That lazy, hazy river where we both can dream

Linger in the shade of an old oak tree

Throw away your troubles, dream a dream with me

Up a lazy river where the robin’s song

Wakes up in the mornin’, as we roll along

Blue skies up above ... everyone’s in love

Up a lazy river, how happy we will be, now

Up a lazy river with me

- “Down by the Riverside” by Louis Armstrong

BRYANT STATION - While the Little River is characterized by unremitting erosion, logjams, sandbars and collapsing banks, life is but a dream for Milam County residents fortunate enough to live on choice land situated beside this twisting, turning and temperamental, 104-mile channel.

The “tree planted by the water … we shall not be moved” attitude of river residents apparently has prevailed for generations. In many instances riverfront property hasn’t changed hands very often unless those who inherit choose to turn a quick profit and subdivide into small expensive tracts, says Kenneth Thweatt, who owns a real estate business in Cameron.

River land is coveted, if not for sentimental reasons, for the backyard water park recreational opportunities it affords: swimming, fishing, boating, tubing and kayaking or just watching the river change faces through the four seasons.

“Some people just want to live on the river, just because of the water,” Thweatt said. “A lot of people don’t know that the river will get out. There is a high side and a low side on the river. If you get on the high side, it is really sought after. You are looking at $2,000 an acre on the low side and $10,000 an acre on the high side. If you are on the low side all you can use it for is agriculture because of flooding.”

Emerging at the confluence of the Leon and Lampasas rivers in Bell County, the Little River is one of 3,700 streams of varying sizes in Texas constantly monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Water Development Board, Brazos River Authority, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains five upstream flood control projects.

Downstream, the Little River either races or winds its way through the Milam County countryside en route to the Brazos River.

Twelve miles west of Cameron is a Little River crossing marking the 1840s fort and pioneer settlement called Bryant Station. Here, Mary Len Chambers find the lazy river to be a good neighbor when it is low and slow in the channel and can accommodate her favorite pastime of tubing.

The only reason this transplanted city girl would live in the country was if the property adjoined a river, so she and her husband, Kender Chambers, visited river property from Houston to Milam County. High prices and Chambers’ Milam County roots led to a splashdown in 1970 on 10 acres neighboring the Little River. They planted an old trailer house on the high riverbank.

Today, their riverfront property provides an enviable backyard retreat, if not for the spectacular view, wildlife and cooler temperatures in the summer, the tubing opportunities for Mrs. Chambers.

“I have to have access to water,” Mrs. Chambers said. “I like to paddle in the river most of the year.”

However, “if we valued every inch of our property, the river would be a bad neighbor,” Mrs. Chambers said.

The Chambers, married for 60 years, bought more land in 1980, and built their dream home in 1995 for the retirement years. The owner sold riverfront land he considered unusable because it could not be farmed, thinking he had fleeced these city slickers, Chambers said. Today, they own 126 acres after deeding 40 acres to their youngest son.

Famed for their Central Texas bamboo farm, the couple began the business by planting the exotic grass to stabilize the riverbank.

“We are on the outside bend of the river, so the river has eaten away toward us, ever since we have owned that 10 acres,” Chambers said. “I guestimate we have lost about 2 feet a year. That is how we got into bamboo. We were trying to plant something that would control river erosion.”

Life on the high side of the river offers a hilltop panorama of lowland fields planted with spring crops. The Chambers enjoy a deck and a tree house, but never worry about floods because river water will surge south, but they have seen the fields drowning on the other side.

“When I was a kid,” says Chambers, 80, “it was not unusual for water to cover the lowland four to five times in the spring. When it came a flood, it flooded everything. That doesn’t happen much anymore because of the dams.”

While Chambers “really likes his water in a cup with a teabag in it,” Mrs. Chambers is the undisputed neighborhood mermaid. So frequent are her river adventures that friends and neighbors issue a cheery “Be careful” instead of “Goodbye.”

Willie and Adeline Kohutek, who recently celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary, have been riverside dwellers in the Bryant Station community for the past 30 years. They have continually rejected buy-out offers for their peaceful haven.

“We are happy right where we are,” Mrs. Kohutek said. Their homestead is enviable, she said. “You don’t know how many friends you have until you move to property beside the river.”

The Little River is a good neighbor, except when it floods, she said.

“It’s peaceful, it’s quite, there are occasional people that fish on the river on boats, but they don’t ever bother us,” Mrs. Kohutek said. “We totally enjoy it here.”

Charles Obermiller remembers some boyhood adventures when his family lived on the riverside, but standout memories include floods that blocked roads and covered fields.

“Three-fourths of a mile past the bridge, the river would get out and it was like an island between the bridge and the floodway over there,” said Obermiller, who wrote a poem about a boat trip where he retrieved a neighbor’s craft, only to lose it again in the next flood.

Jenny Wall Jackson and husband, T-Bone Jackson, of the Bryant Station community recall stories of the Wall family, who lived in a log cabin beside the Little River at the Bryant Station crossing when she was toddler. Likely the gentle flow of the river water helped lull babies to sleep.

The sound of the river water was a selling point for Mary Len Chambers to move to the country.

“When we used to come on weekends and stayed in the trailer, you could hear the water all night long,” Mrs. Chambers said. “It was so nice. That was the first thing I said when we moved into the house is, ‘I can’t hear the river when I want to go to sleep.’”

jwilliams@temple-telegram.com