They say Monticello is built high on a hill, and that old rascal Thomas Jefferson had a hell of a time getting water to rise up to where he wanted it. Having allowed myself to be talked into building a house up on the hill where my wife grew up, I can relate. We have a beautiful view, but keeping our cistern wet is a never ending battle. Often our battle focuses on the Papaya Question (or, why waste water on ephemeral plants that produce a mushy flavorless fruit when the stores have plenty of the edible variety...). I have nothing against papayas, personally, but let’s face it, a papaya plant is not a thing of beauty. It is more of a weed than a tree, if the truth be known. It even looks sinister, like devil’s club or loco weed. It can produce a delicious fruit that weighs more than the plant itself, but for some reason our little crop tastes like a cross between zucchini and eggplant. No matter how much lime, salt and chili powder you put on it, it still tastes wrong. So it kills me to see my wife out there with the hose, pouring our precious water on these ungrateful parasites. And I nearly came unglued when my father-in-law woke me up to proudly show me the half dozen little papayitos he had planted in my putting green. Our lime tree produces bland, pulpy, seedy little crab limes, but I do not begrudge it water because it is a tree, a work of art that improves with age like fine wine and Carlos Santana. Papayas, on the other hand, will never amount to anything. The reason I am so miserly about water is because every week or two we have to load the industrial strength water pump into the wheel barrow and haul it a hundred-some meters down the hill to where the pressure is

strong. Then it’s a pleasant couple of hours in the hot sun with the old tool box, connecting this and that, hoping the hose doesn’t blow a new leak. By the time it’s all over, the water that trickles out of our faucet represents a fair amount of human suffering. For the first few years, I did all the work, but now that I am older and wiser, I hire my brothers-in-law to do it. I imagine the brilliant Jefferson also arranged to have someone else do the heavy lifting. This way, I don’t get quite as upset watching the wife and kids throw water around like it was sand at the beach. After all, it’s only money. And it’s the price we pay to live in a rustic, rural setting. I wish I knew how Jack and Jill managed to get that pail of water from UP the hill, or was that just what they told their parents they were doing... Actually, I must confess that after living in the rainforests of Western Washington, in some ways I find this dearth of H2O refreshing. I share WC Field’s distaste for the stuff. I’ve had it up to my neck in water. Literally. I never quite drowned, but my ’59 Bel Air and ’66 Impala sure did (sob!). The nice people officially in charge of drainage were very sympathetic, but it seems that logging and development had caused increased run-off, resulting in unprecedented flooding, so tough turkey. They sent a very sharp young biologist to check out the situation, and he ruled my entire property a federally protected wetland. So now, when my hair is full of soap and the water stops running because the papayas got it all, I remind myself I’ve known worse, like coming home to find the furniture floating around the living room. Probably the greatest thing about Mazatlán is the fact that between November and June, it’s a desert. I like it.