Main Piece: SR: My mom used to always say, “Good lord willing and the creek don’t rise”, and everytime I say it now I think of my mom. She would pretty much say it whenever you’re hoping something would work out positively, or you think something would work out positively, like “We’re gonna go to Disneyland, good lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

Context: This phrase was said by SR’s mother as he was growing up, whenever one wanted to see a positive outcome.

Background: SR remembered this in particular when asked if his family has any sort of proverbs that they used to say; his mother recently passed, and so when he mentioned this he smiled and said that it always made him think of his mom.

Analysis: This proverb is widely used in SR’s family, and throughout the country as well, although SR said he hasn’t encountered a ton of other people who use this regularly. Upon further research, it seems to have originated in pilgrim-age America, where a creek flooding would impede your travel and make your journey much more difficult, or even perilous. I think it is always so interesting to see how literal phrases like this can turn into such meaningless words to toss around– nowadays, this saying has absolutely nothing to do with creek flooding!