Memories still flood his mind

As you get older, memory becomes a bit like that closet you know needs to be cleaned out.

You've been stuffing things in it for years, but finding them - especially when you need them - can be a challenge.

Then, every once in awhile, something will act as a trigger, and all the old stuff will come tumbling out, sort of like the way it worked at Fibber McGee's. (And if you don't get that last reference, ask your parents. Or your grandparents.)

Last week, my sister Linda acted as the trigger. We'd been talking about the flash flooding that hit a campground in Arkansas last month, and she said, "Do you remember when we were evacuated that time?"

And all of it came tumbling out, memories that I'd lost like an old pair of mittens or a junior high school yearbook rolled to the forefront as I responded: "Kankakee."

Some of the details are still sketchy, but other moments are vivid, as if they happened yesterday, instead of 1958.

Or maybe it was 1959.

The family had taken an extraordinarily ambitious camping vacation, all the way from Indiana to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a family from just down North Street had relocated about a year before.

The family had kids close to the ages of kids in our family.

Stevie was my age and a good friend. He, Don Starr, and I were close to being the three musketeers when we were about six years old.

At any rate, traveling all the way to Colorado with six of us in a Plymouth station wagon hauling a camping trailer behind was probably enough for my father to question his sanity.

If he didn't at the beginning, he certainly did by the time we reached the endless horizons of Kansas, moving slowly west on two-lane blacktop as the kids took turns asking if we were there yet.

But the visit - once we got there - was a great success. We camped at Estes Park.

Stevie's family came out to the campground, and he and I hiked until we were almost lost and drank water from a mountain stream. I reciprocated with an overnight visit at his house in Colorado Springs.

Then we were back on the road again, stopping at Mount Rushmore where I met Iron Eyes Cody, an Indian actor whose name pops up in old movie credits now and then. Between gigs, he played himself - an old Indian - at Mount Rushmore and was nice enough to a kid from Indiana that I still remember it.

(As I said, once the memories start tumbling, they are hard to stop.)

Eventually, as we worked our way back, we camped at Kankakee State Park in eastern Illinois. It was to be our last night on the road. We all were looking forward to hot showers and sleeping in our own beds.

But getting home wouldn't prove so simple.

It started raining. And it continued to rain. It rained through dinner. And it was still raining when we hit the sack, my brother Steve and I in a little pop-up tent and the others in the camper trailer.

It was still raining about 4:30 a.m. when the state police arrived with flashing lights and bullhorns.

Their message was simple: Get up and get out.

The Kankakee River - always prone to flooding - was up to its old tricks again.

Now, as anyone who has done any family camping knows, breaking camp has a special routine. There are assigned chores. Everything has to be properly stowed in the right place. It has to be done correctly.

Except that morning, when the message was simple: Get up and get out.

Sleeping bags were half-rolled and jammed into the station wagon. The camper trailer was folded up sloppily, with its cover barely secure. Nothing was properly stowed. Nothing was done correctly.

The river was rising. Linda remembers water around our ankles as we struggled, in the dark, to evacuate.

Somewhere down the road, wet, groggy, surrounded by camping gear that hadn't been put where it should have been put, we rolled into a little town, still in Illinois.

I'm not sure if the rain had stopped, but I know we were on higher ground.

And in that little town, there was a small storefront café, the kind of place with booths and a lunch counter. And it was open early.

The waitress told us it was fine to change out of our wet things into real clothes in the rest room. And the cook started on pancakes and kept them coming until we were finally ready to move on down the road and head for home.

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