I’m trading in my Jeep for a bass boat

Thank you for the emails late last week and this weekend. We did have record flooding around here, but everyone at chez Fox is fine and dandy. I had no idea so many people saw Valley Park on my PO Box address … and remembered. Gee, paranormal readers are smart. Not that we didn’t know that already.

So, yes, our little town was all over the news. And I have to confess, watching them lower the flood walls gave me flashbacks to that scene in Titanic where the steel doors come down. But the levees held and we live on one of the river bluffs, so all was well, save for the fact that the road leading up to our house flooded on Friday night, thanks to a side creek. It all happened in the time it took to grab dinner. Pre pad thai, no problem. Afterward, we had to take an alternate route and come in from the side. Oh and we had to hit every oversized puddle and waterlogged sink hole along the way. My husband loves driving my Jeep through water.

I was just glad to see that the old town area of Valley Park stayed dry. Our city is basically a little town that was swallowed up by St. Louis and I just love how Valley Park has kept its sense of community. It’s the kind of place where you can walk into the local ice cream shop and have a banana split while sitting on church pews recycled from the parish across the street. It’s the kind of place where the bar down the hill posts congratulations for weddings and graduations. And it’s the place where brave beer drinkers sat at Meramec Jacks and had a cold one while the river crested on the other side of the levee.

So all in all, I’m glad to be here. But thanks for the offers of bass boats, rafts and the leaky innertube (you know who you are). It feels good to know you’re thinking of us here in Missouri.

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