High water--an event to celebrate

There’s a certain excitement in the air. It has nothing to do with the next calendared holiday, but it does have everything to do with this time of year and the weather.

To my knowledge, this is one event that, as of yet, has not been commercialized. They don’t sell souvenirs or tee-shirts; but I wasn’t the one to mention it.

I’m thinking of that exciting time when after a few days of warm weather, especially suddenly warm weather, the creeks fill up. These days are marked by the sudden appearance of large amounts of water in the streambeds and constitute a holiday season all of their own—high water.

As you know, the term “arid” is highly applicable to lands of The Basin. So when water in large enough quantities to make a noise runs, it is time to celebrate.

“High water” doesn’t necessarily mean the water flow at it’s greatest level, as the dictionary might lead you to believe. It simply means the arrival of anything more than a trickle—any level higher than the stingy flows of late winter. On the creek out my back door, it means any water at all.

The farmers and gardeners get especially excited about high water. They take Sunday drives every day of the week to go check on the flows. They get out of their pickups and stand on the edge of the creek in the same place every day and cast a beady eye on a certain rock or a tree stump in order to gauge the water level. They then declare ominously, “She’s up again today. If this hot weather holds, she’s going to keep rising. Who knows how much?”

In certain years, high water is a time to remember. When the weather turns hot abruptly, like it did last weekend, high water could more or less arrive in the form of a flash flood. A wall of water carrying soil and debris comes crashing down the creek, it’s lead edge fanning out, and water rolling over itself in a frantic hurry to get to some lower point—or so I’m told. The farmer who is furthest up the creek and observes that phenomenon has something to talk about for the rest of the summer—which is much longer than high water, or low water either, will last.

Farmers in The Basin observe to pray for “moisture” daily. They would pray for moisture after twenty straight days of rain. (I think that happened about once.) They like to see water in the irrigation ditches, of course, but what they surreptitiously want is enough snow in the mountains and a quick hot spring with temperatures high enough to bring down a good share of it all at once. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned high water celebration, which means take the afternoon off to check it out and talk about it.

Their eyes gleam when they talk about the water jumping the creek banks and moving those banks around. And they really get worked up when they point out the extent to which the rocks are rolling in the creek beds. And it is something to hear.

The rock-rolling isn’t going to happen this year. Not enough snow up there. Since there are at least a couple of generations of Basin farmers in my immediate ancestry, I should know. So you can probably do your Sunday driving down in the valley where there’s more room.

By way of contrast, let me tell you about middle Ohio where a son of mine lives. There they practice a form of reverse irrigation. They lay perforated pipe in the fields in “furrows” for the purpose of draining the water away from their crops. If a person wants to construct a fish pond, all he needs is a hole and some fish. However a pond is not nearly the attraction there that it is here. People are quite likely to have them in their basements.

If you mention to a native Ohioan something about water shares or water rights, you get no sign of understanding, only a blank stare; and he will begin to choke if you bring up the practice of praying for rain.

Let's not go fly a kite

Well, I realize that it is the month of May now. March is a couple of months behind us. But we are still enjoying March-like weather. If we were going to be stuck in a perpetual weather pattern, I would never pick March. But even though I can predict the weather, I can’t change it.

You would think that we would be making lemonade when life gives us lemons and be finding a way to capitalize on all of this wind we have been having. Something like wind farms, or natural wind tunnels. Actually, I don’t know why the Uintah Basin isn’t the kite-flying capital of the world. We could be having two-month-long kite festivals. Think of the potential—similar to the Utah ski industry with the best snow in the world. “Uintah Basin—the best wind in the world.”

We could draw people from as far away as China where kite-flying is the national sport. There could be all kinds of kite contests like, you know, most original kite, most colorful kite, etc. And then there could be different competitions like youngest kite flyer, oldest kite flyer (that is where I come in) and last but not least, best kite flyer.

Sign me up; where is my kite?

Oh, but hang on a minute. I am having second thoughts here. I am trying to remember when I myself actually ever flew a kite—you know, actually had it off the ground more than six feet and for more than six seconds. Romantic notions of little boys tugging on kite strings entice me once in a while, but then I recall my own experiences with my little boys and kites.

I don’t think I ever went outside on a breezy day to see even one little boy from my family happily holding onto a kite string while a dutiful kite dips and soars in a sunny sky. Instead, I do remember seeing sights of something like a tangled wreck of sticks, string and plastic flapping itself to death on the ground. And, yes, that is my son, and he’s howling.

Until they are able to manufacture kites out of steel and cable, I am afraid the Butterbeans will never have one last through the first week of kite season. Perhaps the Chinese have been holding out on us. Maybe all of the kites they ship to the US are the self-destruct models, and they keep the real ones for themselves. I don’t know about steel, but I’m pretty sure all of the ones I bought had lead in them.

Benjamin Franklin knew that kites were dangerous. I tend to agree with him. Not only could you get struck by lightening, but running around the vacant lot with your eyes on something above your head, for however short a time, and both hands on your ball of string, can be dangerous. There are things you can trip over like rocks, sticks, weeds, or dogs, with nothing to break your fall but your face.

If you (not me) should be lucky enough to get your kite airborne without breaking a strut or the string or your nose, you’re still in jeopardy.

Kites are liable to be acted upon by forces emanating from things like tall tree branches and telephone lines which both have properties similar to black holes. Once your kite is sucked up by one of those structures, it will remain there for the rest of the year, a constantly fluttering reminder to you and everyone else that you lost the battle for the kite.

What’s that saying, “A fool and his kite are soon parted”? Same thing—unless it was a free kite.

Say you somehow come into possession of an unusually sturdy one, and your kite makes it through kite season intact. Have you ever tried to keep it in the closet, saving it for next year? That is nearly as dangerous as flying one.

If there is a kite in the closet, it will jump out at you when you open the door. It will land on your head or shoulder, and the string will wrap itself around one arm and both legs before it hits the floor and unwinds itself into the next room. You can fold them up or roll them up and put them behind everything else on the shelf and slam the door; but in the darkness, they expand, just like a crinkled grocery bag, and perch on the edge of the shelf waiting to attack the next time the door is opened. I have been kite-assaulted many times.

If ever I tell you to go fly a kite, you will know you have been properly insulted; and if ever we should have a kite festival in the Uintah Basin, remind me to be the one who brings the hot chocolate.

Butterbean weather service

Let’s see if Bertha can predict the weather.

The truth is, it’s not rocket science—you don’t even need weather science, just a little experience. Actually it is so easy that even I can do it.

I don’t know how much the local channel weather person gets paid for giving us a daily wrap-up and a forecast, but that person doesn’t have to do much work. They can just reread the script from the day before.

Here is the seven-day forecast for pretty much any week this spring. It is probably good up until the end of May. Maybe I will issue another forecast for summer, but don’t get excited. I will have plenty of time to work on it.






I suppose the Butterbean weather service should now explain what this means to you, especially if you are new to Vernal. For one, don’t let the early morning calm fool you. The one constant throughout the week, if you will notice, is the wind. And don’t be fooled by those who say that spring will come soon. There are two seasons in Vernal, winter which lasts about nine months, and summer which is a flash in the pan.

You will be prepared for the late winter weather if you take with you a windbreaker, a kite, a winter coat with a hood, boots with some tread, and materials for tying or weighing things down.

As for grooming during this weather pattern, don’t spend too much time on your hair (asymmetrical hairstyles are helpful since the wind will part your hair for you anyway); carry wipes for cleaning dirt from your face and inside your ears. A small bottle of eye drops for rinsing eyes or contacts lenses should fit nicely into your pocket.

Some precautions: don’t open both car doors at the same time; don’t leave the mail on the dashboard; don’t wear a hat unless you are a fast runner; don’t let go of your two-year-old.

Activities to avoid: model airplane flying, sunbathing, boating or fishing, soccer games, picnics, etc.

Noticeable fashion trends: turned-up collars, beanies for all ages, hoodies with the hoods up, itchy, red eyes.

I would tell you to hang your weather forecast on the fridge or wherever it is you put pertinent information, but you don’t really need to. It isn’t hard to remember what the forecast is, just think of yesterday.

The games Bertha plays

Addictions and neuroses have been cropping up all over the place the past few years. For instance, there are now eco-therapists who specialize in treating eco-anxiety. I’ll let you figure out what that is.

I am not going to say that I don’t have any neuroses, tics, or irrational behaviors, but you will never see my name on the rolls of the local chapter of Gambler’s Anonymous. “Fickle” is too nice a word to describe Lady Luck—my lady or yours.

To be sure, I am all for getting the most for my dollar, in fact if there is a bargain to be found, I could be a little neurotic about getting in on it. But putting money on the barrel head and then trusting in something I have very little of (luck) is not part of my agenda.

I know you could argue with the sensibilities of Bertha. Rationality or brains may not be my long suit, but I’ll take them over clubs or spades any day. Whatever kind of sense I employ, I know it is more reliable than luck.

For one thing, my Lady Luck is a flint-faced, tight-fisted crone whose only smiles in my direction are smirks. Actually the same lady’s influence inflicts my whole family to one degree or another..

I like to play games, board games, word games, mind games (not the kind where I mess with your brain; I’m not smart enough for that); but don’t try to enlist me to play any kind of game that depends on the the roll of little white cubes with no minds at all.

I can almost happily concede a loss to a game player who is better than I, but not to a mindless spinner or a deck of cards. In fact, if zero-IQ cards or dice get the best of me in any game, I might go home and never play with them again.

I once played canasta with Father Butterbean and lost seventeen hands in a row. That made me angrier than losing at a word game all afternoon to my brother who I know is smarter than I am.

I am still trying to beat my brother and everyone else at word games, but I have not played canasta in thirty years. And I have never lost seventeen games of Trivial Pursuit, but I would rather lose at it than win at Uno.

If I played any game with seventeen randomly picked players and we matched wits, there would be no way I could lose that many times in a row, however weak my sensibilities are.

Relying on the luck of the draw or the roll of the dice is like letting someone you have never met do your homework for you. That is a scary thought. You may or may not be able to do it better, but doing it yourself allows you to be in control. Maybe that’s what this is about.

You can usually count on your own brains. You can even count on the lack of them in which case you might have to count on your fingers, but at least you know what you have got to work with.

No one can pull on your arm and one time come up with cherries and another time get fruit salad. Your arm is remotely connected to your brain and you are always going to get your own particular variety of smart.

So, no, I have never lost time from work or school due to gambling. And I haven’t sold the family farm to finance a trip to Vegas. There isn’t a drop of Irish blood in my veins, and if I ever had a lucky shirt I wore it out.

I could bring up rabbits’ feet here, but I haven’t seen one of those in years. There’s probably a reason for that. After all, they weren’t very lucky for the rabbits, were they? But the sight of one of those would likely trigger an episode and send anyone with eco-angst into a tailspin—or would that be a foot-spin?

We all get the creeps, right?

I know that it is not exactly psychologically healthy to have irrational fears; but if that is the case, we are all a bit crazy. It seems that everyone has a specific aversion, reasonable or not.

Fears come in various degrees, and the ones that incapacitate us are called phobias. The ones of lesser intensity are, in Butterbean lexicon, microphobias. They might not keep one from holding down a job or going out of the house, but it is hard to know where to draw the line.

For instance, I am honestly afraid that if I eat cooked spinach, I will throw up all over whatever is at hand. I am also afraid that if I scratch my thumbnail over the broken edge of a piece of china, my teeth will fall out. So much for micro.

I am not afraid of spiders, though, and I am not afraid of bugs. I usually let them live in the house as long as they aren’t annoying. I wouldn’t even flip out if I found one in my bed.

And it took me three weeks to figure out that my ex-Sunday School class was trying to make me ill by scratching the blackboard. I didn’t even notice.

But if ever I come face-to-face with a caterpillar or worm, I go into adrenaline shock and start running fast and hard in the opposite direction. I may also throw objects, scream, or try to climb on top of anything higher than the worm—like your feet.

I have seen other people react the same way in similar confrontations—like with mice, snakes, bats, and other potentially loathsome creatures.

These fears must be specific and instinctive. They don’t run in families. If they were learned responses, my kids would feel at home with the bugs and spiders I tolerate, but one of my daughters won’t go close enough to a spider to kill it with a broom.

Another daughter nearly broke a leg trying to get away from a bat that was probably as myopic as the proverbial kind and hadn’t seen her yet.

The funny thing is, as reactive as we are to our own aversions, we don’t have much sympathy for anyone else’s distress. When my daughter comes streaking and screeching out of her bedroom babbling about a spider, I say something sensitive like, “Oh, my sakes, it’s not Shelob. It wouldn’t hurt anything but a fly. Go get a paper towel and squash it.” And it’s not just the daughters who have settled on spiders. One of my sons kneels on the bed to say his prayers in case a spider might be on the floor.

You might want to be careful about who you let know about your microphobias. If you are a kid, brothers are the worst. When you overreact in the slightest to any dead fish, rats, or snakes that are waggled under your nose, they will be sure to file that information away for future reference. They always know which sister is afraid of which creepy thing.

When I was a kid, I was careful not to let my brothers know that I was truly afraid of worms. I picked something else to overreact to, so that I wouldn’t ever have to face a brother dangling a caterpillar in front of my face.

In the interest of advancing the study of psychology, I have tried to analyze just what it is about wormy creatures that makes me want to be sick. I think I have it. You are probably ready for this if your particular phobia is something other than worms, but if you are in the same panic bracket as I am, just turn the page now. You won’t miss a thing. Here goes:

Worms are stuffed; they eat twenty-four hours a day. Their crawly skins are probably strained by an internal pressure of twenty pounds per square inch. You couldn’t afford to step on one, sit on one, pinch one, or even bump one. One false move and you have a blowout. The insides could land anywhere. Excuse me, I was just leaving.

Well, I’ve done it—I’ve let the whole town in on Bertha’s microphobia. A couple of my brothers are in a position to find out about it, too. But then, you never know—maybe I’m just pretending to be afraid of worms, and it’s really mice that I fear.

Theories on science fairs

Along about this time of year when the wind blows and there is mud everywhere, I start to get anxious and a little crazy. It is a holdover from the days when my kids were in the public school system. This time of year brings me to recall that public school institution—the science fair.

There was a time when I had a child in every level of the system from college down to kindergarten. I know that was my own fault, but you get smarter as you get older, and science fairs are just the vehicle to teach you something. Not about geology, ants, or plants either.

My kids were ordinarily about as scientific as mashed potatoes, but when someone mentioned the words “science fair” they suddenly got urges to mess up their hair, drag out their microscopes and carry magnets around in their pockets.

And they began to ask me to find things like dry ice, food coloring and iron filings. They began to use words like “heliotropic” and “chemosterilant” and I began to feel “disinclined” and “reluctant.”

First of all, it’s hard to gauge the benefits of science projects. I’m not sure children are better equipped for life because they can make a barometer out of a two bottles and a quart of water, or a tornado with dry ice and a hair dryer. Somehow it seems that kids should be learning to safely pour a glass of milk or push a lawn mower in straight lines.

I know one thing. Science fairs are not cost effective. I think they impose a limit on what you can spend on one, but you only have to calculate what you can see. You don’t count the test tubes you broke, or the dry ice that evaporated, or the poster paper they spilled milk on.

And you don’t add the cost of gasoline or your time spent on forays looking for glass rods, battery-powered fans or one-way ball-seat valves. You could spend a week’s wages for it all and in return the kid gets a ribbon of one color or another. Even if he wins a blue one, you don’t get to list it on job applications later on: Winner, elementary school science fair, third grade, “Killer Bees.” I don’t hardly think so.

And do you know how much space it takes to make a science project? They wisely limit the sizes of these things for the exhibition, but that doesn’t mean that it takes only that much space to build it. One recipe of salt dough can use up every kitchen counter when you have a couple of grade schoolers “making” it. And don’t forget the batches that didn’t turn out which take up time, money and space also.

For the moderate science project, most famous of which is the soda-and-vinegar volcano, you need a bare minimum of paper, glue, markers, scissors, poster board, boxes, tape, string, salt dough, vinegar, soda, and courage. Do you realize how many of those items are either lost to begin with or can be spilled?

An immoderate project, which in all probability (a science-fair word) is the kind your little Einstein will insist upon, requires an immodicum (a word?) of things like extension cords, baling wire, ice cream buckets, sand and gravel, small mirrors, garbage bags, beakers, hammer and nails, duct tape, batteries; and when they get older, chemicals, circuitry, optics, and many tools, not to mention fire extinguishers, helmets, and other safety devices.

Getting all of this stuff to the school on a windy day poses another problem. Mud on posters doesn’t look any better than milk does. Can you picture Bertha fighting a three-o’clock deadline for three different schools carrying all of this stuff in a Camaro with a pre-schooler in tow who is carrying a couple of “science projects” (burpie and pacifier) of his own?

I remember it well.

The year of the “mold project” was the best though. The judges probably thought that my budding scientist (wait a minute, not one of my kids grew up to be one) had carefully constructed his own incubators where he grew molds for days and days. Actually not, since I knew right where to find some of those—in the back of my refrigerator.

Acronym overload

Okay, there is an online dictionary of acronyms, and “initialisms” which boasts a database of over 410,000 entries. By the way, I am here to tell you that 290,000 of them were forged right here in Vernal, Utah. The web site’s tag line says that it “exists purely to unravel the bewildering range of acronyms that impact daily life.” So why do acronyms exist? Isn’t that a little like regression?

We hear the “lack of real communication” buzzwords all the time. There are whole books and whole college courses teaching us how to communicate. Many of the world's ills are traced to poor communication skills. Whatever the communication culprits in modern life are, I nominate acronyms as one of them.

We shorten the name of a title by using its initials, and then we need a whole new realm of word classification to catalogue and decipher the acronyms. It’s like speaking two languages when one should do.

If you are going to really understand what you are talking about when you use acronyms, you still have to know what they stand for. So your brain has to learn two symbols for the same thing, the actual words with their meanings and the acronym. I know, it gets kind of foggy here, but it gets worse.

I am assuming that acronyms have come into popular usage because they save time in speaking or space in writing. For me they do neither. I will usually have to spend extra time dredging up the acronym (is it JC or CJ?) which I will still probably mistake and have to explain anyway, and in the case of typing it, I will have to engage the Caps Lock key which I will forget to release and thereby necessitate retyping the following sentence anyway. So much for saving time. As for saving space—in the interest of clarity, let’s apply the Cadillac mentality. Bigger just might be better, as you will see. “What is the point of speed if you lose accuracy,” as my life skills coach and type teacher used to say.

Because they feel like real words, I don’t object as much to the kind of initial letter acronyms that can actually be pronounced as a word like NATO, radar (radio detecting and ranging), or wimp (weakly interacting massive particle)—never mind, I wouldn’t be using that one anyway.

But take USB for instance. Every computer user knows that USB ports are incredible. But don’t even try pronouncing that one as a word. You will be laughed right out of the computer lab—or the medical lab (ultrasound-guided aspiration biopsy), or off the soccer field (unsporting behavior), or out of Iowa (United Soybean Board) or out of the US Bank.

One of my favorite adages is “words mean something,” which indicates that some of us are having trouble communicating using words. The trouble with acronyms is that they mean less because they symbolize more. Just so you know, ACRONYM is the official acronym for “abbreviated code rarely or never yielding meaning,” according to thefreedictionary.com and seconded by Bertha.

Raise your hand if you knew that USB means “universal serial bus.” Lacking that bit of knowledge could cause you to mix the letters of your acronym and come up with SBU (small byte utility), or SUB (synchronized uploading bridge) which are both probably some kind of geek speak, but not the one you want right now. Worse yet, you may be lacking any set of words to initialize in your head and be forced to come up with “that computer port where you plug in your little device that holds files (portable memory storage or PMS). See what I mean?

Just be careful if you use are using your laptop at a Des Moines soccer match to make a loan payment. Things could get a little messy.