...And the floods came up!

There's a children's song which tells the story of two men. One man, the more sensible of the two, built his house on a foundation of rock. The other apparently wanted a seaside home and built his house upon the sand. In this tale, the forces of nature conspire to pour water down upon the abodes of both men, but each ended up with a different outcome. Man One stayed comfortably warm in his stationary house, while Man Two soon found out that he had something more akin to a house boat. The moral of the story is that we should all build our lives on a solid foundation.


While I agree wholeheartedly with this lesson, the song was brought to mind by a completely different circumstance. This story does involve sensible men and foolish ones, but there are no foundations involved. The words "the rains came down, and the floods came up! The rains came down and the floods came up!" flashed through my mind as I splashed through the puddles on the ground and felt rain water falling on my head. The problem was that I was indoors. *sigh*

There had been a leak in the studio ceiling all last year, which they were supposed to fix during the summer. The Roofing company tried patching it several times over the three months, none of which held, so during the first week of school they tried to do a larger-scale repair job. That week bits of rotten wood flowed down a slide from the roof, and we all prayed (looking up to heaven through the holes in the roof) that the job would work. Our wonderful building maintenance people (wise men, not like the roofers!) worked tirelessly to protect students' studios with tarps. It's a good thing, too, because as soon as this first rain hit, the seam burst open. Now there is flood where before there was a drip. Good repair job, roofing company!

The old roofers (the foolish men) were fired and as of this morning we have a new roofing company. However, the roof is damaged beyond repair, and probably had been since the beginning. The roof will be torn off completely and replaced, which means all of us in that area have to evacuate. I've been transformed into a flood evacuee! Our new graduate director, who is winning a lot of fans among the grad students, is desperately working to find us all adequate accommodations.

I now sign off, listening to the hum of the wet/dry vacs, and thinking that the wise man had probably not only built upon the rock, but also made sure he had a good roof.