And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and
found there a well of springing water.

—Genesis 26:19
______________________________________

His name was Chuck Norman. But he was known to everyone as “Fine and Dandy” because that was his automatic response to most questions. He used the phrase to answer anything from how he was to discussing the weather.

He was the local well driller. Tall, wiry, toothless, he was always dressed in stained olive green coveralls and wore a dented, dirty yellow hard hat, his ever-present cigar-ette dangling from his lips or cradled in a grease-blackened hand. A typical roughneck, a man who made his living drilling great holes into the earth, wrestling with ancient clanking machinery and carbide-tipped bits capable of chewing through solid rock.

He usually showed up at our farm of an evening, after supper. Dad always walked out and greeted him. “How are you tonight?’

“Fine and dandy. Fine and dandy,” he always replied, smiling his toothless grin, lighting another cigarette.

Dad then walked out to a tree in the yard and broke off a slim Y-shaped branch. Usually he allowed one of us boys to accompany him. We got into Fine and Dandy’s dilapidated old pickup and roared down the gravel road.

To the place where he was fixing to drill another well. Usually a new building site, but sometimes at an existing residence. Dad got out of the truck holding his little forked tree branch. Palms up, thumbs out, he grasped the ends of the Y shape and stuck the branch straight out in front of him. He then began to walk slowly back and forth across the lot in the general area where Fine and Dandy wanted to dig a well.

An observer would have witnessed quite the sight, an Amishman in a battered wide-brimmed black wool hat, holding a forked stick, slowly crisscrossing the yard. To the side lounged a dirty chain-smoking roughneck and a ragged little boy in galluses.

Sooner or later, the branch in Dad’s hands lunged downward, quivering, alive, pulled by an invisible force. Dad carefully marked the spot. Then he walked back and forth crosswise over the spot. Again and again, the branch lunged down, twitching in Dad’s hands.

Fine and Dandy always stood back, observing and dragging on his cigarette. Some-times Dad found more than one spot that caused the branch to plunge down. He then tested the spots to check which had the strongest pull.

Finally he stopped, X’ed the spot he’d chosen, and told Fine and Dandy, “This is where you want to drill.” Fine and Dandy always smiled his toothless smile, handed Dad a crumpled $10 or $20 bill, and took us home again in his dilapidated pickup. If we were lucky, we might stop at a store for an ice cream bar or soda pop on the way home.

Fine and Dandy always drilled where Dad told him to. Sometimes hundreds of feet down. And he always, always found good wells with abundant supplies of fresh, clear water. He developed quite a reputation as a top notch driller of wells that didn’t run dry.

He strayed a few times, before he learned. Tried to dig where he figured there would be water, without consulting Dad. Often ending up with dry runs. Shamefacedly then he came and fetched Dad to show him where to dig. And Dad would. Always there was water under the spot he marked.

Dad was a dowser. Because of him, untold amounts of water flowed onto the earth where none had flowed before. Like rain from the ground instead of the sky. Some would call him evil and brand him a water witch, a label he stridently rejected. If there was water to be found below the ground, he could locate it. Not only that, he could tell you where to drill for the best flow and the clearest water.

He never failed. Not that I’m aware of. He always found water. Always. If he didn’t, there was none to be found. His record for accuracy was 100%.

I don’t know where his “gift” came from and I don’t know why he had it. Or how it worked. It may have been a latent ability, a remnant of ancient practices, buried deep within the psyche of his Swiss-German heritage. His mother was a Lengacher. Probably came from that bloodline. To my knowledge, Waglers not from that lineage are devoid of the gift.

I don’t think he ever knew quite what it was or why he possessed it. It was passed on to none of his eleven children. All he knew is that he had the gift, and he could use it. And he did.

It was what it was. Growing up with dowsing, we thought nothing of it. As children, we played at imitating our father, walking back and forth in the yard with a little forked stick. Since none of us had the actual ability, we made the stick jump down with imper-ceptible movements of our wrists.

Dowsing has been around for thousands of years. Probably even in biblical times. Maybe Isaac’s servants used it to find water in the desert. How else would they have known where to dig a well? Through the centuries, people dowsed for other things too, such as detecting buried metals. And minerals such as coal.

In recorded history, dowsing has always had a bit of a shady reputation. People who couldn’t understand it feared it. During the Middle Ages, it was believed to be from the devil. It has never been scientifically proven to work. Most people today view it with suspicion and fear and skepticism.

I don’t. I know it works. Provided the dowser really has the gift. I saw it with my own eyes. Many times. It is real and it does work.

Today Dad is 86 years old. He still gets around well. I would wager my last penny that the man could still walk over any site with his little forked stick, and locate the purest strongest stream of water available anywhere under the ground.

He was a man who boldly pursued his dreams, some to failure and some to fruition. An ordinary man with some extraordinary abilities. One of which happened to be dowsing.

I wonder, is he the last of his kind, or are there others out there like him?

*****************************************

We live in interesting times. Times now turning a bit scary. The country and the world are abuzz with all the bad economic news. In this last week, Wall Street reeled from blow after blow as institution after institution hit the dust. Russia’s stock market was shut down after the bottom fell out on Monday.

That morning, Lehman Bros., a venerable financial institution, collapsed in the largest bankruptcy in history. Lehman was founded in 1850, and survived the Civil War, both World Wars and the Great Depression. Because of its insane investments, it did not survive the current housing bubble collapse.

The Feds, who bailed out Bear Stearns, and now the insurance giant, AIG, stepped back and let Lehman fall. As they should have for all of them. With Bear Stearns, AIG and Fannie and Freddie, our collective debt ballooned by trillions of dollars.

The guys I read on the web, William Norman Grigg and Gary North, among others, predict dark times ahead. They have always tended toward pessimism, but this time I think they are on to something. The collapse of the dollar, I believe, is imminent.

On the phone with a friend earlier this week, I asked him what he made of the whole mess. He blithely said it would affect only the rich, who had stupidly invested in the companies whose stock is now worthless. I was stunned by his naïve conclusions.

On the surface, it may mostly affect the rich. Like Lehman’s now suddenly unemployed investment bankers and their wives. But what affects them affects us all. Sooner or later. Mostly sooner this time, I think.

The whole thing will likely shake out by late October. By then, we’ll know how bad it really is. Whether a Depression approaches, or something less. It would be wise to anticipate a Depression and prepare accordingly while there is yet time. At the most basic level, a few extra tins of Spam and a case of bottled water wouldn’t be a bad idea. At a more advanced level, well, there’s always guns and gold.

In the long run, economies come and go. As do world powers, and empires. As will this country, at some point. Maybe soon.

Only the Lord endures unchanged forever.

Phillies fans are waxing delirious at their team’s late spurt toward the playoffs. Back and forth it goes, with the Mets and the Phillies half a game up, half a game down. Should be an interesting finish. Since the Phillies swept my Braves this week, and the Braves now begin a three-game series with the Mets, I’m in the awkward position of cheering for the Mets against my own team. I’d rather see the Mets in the playoffs. Oh, well. As I’ve said before, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

In football, I was one for two last weekend. The vile Brady-less Patriots beat my Jets in New York. I wasn’t too surprised. My buddy Favre threw his first interception as a Jet. The Pats are an evil well-oiled machine. I could probably play quarterback for them and win.

But the Cowboys-Eagles. Whooee, what a game. Pretty much came down to who had the ball last. I went to bed at halftime, convinced the thug Eagles would prevail. They were pretty much moving the ball at will. The next morning I was delighted to see the Cowboys had pulled it out. That made me, ahem, ten dollars richer.

“There’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights.
A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals.”

—Ingrid Newkirk
__________________________________________

You probably heard about it. It was all the rage locally. And state wide. I suspect it might even have reached the national news market. Delivered in the most conde- scending tones, dripping with horror and disbelief.

Two local plain Mennonite farmers, kennel owners, over in Kutztown summarily exe- cuted eighty dogs. Seemingly for no reason. Shot them in the head and piled their carcasses outside their kennels.

Local reaction was swift and heated. The Humane Society issued a number of harsh, condemning statements. Letters to the editor expressed outrage. One letter writer excoriated the Amish and Mennonites for not believing that dogs have souls. A candle- light vigil was held one evening at some local park. One hundred people showed up. Men, women, children. They lit candles and read poems and sang songs of unity.

Lancaster County has a long tradition of dog kennels on farms. Dogs are big business. Depending on the breed, puppies are worth from several hundred to over a thousand dollars each when weaned. Many kennels traditionally have housed the dogs in cages. Not particularly a pastoral setting. Kept them confined for life, doing nothing but producing batch after batch of puppies.

In the early to mid-90s, animal rights groups and the Humane Society launched an organized resistance to these confinement practices. It started small, with only a few vocal people speaking out. By the late 90s, it had morphed into a formidable force. The kennels were labeled “puppy mills.” Once that label stuck, kennel owners might as well have packed it up. It would be only a matter of time before they’d be shut down.

Back when I practiced law, from 1997 to 2001, I developed a minor local reputation as an attorney who represented the kennel owners. Usually the fiercest resistance arose when a farmer applied for a zoning change to allow him to open a kennel. At the public hearings, opponents show up by the dozens and harangued the Amish guys for their cruelty.

The worst hearing I can remember happened around 1999, in Intercourse, PA. My boss, Jim Clymer and I represented two young Amish farmers who had applied for a special exception to open kennels. At the public hearing that night, about fifty dog lovers showed up, most from outside the area. Each was allowed about two minutes to express their opinions.

Tension pulsed through the air. The hearing began. Things got a bit loud. And heated. Some people spent their entire two minutes screaming at our clients, calling them cruel and inhumane. In that setting, two minutes can seem like an eternity. To his credit, the Township solicitor managed to keep order. He even had a state cop on standby, in case things got out of hand. No telling when violence might break out.

In the end, one of our clients was allowed a kennel, the other was denied.

I haven’t represented a kennel owner since. Not because I wouldn’t, but because I no longer practice law full time.

Since that time, anti-kennel forces have grown in numbers and influence. Billboards have popped up here and there. Some groups boycott Lancaster County altogether. Out of state letters to the editor appear sporadically, decrying the “puppy mills.” And last year, there was a rally in the Intercourse Park one Sunday afternoon. Some minor Hollywood celebrities showed up. If I remember right, Linda Hamilton (Terminator I and II) was among them.

Our good Democrat governor, “Fast Eddie” Rendell, decided to get in on the action. He implemented more stringent guidelines and harsher penalties for violations. Now we have several dozen dog-law enforcers running around harassing the kennel owners.

Which brings us back to the two plain Mennonite guys who killed their eighty dogs. Why did they do it? You don’t just go out and kill your dogs. They are investments. Worth a small fortune.

This is the inside story, at least as I heard it. Details tend to get a bit sketchy with each retelling, so my accuracy may be skewed. Another kennel owner in the county, an Amishman, a few weeks before found himself mired in some serious trouble. A nice lady showed up at his kennel to buy a puppy one day. He showed her what he had. She pointed to a sick one. She wanted that puppy. By law he wasn’t allowed to sell a sick puppy. He told her that. She begged and begged and promised she would nurse it to health. She felt a special bond to that puppy only. She would shower it with all the love it needed to get strong.

Finally he gave in. Sold the sick puppy to her. He shouldn’t have. It was a setup.

The next day, a gang of cops and dog wardens and a TV crew showed up at his kennel. The Amishman was arrested and led away in handcuffs. The footage was splashed all over the evening news and the next day’s papers. His dogs, worth thousands of dollars, were confiscated, his kennel shut down.

A few weeks later, a dog warden showed up at the two plain Mennonite men’s kennels. He found some violations. I don’t know what they were. Sick dogs, maybe. Some odds and ends of this and that. The warden said he would return in a few days to check again.

The two plain Mennonite men knew what had happened to the Amishman. They believed the same thing was about to be unleashed on them. They’d be led away in handcuffs, splashed all over the local TV news. And the newspapers. They determined this would not happen to them.

They called their vet. Asked if it was legal for them to shoot their dogs. He said it was.

So they did. All eighty of them. When the warden returned, they told him what they’d done. They were no longer in violation. They had no more dogs. No kennels either. The warden left, stunned. The vet was right. They’d broken no law. They were not charged with anything.

And that’s how and why it all came down.

It was a rash and stupid thing to do. Not to mention senseless and cruel. From the emotional backlash, a law very likely will be passed prohibiting anyone from shooting their dog(s). For any reason.

I was raised on a farm. We had cows, chickens, hogs, horses. And always a dog. Usually a cur, a mixed breed mutt of some kind. We raised calves. Fattened them. And come winter, we’d butcher one or two, along with a hog. Shot and skinned them. Cut up the meat. Feasted on fresh sausages and hamburgers. That was just life. We thought nothing of it.

But dogs were different. Our farm dog was always special. We would never dream of harming it.

Even then, there were times when we had to do what we had to do. Once, out in the fields, a farm wagon somehow ran over our dog. His name was Sluggo. We heard him yelping and ran to him, lying there whimpering, with a broken back. Struggling vainly to propel his limp hind legs. Titus and I held and cradled him. Tried to assure each other that the vet could fix him. Sluggo rolled his eyes in pain and cried. We knew then what had to be done. Someone fetched the .22 rifle. The spiteful crack, the bullet through the head, the limp body. We tenderly buried him.

We were upset and we were sad. But that was life.

Sometimes it’s necessary to terminate an animal’s life. Even a dog you love. I couldn’t imagine shooting eighty dogs in cold blood, just like that. I couldn’t do it, unless they were rabid or something, and attacking me as a pack. I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time hanging out with guys who could and did, like the two plain Mennonite farmers. Something about their makeup has to be screwed up just a bit.

But I’d hate to see a law prohibiting them from doing it. Even though dogs are special to many people, companions, like children, they are still animals. It would be a mis- take to grant them legal status as more than they are. (For that, I’ll probably get smacked around again like I was last week after writing about politics. Two strikes in a row. I shudder at the third strike, whatever it might be.)

The radical animal rights groups, like PETA and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) have worked tirelessly for decades to define all life on an even plane. A child is a dog is a cat is a fish is a horse. It’s all the same. People are just animals. Except for unborn human babies, who are just masses of tissue. Kill them all you want, for any reason or none, in the most brutal ways imaginable.

Their agenda was spawned in the pits of hell. And they have been quite successful in implementing it. Throughout all facets of society, through groups like the Humane Society. To them, the human race is a cancer upon the earth. The world would be better off if we all lived in caves. Or better yet, if we weren’t here at all.

Those who hate God love death. Except the deaths of animals. Killing animals will be verboten, criminally outlawed. And they are winning. They never give up. They never go away. And with incidents like the one described above, it’s no wonder. Any sane, decent person will recoil from such acts.

But still, one hopes that common sense and reason will prevail. PETA and ALF and all their minions must be confronted and vehemently opposed. Any person (with the possible exception of murderers and child molesters) is inherently worth more than any animal.

Including dogs.

And until people know this in their hearts, we will always be engaged on this battlefield.

***************************************

A few words on 9/11. It came and went yesterday. Like most of us, I’ll always remem- ber exactly where I was when I heard the news. The terrible dread deep down in the pit of my stomach. The disbelief. The horror of those planes smashing into the towers. The terrible loss of thousands of innocent lives.

How those of us in the office assembled in the little chapel in Gap a few days later. How we prayed, read scripture passages, and rang the great bell in the chapel tower.

The memories have receded with the passage of time. But they always jolt back on that fateful date. We now live in a different world.

While there is much legitimate debate on the course of action taken since that day, two facts are beyond dispute. We have not been attacked on our home soil since 9-11-2001. And we have lost a tremendous amount of personal freedom since that day.

On Tuesday night I arrived home late and settled at the computer with nothing more on my mind than working on this week’s blog. I turned on the TV, as usual, for a baseball game in the background to keep an eye on. It lit to a blank screen. I fumbled around and whacked on this and that connection to get it to work. Still nothing.

Mild panic set in. What would I do without the TV? I called Dish Network’s tech support and had a long unproductive conversation with some girl from India, who in halting English, with many long silent pauses, led me through an endless checklist of possible problems. I felt bad for her, talking to some irate American five thousand miles away. Of course, nothing was solved.

Might as well be Amish again, I decided as I hung up. No TV. What would I do, read a book? Mild waves of panic swept through me. Ah, but I still had my computer, and needed to work on the blog. So that’s what I did, in an unusually quiet house.

No baseball. No football. No nothing. Withdrawal set in. The next day, I was fortunate to convince a Dish Network service man to stop by and install a new control box. The old one had burned out. My disquieted spirit has settled. All’s back to normal. Football on schedule for the weekend.

Speaking of football, how ‘bout them Jets? Brett Favre is 1-0 as the starter. He wasn’t spectacular, just got the job done. The big test will be this weekend, when they face the vile Brady-less (Kansas City obligingly shattered Tom Brady’s knee last Sunday.) Patriots in New York. They win that, they’re going somewhere.

But probably the biggest game of the week will be the Cowboys-Eagles on Monday night. Go Cowboys.