Don't Drink the Water

Today as I drove into Wendell from Jerome I had the feeling again that I was coming home. It seemed strange to me since I grew up in a small town in North Dakota, but the feeling came from an interesting coincidence that I have noticed about the skyline of Wendell and that is that it looks amazingly like the skyline of the small town of Ross where I was raised. Now, every time I come into Wendell from the East, there comes a flood of memories of that faraway place that suddenly seems so very near.

Our town was exactly one mile long, from tip to toe. The first thing we encountered upon leaving the highway and entering our little hamlet was a mud puddle. Yes, a mud puddle. This little puddle was a fixture in the dirt road that marked the beginning of our town. It was always there, and to me, when our car bumped over it, it signaled the end of the outside world and the beginning of 'our world'. 'Our world' was made up of the little people who lived with the big people in the town, a little like a separate state within a larger country. We had our own rules, our own leaders, our own outlaws and our own way of dealing with them. Like the mud puddle at the top of the town, we may have seemed small and insignificant to some but we had our place and we loved it.

Our mud puddle, as I said, lay at the beginning of the dirt road that led off the main highway. The children (whoever happened to be in the group that day) often walked or rode bike to the puddle because that was as far as we were allowed to go. I remember one day in spring when the puddle was fresh and full, taking a walk to the puddle with a group of children. We laughed and talked the whole way but when we got to the puddle, decided that we were all very thirsty. My brother was the first to 'dare' to take a drink from the puddle. After that, some of the others drank, including myself. I can still taste the cool, earthy water in my memory. It seemed almost too good. I have never tasted water that was quite that refreshing since then. We walked home, content in our secret act of defiance, for we all knew that our mothers would never allow such a practice.

Much later in my life, I had a dream. In my dream there was a stream of water that ran through the town where we then lived. As I looked at the stream, I noticed that there were people drinking from it. After they had taken a drink from the stream, they became very angry and finally died. As I looked on in horror, I began to recognize people I knew also drinking of the stream. As they drank, I shouted, “No! Don't drink it, It will kill you!” They did not listen to me but drank anyway. Then to my utter dismay I saw even my closest friends partaking of the stream and dying. I awoke from my dream, weeping for the loss of my friends and wondering what it could mean. A short time later I understood.

In the little town where my husband and I moved to raise our family, water was everything and water was scarce but the community worked together so everyone could have what they needed. Then some businessmen with plenty of money came in and started buying water and changing the dynamics of the community. Wells started drying up, and people began to get very angry. Money is a terrible thing. It can make a man do what he doesn't even want to do, like a thirst that becomes so great you will even drink something you know is dangerous in order to quench it. Water was sold at extremely high prices and neighbors began blaming neighbors. Threats, fights, rumors and lies became common fare in a once-peaceful farming town. Finally, our closest friends, because of water, caused us to sell our home and leave the valley. Just as in my dream, I wept for the loss of my friends.

Looking back, I should not have drunk the water at the end of the road. It could easily have killed me. I knew it was dangerous, but I was willing to do it to prove I was brave. I wonder how many people try to prove they are brave by cheating their neighbor, looking the other way when someone needs you or pretending you don't know that you have caused someone pain. All I can say is what my mother would say if she saw me drink from the puddle, “ Don't do it. It might kill you.”