May 12, 2015--Water, Water

Rona was watering the plants on the terrace. It is a late spring here and she was trying to help the plants catch up with the calendar. Some savvy garden person had recommended a week of Boomerang application. Boomerang being a fertilizer that purports to help plants bounce back from the kind of harsh winter the city had endured.

"Just what they need," Rona said, adding, "A boost. But what the plants really need is just the right amount of water."

"Just like us," I said, "We too need just the right amount of watering. Come to think of it," I thought for the first time, "Why is it that they and we require water to live? To survive? We can do without food for weeks but only a few days without water."

Rona paused in her watering. "I'm embarrassed to admit that I too never thought about that. I mean the specifics. The biology in our case and the botany in theirs." She pointed toward her sage plants.

"I think it's universal," I said. "I mean I think all life on earth--animals, sea creatures, all vegetation--all, everything requires water."

"And maybe oxygen too?"

"Probably. Water after all is largely oxygen. H2O. The O being oxygen."

"Remember the time we were in the Namibian Dessert? You had work to do in Windhoek and I came along so after you were done we could take a week to look around."

"I remember that. Great landscape, great animals, interesting people."

"Unusual for us,"Rona recalled, "we hired a guide to take us into the dessert. It was amazing. Some of the world's biggest sand dunes. And . . ."

"I know where you're going with this," I said. "There were those pants that were millennia old. Thousands of years old. He said, the oldest plants on earth."

"How parched they looked. Actually dead."

"But from his canteen he wet one with maybe two, three drops of water. That was all."

"And with that they sprang back to life."

"As with Boomerang," I winked.

"Exactly. Amazing."

"I need to learn more about water. Probably from Wikipedia."

Which I did and here is some of what I learned--

First, the Namibian plant is Welwitschia, named for the German botanist who classified it, and, yes, some are more than 2,000 years old.

And, also true, all living things, all, require water to live. They, we use water in different ways--humans versus, say, sage plants.

For us water is essential to the proliferation of life. It carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that contribute to cellular replication. It is vital as a solvent, dissolving many cell components and the chemicals and compounds cell division requires. In this way water is essential to many, perhaps most of the body's metabolic processes.

In one called catabolism, water is used to break the bonds of large molecules in order to generate smaller ones--glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids--to be used as fuel for biological energy. Without water these metabolic processes could not exist. And neither could we.

For sage plants and other flora water is essential to photosynthesis and respiration. Photosynthetic cells such as chlorophil use the sun's energy to split off water's hydrogen from its oxygen. Hydrogen is then combined with CO_{2, which is absorbed from the air or water, to form glucose and release oxygen. All living plant cells use these fuels and in this cycle oxidize the hydrogen and carbon to capture the sun's energy and, through cellular respiration, re-form water and} CO_2.  

"Come on out and take a look at the akebia," Rona called downstairs to me, luring me away from the computer. "It's about to bloom and the flowers have such a lovely scent."

"Your garden is amazing," I said. "As Wiki says . . ."

She cut me off. "Forget Wiki. Sit by the honeysuckle," She whispered. "I saw a humming bird. Rare for the city. But they love the nectar of honeysuckle."

"Sit very still," Rona suggested. I did and sure enough, after a half hour . . .

Welwitschia Plant

November 15, 2013--Midcoast: Bill In A Swivet

Bill came in all agitated.

"What's the matter?" Ken asked.

"Did you see this?" He thrust his newspaper toward us. He was fuming. I thought maybe there was bad news from the Middle East or something terrible happened up in Augusta. He's very political and ordinarily responds passionately to the news of the day.

"I'm not seeing what's got under your skin."

"Me neither," I chimed in.

"The story about Coca Cola. Not really about Coke." He pulled the paper back. "About the soda business. About what's going on with them."

"With them?" Ken was puzzled. "Let me take a look."  Bill handed the paper back to him and tapped on the page where the article was that had him all in a swivet.

"About how they're selling about as much water now as soda?" Ken read from the headline.

"That's my point," Bill said to Ken. "Terrible. Terrible."

"I really don't see why that's so terrible. You yourself never drink Cokes or Pepsis."

"That's not my point."

"What is it then?" I asked.

"That they, or anyone, would make money selling water. Water." He shook his head for emphasis.

"That's what got you so riled up?" his close friend Ken said, trying to calm him down.

"You know me," he looked toward me, the one liberal at the table, "I believe in making a profit. That's part of the magic of America. Business. The profit motive. All those good things. But from water? That I can't believe."

"True," I said, "it basically costs them nothing--the water's free--and they put it in a two-cent bottle, spend another two cents, if that, shippin' it, and then sell it for 99 cents. That's what I call making a profit!"

"I'm OK with those numbers," Bill said. "Again, starting businesses, inventing things is part of what made America great; but no one should make a profit from water."

Ken said, "They make almost as much selling soda. How much do you think the syrup costs? Again, maybe two cents a bottle. And they charge more than for water. So, I'm not seeing--"

"At least the syrup is something they concocted and have to manufacture. Water just comes out of a well or the tap."

"We do," I said, "pay tax on water both here in Maine and in New York."

"You know what I think about government in general and taxes," no need for Bill to remind me of that, "But the tax on water is to pay for the cost of getting it to you and making sure it's safe to drink. The town here and the city don't make a profit from it."

"Fair point," I conceded.

"But that's not what's upsetting me."

"What is it then?" Ken asked.

"You and I are getting on in years but have pretty good memories of the way things used to be."

"You can include me in that," I said.

"We still have a few years on you--"

"Just a few," Ken teased me.

"And we remember, don't we Ken, when it was illegal to charge for water."

"Illegal?" I was confused.

"Illegal indeed. If someone came up to your door and asked for a drink of water--and people actually did that back then--you had to give them a glass and you weren't allowed to charge them anything. Not that anyone would; but making it illegal was another way of saying that if someone was down and out, down on his luck, it was our responsibility to help them. Including with a glass of water."

"But the water they sell," I suggested, "is in the supermarket to people who don't want to drink tap water."

"Probably true for most," Bill conceded, "But by putting a price on it, marking it up so much, turns it into something other than being necessary to life."

"And as an opportunity to do good to strangers," Ken said. "Now I get your point."

"Me too," I added. "One more thing--what would happen if someone showed up at your door and asked for a glass of water and while you were getting it for him he smelling a homemade pie coming out of the oven and--"