00012 · West Fork of the Upper Des Moines River

When my dad was around 19 years old, he wrote a story about the Des Moines River flowing through our hometown of Windom, Minnesota.

The story was from the point of view of the river, describing the land turn from wild to farm to city and back to wild again. The river shared its observations on the comings and goings of the people in the town and country, as the water and story progressed through their lives.

I heard the story was quite good. I would kill to be able to read it, but the paper it was written on is long gone, and my dad died nine years ago. I never did ask him to remember it in detail, one of my many regrets.

The teacher at his technical college who gave the writing assignment had my dad stand and read the story aloud to the class. I can only imagine my father’s pride and the gusto he gave to the reading.

“Very good, Mr. Flatgard,” this small not-professor at a small not-university said. “Where did you get this from?”

He couldn’t believe this farm kid could write so well. In the argument that followed, my dad left the class, and thus ended his life in formal education.

He taught himself so many things by reading and picking the brains of others: how to run a successful business, how to design and build houses, how to keep a great wife and raise a family, as well as fine art painting, sales negotiation, furniture building, and much more. He’s remembered as a master storyteller.

He also learned how to find and follow bad investments, almost lose a great wife, piss off his kids, and become lonely.

And in the very end, his final trick was to face death with unbreakable faith and wit and grace and compassion.

Over and over, I replay the stories of his time on earth as I discern ways to live a good life. I am almost his clone by nature and nurture. I try to honor the gifts I inherited and avoid the traps that waylaid him. Turning 56, I worry about my life becoming smaller and pettier and more bitter. It scares me that parts of my soul are becoming like orange rinds left out in the desert sun.

* * *

According to my dad, folks from Windom used to boat and swim on the Des Moines River, which ran through the backyard of my childhood home. In my time, I was told to avoid going in it, and especially not put my head under the water. The river was filled with farm runoff, manure, and pollution. We only canoed or snowmobiled upon it.

Near the end of town, a dam was built in the 1930s, which briefly broadened the river. But like all dam consequences, the river just silted up and got choked out with cattails and sediment. The broad river became a stream.

In 2011, they removed the dam to try to restore the river’s ecosystem, but the Des Moines remained an old man, feebly limping through town unnoticed.

Then the 2024 flood happened. Southwest Minnesota had a particularly wet spring, and the entire region was soaked to the point that the ground couldn’t absorb any more water. Then over a foot of rain came down in 48 hours, and every waterway and pond and lake and slough burst their capacities. The river actually flowed backwards into its headwaters of Lake Shetek, which itself brimmed at record levels.

My hometown came together the way hometowns are supposed to, packing sandbags by the thousands, distributing them to weak points, and racing to build clay levees right through the middle of streets and parks to hold back the river. It worked, and major destruction was prevented.

I spent a week wandering the flooded town of my childhood, driving the long way around where the bridges were closed. It was a stunning miracle to witness the endless and broad swaths of water race across the prairie. Overnight, the river’s course went from a cowpath meandering to broad and rapid interstate efficiency.

I wonder what the river will be like when the water recedes, silty memories of the old ways swept away. I have visions of a whole new riverbed under the floodwaters, a heart bypass around the old and obstructed arteries.

I wonder if I’m still strong enough to allow floods of abundance to redirect my lifecourse.

I wonder how my father’s story ended, when the river got out of town and found its wild channel again.