Was Mr. Wright ever wrong?
Well, you really couldn’t stump him with a Bible question: he
knew chapter and verse on just about any question you cared to ask. He had lots of stories about every day life, too. Fragments of these return to me now and then, when current wisdom gives a little nudge.
For instance, I started primary when milk was delivered to the school at lunchtime. There was
no mistaking the rattle of little milk bottles in wooden crates. It sure would whet our appetites!
Because a straw came with the bottle, even those who walked home to lunch begged for a nickel to buy milk at school. On days when I was successful, I slurped away with the best of them and then ran home – to gulp some more with my lunch. In those days, we thought milk was good for everyone. We collected pennies at Mission Band to send milk powder overseas.
Mr. Wright had a friend, a farmer, who had strong, white teeth and sturdy bones. This friend never drank milk. Whenever he was thirsty, he would scoop up a bottle of lake water and drink that. “This has everything I need in it,” he told Mr. Wright. We were shocked - even if you had to add chocolate to it to choke it down, milk was best for kids!
After that, whenever I swallowed lake water while swimming – never on purpose! – I told myself it was nutritious and tried not to think about all the dead leaves rotting on the bottom of the lake or the dragonfly larva I might have swallowed as well. But. I still drank milk. And, as lots of summer cottages sprang up around all the lakes close by, I wondered whether that farmer continued to quaff lake water or learned to like, perhaps, apple juice instead.
As time went on and we learned more about nutrition (for instance, cow’s milk is wonderful for nourishing... little calves!) and the idiosyncrasies of human digestion (many of those hungry kids in the places where we sent powdered milk ended up with problems more complicated than hunger), Mr. Wright’s story about the lake water kept coming back to me. That farmer probably didn’t drink apple juice either, now that we knew it had as much - or more - sugar in it than a bottle of pop.
When acid rain started burning the tops of the trees, I wondered what acid rain was doing to the lakes. It seems the increased acidity was killing fish as well. That sure made us clean up our act, and scientists and the government continue to work on the issue. Issue it remains, however, as Nova Scotia soil lacks natural alkalinity (a lime base, for instance, which would neutralize acidity.) In Wales, several interested parties worked together to “lime” the River Wye and are rejoicing to find fish returning for the first time in 20 years.
So, tell me: in the meantime, when searching for a quenching quaff, what do you turn to?
WEBLINKS:
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