIf it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make.
Well, I worked on the levee, Mama, both night and day
I worked on the levee, Mama, both night and day
I got to the river and I threw my clothes away.
I paid my time and now I'm good as newI paid my time and now I'm as good as new
They can't take me back unless I want 'em to.
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some of these people gonna strip you of all they can take.
I can't stop here I ain't ready to unloadI can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
Riches and salvation can be waiting behind the next bend in the road
I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
You say you want me to quit ya, I told ya, 'No, not just yet.'
Well, I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than meI look in your eyes I see nobody other than me
I see all that I am and all I hope to be
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some of these people don't know which road to take
When I'm with you I forget I was ever blueWhen I'm with you I forget I was ever blue
Without you there's no meaning in anything I do
Some people on the road carryin' everything that they own
Some people on the road carryin' everything they own
Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dressPut on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
I tried to get you to love me, but I won't repeat that mistake
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Plenty of cheap stuff out there still around that you take
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I ain't got enough room to even raise my head.
Come back baby, say we never more will partCome back baby, say we never more will part
Don't be a stranger with no brain or heart
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break
Some people still sleepin', some people are wide awake.
Sandbagged, by Joe Blair, June 21, 2008, NYT.
You pay attention when you live on a floodplain. If the previous winter’s snowfall was especially heavy, you think about the reservoir. And the spillway. You notice when the river is high. You pay attention when thunderstorms come every day. This past spring, the talk was all about the reservoir level. “It’s five feet from the top.” “It’s three feet.” By the time it overflowed the spillway, we were already building the levee down in Mosquito Flats alongside the Iowa River. 
Normandy Drive, where I and my family had lived for seven years before we moved up the hill, had become a war zone overnight. Heavy equipment churned up the lawns we had been so proud of. My son’s math teacher, a big, tough-looking guy, seemed to be in charge of the levee-building operation. “Where do you need me?” I said. “Bagging,” he said. “But you won’t want to wear those.” He jutted his chin at my new leather Redwing work boots. “Why not?” I said. Again he jutted his chin, this time toward the river. Fifty or so people in a line were passing sandbags one to the next. Some were already waist deep in the rising water. “Ruin ’em,” he said.
“We need a guy here!” someone shouted. I hesitated, looking at my boots, then waded into the swollen, brown Iowa River. The first bag was heavy, maybe 50 pounds. I received it from a tall guy in a beard, turned and passed it to a woman wearing a Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap. I had started my sandbagging career on the bottom rung. I didn’t feel too bad about it, because, as I quickly discovered, there is only one rung. The tall guy in the beard was already passing me another bag. I turned and passed. Passing sandbags is a personal thing. You’re face to face with the person passing you the bag, as well as the person to whom you pass it. The line may be 300 feet long. But it’s not long for you. It’s intimate, a three-person event. You take. You turn. You give. You get to know people. Not through conversation, but by the way they hand you the bag — the way they work.
No one spoke much, even when we had a break. We’d wade out of the water and gather between pickup trucks. Some would stretch. Some would fall on the ground, arms wide like little children. I took some stabs at conversation. “They were supposed to be good this year,” I said to the woman in the Brewers hat. She frowned. I motioned toward her hat. “Oh,” she said. “It’s not my hat.” By 9:30 at night, when the sun had swollen into a large red blob, and it was cool, and everyone was wandering back to wherever they had come from, we were proud of ourselves. Everyone was hugging and shaking hands. I chatted to some of my old neighbors. Louise Wolf-Novak, whose boiler I had installed a year and a half ago at Christmas time, thanked me for helping save the neighborhood. I felt like a big hero.
I went home. But around midnight, I came back to the levee. The heavy equipment was silent. Everything was still except the water. As I stood in the darkness, a guy rode up from behind me on a bike. He dismounted and pulled off his helmet. It was the tall guy with the beard. He didn’t say anything. We stood and looked at the river. After a few moments, someone else approached. He was a big guy who earlier had been singing along to the radio while he waited for the next truck. We all stood together, looking out. “It’s a nice wall we built,” the big guy said. We nodded. Two days later, my son William and I paddled our canoe through our old neighborhood. We paddled through what used to be City Park and is now a lake. We paddled over the four-foot picket fence I had built in our old front yard, over bushes and mailboxes. Strange to say, the neighborhood was beautiful, half submerged.
I spoke to Louise after she was evacuated from her home. “I was O.K.,” she said, “but then I saw the boiler you installed. It was my Christmas present that year, you know. We decorated it with Christmas lights and bulbs. When I saw that, I cried.” A friend of mine is angry about the time we spent bagging sand. He says our levee didn’t matter, the water having risen well over the top of it. “Just more to clean up when the water recedes,” he said. “It was a waste of time.”
And he’s right, I know. But he’s wrong, too.
Joe Blair owns a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business.
Down.
