Cost of Water for Granny

Recently, I heard an interview with Berkshire-Hathaway Chairman, Warren Buffett, in which he commented on his philosophy of acquiring interest in a company, which was quite simple.  He looks for value.  By his simple definition if someone wants what a company produces, or service it provides, then it has value.  Value over time changes based on the need of a certain product or commodity.  The simple things seem to carry the most value.  If you need it to survive, then it has value, and there are only a few precious things that are as valuable to each of us as water.

In this early summer heatwave of 2012, I have noticed the news filled with stories about the cost, conservation, and necessity of water during the hottest time of the year.  I noticed that my grandmother had watered the flower bed earlier in the morning and I commented to her to 'watch it or her water bill will be sky high'.  She laughed and said, 'water's cheap'.  It didn't occur to me just at that moment, but her perspective on the value or cost of water is cheaper now than at any time in her life, which thus far has spanned 89 years. It just so happened that my grandmother, who's youth was in a time and a place that is very far from the world of luxury that we've grown up in, know's the value of water better than most people of this generation ever will.  She spoke to me of having to carry water from the spring in the mountains of north Arkansas, where her father grew tomatoes, to wash clothes, cook, drink, and bathe each day.  This would take several trips up and down the hillsides just to start what would be a long day of labor.  None of it though, was to be accomplished without water.  And then again, later when she had 6 children in the 40's & 50's in Bigelow, the same thing except from a well. (Bigelow got a city water system in 1963)  Most houses that are still around from that day and age still have a well either on the porch or very near the house.  I can remember the well bucket hanging from a rope on my grandparents porch.  Sweet memories to me, but to Granny, good riddance to a lot of hard work in hard times in rural Arkansas.


We've come to expect certain things in life to just happen for us.  Take for instance, water coming out of the faucet, lights coming on when we flip the switch, the gas line providing fuel, and probably the thing our sense of smell appreciates most, the toilet flushes.  Like almost everyone else my age or younger, I take it for granted that these 'luxuries' will happen for a very low percentage of my income, compared to all the money that I blow on things I can't even find most of the time, water is cheap.  It's the wasteful attitude that our society has come to adapt when referencing the shortages of life, such as no cell phone service when driving through the Ozarks, or having to get up and change the channel when the battery in the remote it dead, which differentiates those who deserve and appreciate those amenities of life, and those who waste so much they don't recognize the difference between a need and a want.  


So no matter what the cost of water on the water bill each month, or restrictions on water usage, I'm sure Granny will keep those flowers looking good.  And I think she should, it's both valuable and cheap.  After all, she's one of the few that deserve it.