Talking Southern – The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise

     After storm-induced torrential rains have devastated many locales in recent years, it seems appropriate to trot out this old gem of presumably Southern origin.  Your compiler says “presumably” because he has no idea where the old phrase comes from, but cannot imagine anyone from New York, New Jersey, or Chicago saying it.  Can the reader?

     The phrase is generally used to emphasize an affirmative answer to a pressing question, as in, “Can you be in the office at 7:00 AM Monday morning?”   One might reply, “I’ll be there then, the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”   The saying has its other uses, too; most of which, in your compiler’s experience, have been appended to discussions of fairly grand plans, as in, “Inez and I are going to Italy next month, the good Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise.

     It is possible that “Creek” and not “creek” was intended when the phrase first originated.  Creek Indian uprisings were certainly a factor in our part of Georgia in the 1820s, as Fayette County was created from the Creek Cession of 1821, and Coweta from the Creek Cession of 1825, land deals certain members of the Creek Nation were unhappy with.   Your compiler and his family have long lived along the McIntosh Road in Brooks, which was a segment of Chief William McIntosh’s original trail from Whitesburg to Indian Springs.   Chief McIntosh’s White Stick Creeks found themselves increasingly at odds with their neighboring Red Stick Creeks in Alabama during the 1810s and 1820s, and the general unsettledness of this situation may have given rise to the phrase.  Your compiler is not sure anyone really knows for certain.

     The sizable grammar crank residing in your compiler’s makeup sincerely hopes that it’s “Creek,” for the verb should be “doesn’t” if it is not.  But then again, subject-predicate agreement was quite probably not a matter of life-or-death importance on the Georgia, Alabama, and Florida frontiers in the time in which Creek uprisings would have been possible, so one cannot say with any certainty whatsoever.

     Uprisings of Creeks are no longer a worry, but as we see on national news with what seems to be increasing regularity, upswells of creeks and rivers are as dangerous, if not more so due to intensity, than ever.    Your compiler is willing to wager that the somewhat cornball-ish old saying will last as long as creeks keep rising, but certainly no longer than the good Lord is willing. 

    In the meantime, keep your feet dry and don’t forget to keep your bumbershoot close at hand.