Now that it’s springtime, I need to get back to doing yard work. It’s time to crank up the lawnmower and cut a path out to my hammock. There’s nothing worse than spilling a glass of ice cold Lynchburg lemonade when you step on a stick hidden in tall weeds and think it’s a snake. Okay, I reckon if that stick was really a snake, then that would be worse. I stand corrected. Either way, fluids will be spilled.
Speaking of fluids, with the weather getting warmer and I start sweating as soon as I step outside, it is essential to stay hydrated. I don’t know ’bout other folks, but if I’m out working in the yard or pulling weeds in the garden, I sweat more than a chubby groom at a shotgun wedding. Even if I’m wearing my normal summer gardening attire of fish-net boxers and a ratty T-shirt, I begin to sweat profusely as I carry my hoe and beer cooler out to the garden. Sometimes, I’m so dehydrated after 10 minutes of cussing all the weeds growing around my squash that I have to go sit ’neath a shade tree and take in some fluids.
Now, I know some of y’all who actually know me or those who are regular readers of this here column might believe that I am a heavy consumer of cold beer. Well, let me set y’all straight. Ever since 2003, I don’t drink beer any more. But then, I don’t drink beer any less neither. I might be a registered Republican but when it comes to beer drinkin’, I’m pretty liberal.
I once thought about giving up beer, but I picked myself up out of the hog trough and found a softer bed to sleep it off. I did cut back my daily consumption a few years back until I was told by two doctors that beer is good for my heart. And since I have such a big heart, well, you catch my drift.
Okay, enough nonsense about beer, the real subject of this column is drinking water to stay hydrated. Not beer, sodas or energy drinks, but good ol’ water. Now the question arises on what is good water. I’ve read that we shouldn’t drink out of the garden hose. I can’t imagine what harm that would do as long as you let the water run long enough to flush out all the fire ants before slurping. Heck, I’ve been drinking out of garden hoses for six decades and I’m as healthy as a 60 year-old horse.
I do have an issue with some of the bottled water they sell in stores. On the label of a bottle of “Purified Drinking Water”, this is printed: “With flavor enhancing minerals”. I may not be the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer, but how can something be pure if stuff is added to it? According to Mr. Webster, pure means “unmixed with any other matter,” so how can that bottle contain purified water?
I’m also wondering what minerals were added to enhance the flavor. I can’t think of any rock that I’d want to lick because it’s yummy. As a young whippersnapper living up in Lubbock, I frequently got a taste of minerals when those dust storms blew in, and not once did I bottle up some of that dirt to sprinkle on my ice cream.
I don’t know about others, but the water from our well tastes pretty decent. Sure, it has a mess of calcium and other minerals in it, but then I don’t have a label on my garden hose that says “Purified Drinking Water”. By drinking from my hose, you get whatever is flowing down the aquifer that day, nothing more, nothing less. And, best of all, it quenches your thirst. Speakin’ of quenching my thirst, I worked up a lather with all this typing. I could use a drink.
Clint Younts likes his beer. We pay him with six-packs of Lone Star, Corona and Modello. Actually, he’s drink just about any beer you put in front of him.
