THE LAST RIVER MILE

A lot of opinions and stringent points fly around every, and I know I contribute to the swarm. I thought I take a break from it all and just share an old, funny story. (This will be appreciated best by those who have a non-urban background.)

In the early years of our marriage my wife and I joined with another couple in the purchase of a small cabin on a bluff overlooking the Current River in Missouri. (The same river on which I took my first canoe float as a twelve-year-old.) We did this against our better judgment, with idyllic dreams of what owning recreational property near the most noteworthy stream in the Missouri Ozarks would be like. As it turned out we spent more time maintaining the cabin than actually relaxing and enjoying it. But it was enjoyable for the three or four years we had it before we both moved away from southern Missouri and we had to sell it.

One maintenance requirement was the pump that brought water to the structure. Both the husband in the other couple, a fellow young pastor and I grew up in a major metropolitan area. Neither of us had any experience with a water pump. As a complicating factor, the property upriver from us and the one just downriver from us had easement rights to the pump and the water it produced. So, if something went wrong with the pump, the legal burden was on us to get water going again for our neighbors.

I remember the first time the pump went out and a good neighbor called us to let us know that something needed to be done about it. My friend/co-owner and I drove the distance to the cabin to try to address the situation. We slid the cover off the pump house and crawled down alongside the mechanism, realizing we didn’t have a clue what we were looking at. We stood staring with our hands on our hips for a while, as guys do. Refusing to admit ignorance, we messed with valves/moving parts/whatever for a bit, thankfully doing no permanent damage. We finally remembered a friendly, helpful older gentleman we had met, who lived down the hill from our cabin. So we went down to his house, where he graciously listened to our description of what was going on with the pump. He smiled and said, “Oh, I’m sure it just needs prime.” We looked at each other, thanked him, and walked back up the hill to our cabin on the bluff.

Without much discussion but in a kind of silent agreement we got in one of our vehicles and drove a couple of miles into the closest town to a hardware store. We went up to the counter and told the two clerks there that we needed a can of pump prime.

Nearly a half century later my guess is that those two hardware store guys have gone on to their rewards. But I’ll bet they still get a good laugh in heaven telling the story of the two city boys who actually asked to buy a can of pump prime. (If you don’t know why this is funny, I feel your pain. Run it by someone you know who has a rural background, but be sure you do it without an audience!)

We all do dumb stuff, I guess. (I hope!) Maybe we should go easy on one another.

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

BTW, I thought the Super Bowl 2026 halftime show was GREAT! (Sorry…I can only stifle a strong opinion/stringent point so long!)