Hippies and the Flood’s Receding Waters:

      To Be Transformed or Conformed, Just Ask Busby and Melody

 

While on my way to the feed store, a time back, I saw a familiar sight. It was Busby and Melody's psychedelic-painted, micro-van on the side of the road, with the rear engine panel open-the engine was still smoking. I stopped to ask them if they needed anything. I knew their answer. Busby and Melody's character is based on extreme notions of self-reliance. If ever a body tried to help them, when they were in need, it would be curtly responded to by a no thank you very much!'

Not even losing everything in the flood could easily change their point of view.

The floodwaters have long receded from this part of the country. The shock and devastations has transformed folks according to their makeup. No matter whatever happens to folks, when bad things happen, sooner or later they begin to move on with their lives in a variety of ways. Years from now folks will have built new houses, farms, and new lives. And some will not.

Floods, like any catastrophic endeavor, have transforming effects. It's like we humans are too stubborn to change by ourselves. It takes a lightning bolt, a kick in the head by a mule, or a flood to get our attention. If you talk to most successful folks, who you admire, they will tell you a tale or two about how some catastrophic event got their attention. Then, they will tell you how that event transformed their lives to higher levels of achievement; higher than they would ever have been able to reach relying on their own volition.

Now locals call Busby and Melody hippies' because that is a term that is still etched from their adolescence. There is no emotion attached to the term, one way or the other. It is just something in their lexicon from which they never had a need to evolve. Over time, everyone here in Parrot County has gotten to know them as just people. Any respect, or disdain derived by each of the populace has been earned by deeds, just like any other folk. Folks around here like, or dislike you in their own way. They don't need to be told who to like.

Parrot County f0lks also don't judge others for the most part. It's just not in their nature-because I guess they are secure enough with who they are, and comfortable with what they are not. It doesn't take a flood to make sense out of such.

Floods come in different forms, you know. In everyone's lives there are epic' points in life's adventures that are turning points. Some use them to redefine their ambitions; some, as a test of faith, and I guess some use them as an excuse to no longer have to' "I could have been greatif it weren't for that dad-gum flood."

In the end, any rational mind might just have to ponder the notion that floods and such aren't all that bad.

I figure that for Busby and Melody it was a bit of all three-and perhaps something more added to the mix. They lost everything, having long ago shunned any of culture's safety nets. They were far off society's grid. In the end it became a defining summary of their life-choice. Still, they believe they had been validated. Any reclamation of a sustainable life had to be on their terms, to begin again on their own-like before. But of course nobody can really do everything by themselves. They may claim it, but it can never be so.

But Busby and Melody are stubborn that way.

The folks in Parrot County are stubborn too.

It is instilled in the psyche and soul of most everyone residing in Parrot County to help those in need. It is not a conscious process. Rather, one that automatically kicks in when a local mind perceives a fellow human needs a rope. Each Parrot County folk have different tolerances and interpretations of a needy situation. But, once that instinct kicks in, it cannot be harnessed; it needs to play out until the giver is satisfied. If the recipient claims the goodwill is unwanted, tough, they get it anyway. It's like riding in a barrel over Niagara Falls, once you climb in and shove off from shore-you are committed-the journey has begun and it will ultimately have some form of ending.

For Busby and Melody, soon after the flood did its worst, it all began.

Every morning when Melody walked down to the spring fed creek for water, her path would be blocked by supplies, and materials piled so high that the only way she could get around was for her and Busby to haul the stuff back to their homestead. There were always boxes full of jars, all sorts of foodstuff, bags filled with clothes; wooden boxes filled with tools, and always a good supply of wood and other building materials- never any indication from whom.

Resenting such charity at first, the two concocted ways of surveying the various locations along the trail to thwart such offerings. But the culprit(s) were always too clever. Finally at some point, Busby and Melody succumbed to the generosity. Never admitting philosophical defeat but rationalizing they were not making the most efficient use of their time.

Nothing was ever said. There was no need. Sometimes that is the most efficient way to get things done. The giver understands the true nature of giving and the recipient gets back on their feet, and still has their most important social asset for them to grow-their pride.

Floods come and go but people need to survive, in their own way, each minute of every day.

Now if this little story ended with Melody running for, and winning the election of mayor in Bristol Run, you probably would assume that some editor suggested such an addition to make the tale more audience-viable.

And if I was to say these days Busby can regularly be seen sitting at the Table of the Elders' for breakfast down at Miley's Mill Grill you might assume that this author has exceeded his creative boundaries.

Such is life. You see, that is why it is so hard to write about the folks in Parrot County; life is often stranger than fictionor, at least it usually makes a lot more sense.