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Show High Time Pll Be There Come . . . . Or High Water v,c lullow tnjt pattern, we can expect it again sometime between be-tween YM and 2WJO. Remind me to prepare for it. Some of my neighbors have sump pumps, but they mumble a lot about pumping out their neighbor's water table. We have never fell the need for a pump of any variety. Mostly what we'd like to do is pump some moisture into our bone dry house. So when the high watertame, 1 was unprepared. AI.I. MONDAY night, Tuesday Tues-day morning and into the afternoon, after-noon, 1 fought water. Then by 'I uesday afternoon it occurred to me the water was coming in about the same rate I was pumping it out. 1 cleared everything out, made sure the floor drain was working and left. There was no chance I could pump out the entire water table, so when it got ready to go elsewhere, it would go. BKIN'G A child raised in dry farm country where flash floods come in season, I know water doesn't care. It goes where it has a mind to go. Often I have looked at costly homes built upon our hillsides in water channels. I listen sometimes to owners of those homes complain about their problems w ith floods after every ev-ery summer downpour and think, couldn't you see when you bought the house that water wa-ter is going to come down that old dry creek bed? They get scant sympathy. Well, last week the shoe was on another most uncomfort able foot. People were saying, don't those people know the w ater table is too high for basements? base-ments? Water behaves most rationally. People have tried to ignore, re-direct, move water, but in our desert environment, all we do is lull ourselves into false security. Because we have it infrequently, we assume we've conquered nature. na-ture. Silly people. WHEN THE water comes, it goes where it has always gone, and doesn't pay the least mind to whose house is built in its normal channel. Personal worthiness has no bearing, which was consolation consola-tion to me as I bailed through the night. I knew the water flowed through homes of the just and the unjust, the rich and the poor. Mother nature just plain doesn't give a darn. THERE WAS no discern-able discern-able pattern. The most worthy got water, the nicest didn't. The scoflaws were bone dry and the fusspots stewed in a swamp. One house had water the next was dry. Mother nature na-ture knows what she's doing, but she isn't about to explain. We recover and survive. As with most disasters, it has become be-come a punctuation mark in life, a reference point. "I remember, re-member, it was just before the flood of October '82." ONE THING I'm not saying any more is "Come Hell or High Water." There's no sense tempting Mother Nature." By H.OKKM E BII I NKR "I'll be there, come hell or high water," 1 assured my aunt in New Jersey. I suspect what came was a combination of both. A river running through a basement may not be exactly hell, hut it would have a hard lime being classified as heaven. I here is a certain emotional impact upon seeing a bedroom set standing in three inches of water which gives pungency to high water. MY MIHhK-in law always told people he was born during the hliard of 'XH. I hat was a nice landmark lor a birthday and served him well all his life. We can now add to our list of important dates, the Hood of 'M2. I he New Jersey visit was put oil a week. Hy the time I got on the plane, the basement had returned to near normal and I had given up the idea of a trout farm, planting watercress, water-cress, or installing a diving board. ON Sl'NDAY, as the rain began be-gan to fall, it was an inconvenience. inconveni-ence. We kept expecting it to follow the pattern of Utah rain; come down hard for maybe half hour then quit and see sunshine. sun-shine. Someone forgot to turn off the spigot. On Sunday evening when I went to bed, there was a tiny puddle in the storage room, but nothing to worry about. Monday evening the puddle had become standing water, but not to worry. It was only storage which 1 keep up on cinder cin-der blocks. I'd clean it up when that darned rain quit. But I went to bed Monday evening uneasy. About 3 a.m. I thought maybe I'd better take a peek. When my bare feet hit water at the bottom of the stairs, it had my full attention. WE BOUGHT our house in October of 1950, moved in April of '51 and have had water twice before; in '52 when the whole valley was floating and in '73 when we had a wet, heavy lats snow. So I figure it |