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“Inflatable pool full of dad’s hot air. I was three years old splashing everywhere and so began my love affair — with water.” From the song, Water by Brad Paisley.
I don’t remember when my love affair with water began. I imagine it was in the womb. After my mother’s water broke, I came out with a gush. I cried for what had been lost of a world that had been all water or so I infer from what I hear often goes on at births.
So why this reflection on water today, now that I am a 66-year-old man? It is because I read yesterday about a study, conducted at the State University of New York at Fredonia, found that in a sample of 259 bottles of best selling bottled drinking water, from around the world, over 90 percent of them contained little bits of floating plastic. Fredonia, NY is where I grew up.
If you want to get a good drink of water in Fredonia, NY today, try the public water fountain that is part of the memorial to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, (WCTU), in the center of the village. The league started in Fredonia and it was a key player in the drive to make it illegal to buy an alcoholic drink in America, which was the case for a while.
Today there are plenty of bars in Fredonia. Being the home of a State University of New York College, Fredonia has many places where you can go to drink, in addition to the WCTU’s commemorative fountain.
One of these bars was called the “Caboose.” It was so named because its entrance was an old train car, the one they put last on a train for the train conductors to hang out in. I hung out there to celebrate my 18th birthday. It was my first drink of alcohol. I loved it, but alcohol never had the appeal for me that water did.
Most of my pool water memories are of a concrete pool. The family who owned the pool bought it with the money they made selling farmland for the New York State Thruway to go through. They had no choice to sell their land. They had a choice to share the pool with whoever wanted to come and swim there. They chose to welcome all. This was an unusual choice by today’s standards.
It was there I learned that I was not naturally inclined to be a swimmer. There was something about my body that dictated I was born to be better at sinking. I went on to take swimming lessons at the State University of New York at Fredonia, to prove I would never be a decent swimmer. To pass one swimming course I needed to demonstrate I could last ten minutes afloat. It was a good thing that it wasn’t 11 minutes.
I had a chance to see if I liked motor boating in nearby Lake Eire. Growing up close to the shore of this great lake was to share in joking about how polluted it was. It used to have the reputation of being the most polluted of the Great Lakes of the United States. Enjoying the lake by boat seemed less gross than swimming in it or in my case sinking into it.
The boat I used was my father’s. I remember taking my wife out on it before we got married. I would have impressed her more if I could have backed the boat trailer into the water in less than six tries. It would have been better if I had taken off my sunglasses before jumping off the boat into the water. At least I remembered to turn off the boat’s motor before jumping. Maybe that’s why she still married me.
When I graduated from high school my friend Wesley, invited me to join his family for a trip to an island in Ontario, Canada. Their cottage was the only dwelling on the island. It was there I learned to water ski and hydroplane. What a rush.
I tried to enjoy water by fishing in it. I remember my father showing me how to take a worm out of the ground and stick a metal hook through it. I remember thinking it seemed mean to be bothering worms. Tricking fish into thinking they were about to have a nice bite to eat, when it was they who were on the menu, seemed unfair. I felt that it was part of a boy becoming a man, to understand the proper order of the food chain.
I went on to get a job counseling adolescent boys who were emotionally disturbed. It was disturbing knowing more about how these boys got disturbed. It was disturbing to be a part of a residential treatment program that disturbed them further in the name of treatment. One of the least disturbing things I used to do with them was to take them fishing. I did my share of teaching how to rip the guts out of worms and untangle fish line. I was often amazed as to how these boys went from swearing, hitting each other, hitting and threatening me, to calmly waiting in anticipation of a tug on their fishing pole, as they watched quietly the light dancing on the water’s surface. They usually caught nothing other than snagged garbage. That didn’t matter. They always wanted to come back for more.
I taught them the humane way to return a fish to the water after surprising it with a hook. You put your hand in the water before you grab the fish to avoid rubbing protective slime from the fish’s scales. This gives the fish a better chance of survival after you have ripped some of the fishes internal organs getting the hook out. After all, you want to give someone else the chance of surprising that fish again with a different hook. I am not as clear on the humane treatment logic of all of this as I was at the time I taught it. I think that the goodwill we were giving fish was not cutting off their heads and throwing them into a frying pan. (I have since become a vegetarian for any fish that may be reading this in one of their schools).
I would go on to enjoy the taste of the fish that were swimming one minute and cooking the next. I remember the time when my brother-in-law booked a cabin in northern Quebec, Canada for a fishing trip. One of his friends couldn’t make it so he offered to take me along for free. I went.
Brad Paisley sings about the male fascination with blue spots on maps because that is where the water is. Today I am fascinated by maps that clearly show Lake Erie to have a bigger surface area than does Lake Ontario, as this was not the case during my motorboat days. It was not the case in my college days spent on the shores of Lake Ontario. In those pre-Mandela Effect days of my youth, before the dawn of the solar simulator, I saw many beautiful sunsets on that lake. They were one of the finest sights this man could behold. But, I am not talking now about the Great Lakes of the United States. I am remembering looking at maps of the fantastic lakes of Northern Quebec.
I saw where the paved road ended and where the dirt road into where the float airplane would take us to fly into the area where the fishing cabin began. I later enjoyed the view from the float plane and avoided vomiting from the turbulent flight. I remember our tour guide looking over the topographical map of where we were. He explained the closest human beings to us were camped out about 20 miles worth of lake, from our location. We pointed to this cove and that river and asked our guide about what he knew of the location. We pointed and asked so much he finally replied in exasperation, “There might be people at that location that are looking at a map and noticing what a nice spot we are located in, as we look at our map.” We finally stopped asking questions. The guide told us if we needed him again to just move an empty metal oil drum to the end of the dock, as he made twice daily flights over the area low enough to notice a can on the dock.
The view of this northern paradise was obscured by a large microwave relay tower postponed directly across from the camp. We accepted that somebody needed a means of communication more reliable than a big can and a dock.
We didn’t have to motor far to be away from anything man made other than the boat and some oil trickling from its motor. One of my brother-in-law’s friends remarked, “We won’t be able to stay here for long, but it is great just knowing that places like this exist.”
The fishing was great and delicious. The gash that my brother-in-law put in his hand while cleaning fish stopped bleeding with just a bandage and I knew nothing about microplastics back then.
Water meanders or appears to stay still depending on the slope of the land. This narrative about my love affair with water and my dread of plastic follows a less certain course, so if you are in hurry this article wasn’t meant for you.
I remember drinking water from a rushing Adirondack, New York mountain stream from a stainless steel cup, knowing it would not be the same experience if that cup was plastic. I recently read it was good to drink from copper water bottles. I liked the one I got until I read the little pamphlet that came with it stating that the bottle was lined with “food grade laminate.” What in the world is that? I sent the copper water bottles I got for others back to Amazon.
While looking into the research coming out of Fredonia, Google delivered me come recent articles on the water woes of Fredonia, New York. One reported that my former hometown needed about 30 million dollars of repair to the water system. Money the village did not have. Perhaps Fredonia can look to Flint, Michigan as to how to bring worldwide attention to local water problems for the aide to start flowing in. Just not quite yet.
In the meantime stay away from that WCTU fountain. Better to seek out something safer to drink like whiskey.
But seriously what can be done about my love affair with water? Truth is I have been putting up with less than pure water my whole life. Chlorine and fluoride were given to me with my first taste of the tasteless stuff. Every sunset seen over water was seen over pools of man-made toxins.
I checked the water brands studied in Fredonia. None were ones of the bottled waters I drink regularly. Who am I kidding? I have not used the reverse osmosis water filtration system at the house I rent much because of the sticker on it stating that it was due for service 6 years ago. I did call the number on the sticker and left a voicemail to see if they are still in the water business. I imagine that business got better since the recent article. I can’t help but notice most of the filter parts are made of plastic.
Throughout the World, there are more and more reports of pollution of drinking water from all of its sources. There are many reports of this being done intentionally to control the world population. Maybe a gold or platinum water filter with double the reverse osmosis would keep me going for a few more years. Should I leave another voicemail for that filter service company?
There are many mental filters I still use to deal with water pollution. I have given up on the one based on the hope that I can purchase adequate affordable water purification technology or that anybody can. I don’t think drinking something intoxicating to dull my awareness of the water situation on the planet is in my future either.
It doesn’t work for me to worry that what is wrong with my health is about the water I have been drinking and that I just need to get used to worrying.
I’ve tried just feeling guilty for my contributions to water pollution for my lack of protest to what I saw and heard going on. Such as the time, when I was in my twenties and I picked up a hitchhiker who smelled bad and had what looked like little holes burned into his pants. He said he was going off to work at a wastewater incineration facility. He said it was his job to dump unmarked drums of chemicals into a lagoon. He said he had no idea as to what he was dumping, only enough to stand back when pouring, as he had experience with some of these chemicals eating holes in his clothes. He said he wondered what might be formed by the mixing of these chemicals in the lagoon. He related that the most unsettling thing that he had to do on the job so far was to follow his boss’ orders to divert the stinking stew of chemicals into a nearby creek. He said that rainy weather had caused the lagoon to coming close to flooding. Diverting liquid into the creek was necessary to prevent that from happening. After I dropped him off I thought that maybe I should tell somebody about this who might be in a capacity to do something. I concluded that those in charge of protecting Lake Ontario from such stuff no doubt already knew what the hitchhiker knew, with no need of me needing to remind them. Just feeling guilty isn’t enough.
I’m good putting my recyclables into the correct container, at least most of the time. It seems like I dispose of much more plastic that isn’t labeled as coming from recycled plastic as I do otherwise. That’s got me concerned.
I choose to add gratitude that the poisoned water hasn’t killed me yet. I chose awareness that our water is doomed based on any reasonable scenario I can imagine. I chose prayer that forces beyond my understanding will do justice to the forces of greed and chaos that have brought the waters we now have to us, including what justice I am due.
If I still enjoy looking at water. I still enjoy a warm shower. It is because at this stage of my development I can’t seem to see what I can do otherwise. I still say, “Well, we all will die from something,” and now I add, “I don’t think that dying is the end of it. . . .” How about you? Can I get you a glass of water? I am being serious now. Can I get you a glass of water?
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