University of Chicago literature professor Norman Maclean capped his 1976 prizewinning novel, “A River Runs Through It,” with the unforgettable sentence: “I am haunted by waters.”
Today, as Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota are suffering through severe drought; and floods ravage northern Illinois, Florida, and Arizona; and President Donald Trump signed an executive resolution that he said is “paving the way for the elimination” of the Clean Water Act, we all are haunted by waters.
Then there are the cities where water is plentiful but toxic, like Flint, Mich., with poisonous lead leaching from old pipes, or Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where a generation of Marines and their families have suffered exploding rates of cancer from industrial solvents being dumped into the New River, the source of their drinking supply.
As our water resources face natural and political threats in an era of climate change, I sought resolution, both symbolic and cathartic, in a water pilgrimage.
I would travel to Ashland, Wis., 446 miles from Chicago, stop at the shore of Lake Superior, and quench my thirst and fill my jerricans at the city’s famed Artesian well.
Throughout my life, I’ve drunk water that tasted like paper, or like the local swamp, or like laundry bleach. Even brands of bottled water I’ve sampled, bubbly at first, have had a disappointingly flat after-taste, not to mention the chemicals and pharmaceuticals they’ve been known to contain.
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But imagine pure, polar, pollution free water gushing from deep in the earth.
Last year, the city of Ashland drilled a new well on the banks of Lake Superior and adjacent WI Route 2, at Maslowski Beach.
The well is 105 feet deep, piercing an “artery” where water is confined under pressure between layers of rock, so that no pump is required to force 150 gallons per minute of the natural H2O to the surface, where it rushes out of the pipe at a precisely 41 degrees.
A thick, clear, gleaming rope of water shoots from each of the two spigots located in a timber shack, which is heated in the winter, and accessible to beach goers, motorists, tourists, coffee connoisseurs, Ashlanders, citizens of the world, and basement beer brewers, 24 hours a day, free of charge.
In sweltering July, I craved to drink the freshest water in the world, recalling the simple joy, when I was a boy, of quenching my thirst.
Summer mornings in Evergreen Park, my pals and I would ride our bikes to Beverly Park on 103rd and Washtenaw streets, claim a diamond, and play baseball for the next seven hours.
The humidity, the dusty infield, and the relentless fist of the sun, made our sprint to one of the park’s concrete water fountains a heavenly necessity. The Lake Michigan water was always “on” and always cold, making my teeth and my belly ache when I gulped too fast.
We drank and drank till restored, and then drank some more for replenishment reserves, so that we became “drunk” on water, and had to sprawl on the grass under the trees by the backstop for a quarter of an hour, before picking sides for the next game.
It wasn’t till many years later, that I would again experience such luxurious quenching, when in 1986, we built a cabin on 40 acre Bluegill Lake in northwest Wisconsin, and slow-drilled a well through 90 feet of granite and crystal.
All day, all night, all year, including in the searing summer heat, the water electronically pumped to the tap in our cabin, was icy cold and chemical free.
I’d enter the house from the steamy, mosquito infested woods and fill a clean glass that would fog on the outside with cold condensation. The water, slightly sweet on the tongue, quickly braced my entire body with the same sensation as when you first smell snow at the start of winter, a mix of cold frost and crisp air filling my head, then my chest. A vitiating and holistic quenching.
On July 18th in Ashland, I mounted my mountain bike at the Chequamegon Hotel, heading west on the narrow trail. I had a helmet, a stainless steel tumbler, and the first inklings of thirst from having abstained all morning.
The route was short, less than two miles, winding gracefully along the shore, serving a panoramic view of Lake Superior, with the masts of sailboats in Washburn’s harbor discernible from seven miles across Chequamegon Bay.
As I arrived at Maslowski Beach, a man in a pickup truck was just finishing filling three blue plastic 5 gallon containers.
I stood up my bicycle and stepped into the shallow shack.
The force of the spigot on the left knocked the cup out of my hand. I picked it up and rinsed, noting no bubbles or cavitation in the strong steady stream. The surge from each spigot resembled a clear glass rod aimed straight down into the drain.
After rinsing the tumbler, I moved it under the spigot on the right side and filled my cup.
And then I took a drink.
Former Oak Forest resident David McGrath is Emeritus English professor, College of DuPage, and author of The Territory.