Making Rainbows When
the Sun Shines.
a double to the camera but a triple to the naked eye of Amsterdam New York , i took one day while visiting.
A misnomer at best,
a contradiction in terms or is it? One is totally dependent on the other, yet at
same time sends connotations of another meaning. Well I have been in the
creation of the rainbow maker and it was something one would never forget. Partly
because of where I was and with who I was with.
There seemed to
be only one person growing up who truly seemed to have my best interest at
heart and would take the time try and impress upon me his values, thoughts, and
a general self-worth of working all day long, without complaining. This sometimes
is something I hardly ever achieve but do strive to make happen on occasion. I take
on many tasks and freely do my own bidding, but not without reservation and not
without a verbal utterance of a negative way about the task at hand.
I guess I am back
at the BFF (best friend forever), in my life who isn’t here anymore except in
my thoughts and feelings. Bff meaning my Grandfather, Doubt if Grandpa ever
realized he was a BFF considering the term had never been coined till a few
years ago in the time line of my life. Well after Grandpa defined all the
different variables that went into the meaning. He was mentor, friend, dad (true one- though a replacement
for the real) , protector, provider , and anything and all of what a 4-5 year
old boy would want in the years before going to school. Most kids would have
rarely been part of what I experienced at such a early stage in my life. I was
born and raised on a farm and understood quite a bit more than most as well as
social interactions among people and what happens when it goes terribly wrong
in front of young children and where those children turn to hang on to
normalcy.
My Grandpa and Grandma
had bought the other farm where when I was young I had lived, and had installed
a trailer beside our old 2 story house that had been moved to its present
location. It was convenient for me to walk across the yard and within seconds
be in the trailer and having breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma and all of this
sometimes well before any time mom would roll out of bed and feed me. This
should have easily been the ideal living arrangement for a young child. But it didn’t
stop there, as Grandpa also worked for the Forestry Department for the U.S. Government.
This he did on the adjacent property of 160 acres that the forestry department
owned next to us at our other farm in Tuscarawas County. Grandpa was supervisor , a working one as he
had to be, as he was also teacher –mentor –leader to a group of summer college
students doing intern work with the government as well as project designer, and
whatever other handle one could coin for a person such as he.
A lane would
wander through our farm that was the lifeline to the various projects the
forestry department would be experimenting with at a given time. This lane was
where I would head to learn and be out of the world I was most accustomed to. There
were studies on how water would percolate through various types of soil and how
fast the water would be absorbed and that that wasn’t would run off to streams
and cause flooding problems. This information alone is critical to good
designing of a housing development or various other civil projects, where the
impact of construction could cause downhill water problems of flooding and loss
of soil due to rapid deterioration of conditions as sometimes happens when
these projects exist. This information was used all over the United States, as a
basis of designing and creating a working plan for a housing development. As
far as I know some or all of this information is still as important as it was
then, although brought up to date by computers.
The basic test
back then was to dig a pit in the hillside on a slope and try to disturb as
little as possible. This pit would be10 x 20 feet , hand dug by a crew of
college kids and my Grandpa, and then one wall on the uphill side would have a
lattice work of pipes installed on the face of it from top to bottom to a depth
of about 6 ft. deep in some cases, then pea gravel would be poured all over the
face up to the level of the ground on the uphill side. . Different levels at
about 6 inches difference would have a pipe associated with that elevation , and
would represent the water flow at that level so the top level would represent
what ran off due to lack of absorption. Now why am I telling you all of this is
because this it is the reason for the
rainbows as I attempt to draw all I have said before into one nice tidy little
story regarding the title, impressive if
it works.
Well, as now my life
had become intertwined with Grandpa and his crew as I became more and more
accepted into the realm of working. The workers would explain to me a young
child just what all was going on and I was learning exactly what was meant by
all of this work they were doing. So there my Grandpa would be giving orders to
workers about the day’s work duties and tools were issued from the tool shed, and
out they would go into the woods following scripted paths to avoid natural
features or something that needed protected from the trampling of feet to hole with a tarp that would be stretched over
a hole , and here they would work performing tests for 8 hrs. and then that was
their day. Lunch was taken under the tarp in the shade or possibly on a fallen
log and it was at these times and others these young interns would tell me what
they were doing, as if explaining to me helped them justify their own
excitement about the tasks they were performing were of more importance than
mere labor. And why as well my Grandpa
would fill in the blanks when I offered up a question, never talking to me like
I was a kid, instead as one of them, an adult with a
purpose . This allowed me to be in a
better place than most children my age, and it has been with me all my life. Although
this information may not be used constantly, but it is like it has been used intermittently,
the knowledge of the purpose of why we
were doing, is important to me when
considering thoughts about similar things in life. My family life without my real
Dad and being as close to my Grandpa as I was at that age was a priceless , and
to be able to go to his work freely and tag around , and share that part of his life was a one in a
million chance for a young child to have. I didn’t and still don’t think I am
exceptional , more that I have had exceptional things happen to me of which had
such influence to change or alter my thoughts about life. This may make me seem
different , eccentric , or just plain crazy, still it is part of just who I am
Back to the
task at hand of making rainbows when the sun shined, as the day would begin with the sound of gas
powered water pumps that would sit on the dike of a dam across two hills
breaching the valley and damming the water to be used up hill and being pushed
by those same water pumps through fire water hoses to a labyrinth of pipes as
it snaked its way up the hillside to a the uphill side of the pit and then
would be run up three lengths of pipe and sprayed up above the ground into the
air 10 – 15 ft. in the air and atomizing and then falling in waves back to the
soft earth below it saturating the ground. It was a an artificial rain they
were creating and this was usually done when it was sunny because that way they
knew they could control the amount of water on the plot they were checking. This
plot would be approximately 50 x 100 ft. long with three sets of sprayers
heading up hillside along with water lines. An hour and a half of pumping would
achieve results of a typical controlled rain. This allows one to have useful
information that applies to the typical soil involved.
To understand
how much water was contained in the soil versus what had ran off . They would
use a measuring device called a tensionometer to determine the surface tension
of the water knowing that at a certain tension the water will spill over into
runoff. This information was used to determine when to shut off the pumps as
well as the lateral flow of wter through the soil. So in essence when someone
would don a rain suit and go out and read the tensionometers on a regular basis
then they would know that the experiment had reached a critical point and this
also was part of my job as kid, that I undertook when I was showed how to do it
. Not really knowing exactly all I was doing, I still had a good grasp of my
numbers and how to read these devices and was relied on to make correct measurement.
Not a bad feat for a five year old boy who probably should have never been
where I was. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Long before I knew
I had any artistic talent , I can remember standing in the middle of this
experimental plot usually with another worker, or it could have been my Grandpa
and I would have this rain coat on they had gave me that was way too big for
anything but my ego. And I would have a hat on also and would walk gently on
boards laid on the ground to avoid disturbing the plot and I would head out to
the tensionometers and get down and read the numbers while the person that was
with me would write and check those numbers . I can remember as I was close to
the ground, the rain would be coming down cooling that section of forest floor
and the sound of dripping everywhere was ever present, while at the same time
the sun shown bright through the dense overhead forest, with white light
bouncing off leaves and falling from the canopy sending shafts of light down
and creating rainbows when the sun shined and interacted with the mist of the
artificial rainfall breaking the white light into rainbows of light.
pic of my green room
I could look
up almost anywhere I go to see the rainbows as they would follow me no matter
where I went, with the scene of light playing tricks with my mind and I being
amazed by this. As an artist I never forgot these visions and now as an adult I
find myself making rainbows where the sun shines again. In the greenhouse I am
working on my green room , the pseudonym I have created for the privacy fence I
created with green potted plants in my greenhouse as a way to show folks how
easy it is to create a living wall of privacy to prevent those pesky neighbors
from interfering in your private life. I stand up there and daily spray water
from a garden hose up on to the arbor casting it to the sky and watching the rainbows
appear. If I was a leprechaun (fat
chance of that , did I say literal?) it would be no problem to do my life’s
duty as a keeper of the gold . I could just imagine creating pots of gold and
making all so happy, as if wealth is what make your happiness so critical. To me
it’s not the wealth but instead the view , and with this view you have memories
that are worth more than any old pot of gold .
Then and now I have
received so much more from those memories and draw upon them often. It may not
make me a better person. Still I would always like to try and think it may be
the cause I might end up that way, a positive sign of happiness that resides if
nowhere else but inside me. We all need that.
No comments:
Post a Comment