The Mighty Mississip'

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise...
- Mark Twain in Eruption

Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis
Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans
But I never saw the good side of the city
'Til I hitched a ride on a riverboat queen

Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river

I'm sure you have seen or heard of the flooding from the Mighty Mississippi over the last month or so. It finally crested a couple of weeks ago and is only now receding back into it's banks. I have been reading a lot about the current flood and about the Great Floods of 1927 and 1937. We thought we might be personally affected when the Loosahatchie River, a local tributary of the Mississippi, flooded a few weeks ago. It created "Lake Arlington," which is an area of farmland from Interstate 385 to Airline Road along the north side of Highway 70 which is all a little over a mile from our house. Fortunately the lake disappeared after a few days and the flooding never got any closer to our house. However, on the day the Mississippi crested the Grizzlies also happened to be playing a basketball game. My dad picked me up from work and we headed downtown to check out the whole thing. It was a wild atmosphere down at the riverbanks. People were stretched out all along the river taking pictures, marveling at the flooding and the power of the river, and in some cases even wading into it. It was crazy to see where Riverside Drive and Beale Street had just become The River and Beale Street instead. The most amazing part was just how much water there was and how fast it was moving. The river ultimately crested just short of the record from the flood of 1937.

After we ate dinner at Silky O'Sullivans we headed to the FedEx Forum and witnessed an event just as unlikely as the flooded Mississippi River. The Grizzlies and Thunder proceeded to play about four hours of basketball. Little did we know that when we walked to our seats and put on our Believe Memphis t-shirts and picked up our Believe Memphis Growl Towels that we would still be there early the next morning. It was a triple overtime thriller that I will never forget. And to think I had been so disappointed when I had missed the previous game, the only home game of the playoffs that I missed, when the Grizzlies had come back from I believe 16 points to win. A victory would have been nice(the Thunder were the victors), but I will never forget this game as long as I live. The clutch shots and unbelievable three pointers will go down in Grizz history. Stunned and in disbelieve I was dropped off back at the hospital where I slept for a short time before waking up to start my day. It's the only time I've slept at the hospital when I wasn't on call. And it was definitely worth it.