We live about ninety feet from the banks of Little Beaver Creek, which is a state- and federally-designated Wild and Scenic River. This essentially means that the river has little to no pollution or litter, a thriving, balanced fish and animal population (over two dozen species of fish at last count; 20 is considered excellent), no commercial development along its banks, and so on. It is a coveted status, and one of the reasons that we are thrilled to be able to live here.

Living this close to water can be a fearsome lesson in awe. Called a creek, what we have here is really more like a river, complete with rapids, low waterfalls, and so on. Most of the time, it's a benign, musical presence that provides us with a great deal of beauty and a sense of restoration. When the snows melt, though, Beaver Creek flexes its muscle to show us exactly what it is capable of doing. In our winters here, we have spent hours watching, amazed, as intact trees zip down the water at top speed, root structures snagging on nothing because the creek gets so high.

One of our most memorable high water incidents happened on New Year's Day 1990. Our friend Bill, who loves a good walk, was trying to rouse all of us at the ungodly hour of 10:00 AM (well, that is ungodly for New Year's morning). With good-natured insults and a few well-placed swats, he managed to get us all up and going. We walked to the area known locally as the Tubs, named because eons of wind and water have scoured many of the rocks into a series of corrugated bathtub-like depths.

There had been, in the preceding week, an alternating series of warmish and frigid days. The water was relatively high, but nothing to brag about. We all stood around admiring the landscape and visiting with each other when suddenly our friend Tina said, "Hey! Look at our shoes!" Michael and I looked down at the same time and realized, with some curiosity, that the formerly dry rock we were standing on was now covered in half an inch or so of water -- and the water was rising even as we watched. It hadn't sunk in yet, and we just stood there for a moment or two longer. Then we heard the noise.

Noise is not a word that really does justice to this phenomenon. It was more like a clenching vibration from within our bones. It was all around us, but also something we could feel inside. It was like what I'd always imagined a stampeding herd of elephants sounds like.

Almost as one person, we all turned and ran for the tow path, which is higher by several feet. From there we watched with a combination of elation and terror as boulders of ice came smashing and careering around the bend of the creek. It would not be a gross overstatement to call some of these things icebergs. They were the size of everything ranging from large sectional couches and Buicks to billboards and cement mixers and beyond. They were whitish to blue to brown-streaked grey.

The ice floes hurtled past us, juggling entire trees overhead, not to mention sections of fence, a wheelbarrow, and a neon orange child's rubber ball, among the things that we could see. The enormous, grinding clatter pretty much made talk impossible, though we were all huddled together. It was the first day of the last decade of this century, and it was a sight to see.

The water doesn't always have to be high or cold to send chills down your spine. We go canoeing on a pretty regular basis around here, and in fact, there used to be a canoe livery just down towards the end of our lane. During its last summer of operation, Michael, my father, and our friend Gary and I all went canoeing one splendid summer afternoon. On one particularly lazy stretch of creek, we were simply drifting, not saying much, enjoying the day.

Then we heard, all of us, a kind of short, splintery screech and a heartbeat later, a dead tree about sixty feet in height crashed to the water in between our two canoes -- which were separated only by maybe four or five yards. That'll wake you right up.

Winston Churchill, in writing about his experiences escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp during World War I, noted that there is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without result. We have had some small sense of what he must have felt. Had we been moments later or earlier for either the ice floes or the tree, things could have been very different indeed.

I don't know who first said that hunger is the best sauce, but I'd have to nominate adrenaline as a very close second. After both of our brushes with cataclysm, I found that I was ravenously hungry. Michael, with his science background, tells me that this is because you use up an enormous amount of energy when your body goes into the ol' fight-or-flight mode, and that may be true. It also has, I think, a great deal to do with the overwhelming urge to do something normal, something everydayish, something over which you hold some measure of control -- in short, something that gives you back a sense of security. And what could possibly be better than eating?

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