I never
thought about water when I was younger.
Water was free. The thought that
anyone would sell or buy water seemed ridiculous. It never occurred to me that water would not
be fit to drink.
In the
Mississippi Delta town where I grew up in the 1950’s our water was the color of
week tea. In the town swimming pool
there was almost no sunlight penetrating at the eight-foot depth – the water
was browner the deeper you went.
Everyone drank the water and no one was ever concerned.
In the early 1980's we carried buckets of water for drinking and bathing from the stream behind the house
When we
moved into the Native villages in Alaska in 1985 the first thing that stood out
was that the water was not only bad tasting, but probably dangerous. There were
gold mines in the area and an oil slick on the water. We bought distiller and have drunk distilled
water ever since.
I am
convinced that the water most of us drink is probably more toxic than the food we
eat and that as the world population increases water will become a scarce resource and more toxic.
For the last twenty years my wife and I have been on well
water and the test say it is drinkable – just like chicken in the supermarket
is eatable. Maybe at my age I shouldn’t
be concerned.
By the way I
do eat the chicken: well done.
the
Ol’Buzzard
