Water

By Joe Rector

This past Sunday, our minister gave the second in a series on the book of John. She discussed the significance of water for Christians and the many things for which it is a symbol. Of course, baptism is the most obvious one. After church, I began thinking about water and the modern world’s dealings with it. Before long, I realized that we as a world have much demand for the stuff and even more responsibility for keeping it safe.

Back in the old days, those being the 1950s and 1960s, many of the homes around the area got water from wells. Somebody would come out and drill deep into the ground until “Eureka!” Water spurted out the top. Lines were run from the well to the house and water was readily available. I never lived a minute when someone had to walk to a common well, draw water from a well, and struggle to return with most of the contents of a bucket.

At some point, WKUD began providing services for the local community. Mother walked to neighbors’ houses to persuade them to sign the petition to have the utility company begin business. Our water is hard, which means plenty of minerals are in it. Over time, lines that were once ¾ inches in diameter became pinhole-sized, and the time had come to dig up the yard and install new pipes. Metal pipes weren’t that safe, but that’s what was available at the time. WKUD included fluoride to help lessen tooth decay, and some people swore it was a communist plot to kill us all. They were wrong. Neither was drinking from a hose such a bad thing. Children who had been banished to the yard until dark drank from hoses after games of baseball or football or hide-and-go-seek. We lived without contracting some fatal disease from the rubber hoses.

Today, water is “a thing.” Folks have bottles of water with them most of the time. Some people have scads of water bottles or thermoses that they take to work, school, or physical activities. The plastic bottles are a scourge to the world. They don’t break down but develop mountains in inland areas and islands in the oceans, all of which adversely affect the environment. Remember the days of a common ladle from which everyone drank? Today, most people would be disgusted to think of using such a thing. Better to have millions and billions of plastic bottles than to share a cup with someone else.

I don’t particularly like to gulp a glass of water. The taste isn’t all that off-putting, but the feeling of bloating from the stuff never has been pleasant. Evidently, the world is filled with water aficionados. These individuals supposedly have the ability to pick the best water, and just like wine tasting, they swirl, and sniff, and swish water after smelling it. Then they pronounce the best. Hey, when I mow the yard in the heat of summer, the best water in the world is any that is wet.

For what seems to be my whole life, I’ve heard authorities say that we should drink more water. However, recently, somebody who has some new product has decided that humans drink too much and should switch to the new product being sold. I take this advice with a grain of salt, just like I do with other people selling all sorts of “miracle” products. I’m pretty sure in the evolutionary trail that our species spent time in the water. The liquid is the key to life. We can live longer without food than without water. How amazing the cost of water is when it’s bottled and branded. Sure, some process to destroy bacteria and other harmful things takes place. Still, I laugh when people pay $1.00 or more for a resource that covers the majority of the planet. All I know is that the best water ever came from a rubber hose from which a line of Ball Camp boys drank during a timeout of a tackle football game in our yard.