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R O N     D e L U C A              from H i G H   W A T E R M A R K   S A L O [O] N  volume 2 number 3

 

from "Stone Hill Willy"

We all lived in the same neighborhood, two blocks from the river. Some of us closer some of us not. And at least once a year or sometimes more the river would rise. Too much rain for too many days and that was bad and sometimes a dam up river would break and that was worse. The people in the neighborhood would stand on the river bank and watch the river rise. Go home and come back and watch the river rise. This time the dam didn’t break but it was bad. So bad my father had to walk the railroad tracks above the river to watch for washouts. He worked for the railroad. Sometimes trains derailed. He stayed out all night in heavy rains to walk the rails. When it was barely light my father came home and the water was already up to the front steps. By the time we were ready to abandon the house for higher ground, the water was up to the second step and climbing. He carried my mother out first on his back with her arms around his neck. She was pregnant. She was always pregnant. Up the street it was almost over his boots. He carried my brothers and sisters out two at a time. He didn’t have to carry me.


We slept that night on the floor at my grandmother’s. Her house wasn’t in the flood. It was never in the flood. And it was always a fun time. The excitement of the water rising, the people milling around at the river, the flooding, the wading out, the camping out on the floor, the hot cocoa in the morning. It was a boy’s time.

My father talked about walking the tracks during the flood. He said all night long he heard people screaming for help. The people who lived in
shacks along the river. The shack people. Sometimes it was screaming and sometimes groaning. God help us, somebody help us. Oh God. He said it
was terrible to hear but there was nothing he could do and not much anybody could do. It was too dark and the water was coming up too fast and too swift. He had to move up bank and some of the shack people managed to climb the boxcars. And from the top of the boxcars, God help us, somebody help us. Oh God. Oh God.

 
B I O

 

Ron DeLuca retired after forty-four years in the advertising business. His experience includes art director, writer, creative director, operating officer, president. He wrote his first stories in college and put them in a shoe box after a handful of rejections and becoming pitifully addicted to eating. He wrote much of and supervised all of the creative work for two resurrections of Chrysler and the enthronement of Lee Iacocca. After retirement he wrote a book on his experiences in the business which became so focused on Lee Iacocca it was old news and never published. Since then he has taken up writing his personal stories again. One story, “Stone Man Willy,” was published by Bright Hill Press. He intends self-publishing a book of his stories for his primary audience, his family. Ron is a graduate of Pratt Institute, Syracuse University, and has a degree in psychology from The New School University of New York City.