Got Water on My Brain Today

I was a very young reader. Before the time I turned six, I’d read to the point of memorization all of the Peanuts paperbacks. To this I credit an early taste for vocabulary, my love of comic art, and perhaps my nodding acquaintance with melancholy. And while a highlight of my early life was the chance to star as Snoopy in a high school play — he’d always been my favorite of the bunch — the truth is that I’m much more PigPen.

I’ve had a few days to wax introspective and get honest with myself since Dan’s post on multiple daily showers. In hindsight, my comment was a bit judgmental and knee-jerky; clearly, something was triggered within me. And launching an opinion before ruminating on the matter was to put Descartes before the horse. I stink therefore I am.

There are often clouds of houseflies buzzing around the front door of my place of work in the morning. As I was unlocking several days ago before others had arrived, a coworker approaches behind me, flailing an arm to shoo them away. I turned joked “Oh, don’t mind them. They’re with me.”

Well, maybe, I don’t stink as such, but I’m absolutely not obsessive about cleanliness. Nor about fabulousness of appearance. The lion’s share of my wardrobe comes from thrift stores. (Why, what’s that you say? An olive green cardigan for five bucks? And someone probably died in it? Give it here!)

Oh, sure. There are water-saving and waste-minimizing and consumption-reducing results that accrue from how I go about my day to day. But do I wear used clothing and avoid multiple daily showers because I’m an environmentalist? Meh. I think, simply, I do these things and I am an environmentalist because I’m Dave.

Shifting gears — but still on the matter of water — an item from the hometown paper really made me happy. The principal rivers in the State of Maine (and elsewhere) have made remarkable water quality gains over the past 30 years or so, following generations of abuse by a range of industrial activity. I remember as a young boy on family drives crossing the Kennebec River on I-95 in Fairfield, and seeing not water, but cut logs as far as the eye could see, being floated to mills downstream. I also remember the yellowed foam and the stench of the Kennebec, and the Androscoggin too. So It’s just wonderful to see that gains continue in terms of water quality and habitat viability.

I was born near this river, was raised in its watershed, and have lived on its banks; a powerful totem, a companion for big chunks of my life. And it’s getting cleaner all the time.

Hmm… and perhaps there’s an opportunity for me to draw yet more inspiration from the Kennebec.

Photo: Swinging Bridge over the Kennebec River, Skowhegan, Maine.