IS WATER AGELESS?

One of my current winter projects is to sort through hundreds of inherited old photographs squirreled away in foaming grocery bags and shoe boxes. Most have spent decades gathering dust in seldom opened closets, behind those shoes that have not be worn since schooldays but are just too good to discard.

The problem is this is no easy task. Many of the photos are not only old but also are of assumed ancestors which I cannot identify. You know, people are dressed in unfashionable black clothing of the sort seen in dull PBS documentaries and historic coffee table books that no one looks at. But--I dare not throw away a single photo because it may be of an unknown great grandfather or his third wife. So, photos go back into bags and boxes to live on.

A few years ago, a producer of a brand of whiskey advertised its virtues as having both age and ancestry. My futility with old photographs of unknown ancestors caused me to think about water. Does water have age and ancestry? When I fill a glass of water from a tap, is that water "new" or "old." Does the water in my glass have ancestor water?

Yes, water as a general substance is tied to Earth history, although there is no single agreed scientific explanation as to how it got here. But is the water in my glass water that dates back to the formation of Earth? And, yes the polar and glacial areas contain water frozen at some prior time. And yes, aquifers may contain water from a prior time but also may contain water from more recent surface water inflows.

So, what makes water "old". What makes water "new"? Is old water any different from new water? Is old water like a vintage wine that has matured into a fine taste or has turned sour from too much age? Is old water somehow an ancestor of new water?

Thinking about the age and ancestry of water has given me a headache. It has been as fruitful as sorting through old photos of grumpy looking unknown assumed relatives or almost relatives. So, I am going to put these water thoughts with the photos going into the dusty closet of my mind. Frankly, water in this regard is no different from my photos--it may have age and ancestry, but I cannot identify them.

© 2017 Daniel J. Kucera