Probably nearly everyone has had some kind of defining moment involving water--where water has shaped a life experience or has influenced learning or behavior. Some may have had more than one of such moments.
My first defining moment with water occurred at an age of 18 months. My parents took me with them on a vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. They had had a particular affinity for that area, having had a camping honeymoon years before in the Badlands and the Hills--at a time when free ice water at Wall Drug was a necessity.
We stayed in one of those tiny cottages, probably built in the 1920s, in Baken Park, a tourist spot in Rapid City. (Remember, Cary Grant was "hospitalized" in Rapid City in North By Northwest). Today, of course, Baken Park is a strip mall.
One day, we toured the Iron Mountain Highway, a mountain road near Mt.Rushmore. The road curves up and down with countless switchbacks--resembling an unbroken whole orange peeling. At one point along the road, my father spied a unique tourist site--a fresh water spring gushing out of a huge granite rock along the roadside. Several tourists were gathered around the spring, filling thermos and bumper water bags or just cupping the cool water to their eager mouths.
My father parked our 1940 green Buick sedan on the shoulder and hopped over to the spring to join the water excitement, while my mother stayed in the car with me. Suddenly, the car began to roll backwards, toward the edge of the shoulder and the deep valley below--the parking brake did not hold. My mother was not a driver and could not tell a brake pedal from a clutch pedal. But, she had strong lungs and could shout! Several nearby men came running and grabbed the front bumper to slow the car, while another one jumped in to apply the brakes--right before the car would have rolled away.
For me, that was a defining moment in water--defining because it has made possible my writing this 100th posting of this blog.
Great story, Dan!
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