Today I took a trip back in time to memories from years gone by. Today I heard a noise outside my house, so I went and had a look. I was surprised to see the water company getting ready to bleed the fire hydrant. This was something they used to do every few months, but they had not done it for some time. If you have never seen this done before the side caps on the hydrant are opened and then a tool with a meter and a valve are put into on hole. On the other side they attach a shoot to allow the water to project out past the hydrant about 2 ft. When he opened the valve the first water to shoot our was mud brown in color, but it did not take that long to clear up. Two small children were the first to notice the strange sight, but it did not take long for about a half a dozen others to join them, and a grandma walked down to watch the kids, and one of the mothers came a short time later. It was a good thing the grandma was there as one of the children tried to cross the street in front of a car.
I sat on my porch with another neighbor watching as gallons of water sprayed out of the hydrant to the joy of the children. They were screaming and splashing in. It reminded me of how the children used to open hydrants in the summer until the city got smart and started shutting the flow down to them when they were not in use. I sat there on my porch for about 45 minutes watching the small children enjoying the cool surprise on a hot summers day, I watched the storm clouds moving in. When the time came for the man to close the hydrant the children were all well behaved they did not give him any trouble about it. I heard one tiny boy say BEST DAY EVER as the man shut the water down. It made me feel so good to not only see the children enjoying themselves so much but to see the parent and grand parent making sure they were looked after, and to see the children so appreciative of the nice cool summer treat. It was especially nice for the children because just last week the housing authority tore out the children's spray pool on the play ground. The decision to remove the spray pool sprinkler was a long time coming. The pluming was shot it was here when I moved here 40 years ago, and had been blocking up for years. It was decided this year to just remove it to prevent stagnant water from collecting. The funding to replace it was not in the budget, as most of the funds we would usually have gotten had to go to places that needed it more. But back to the kids. It makes me smile so much to see little kids that still find joy in being sprayed by a fire hydrant in today's world of video games and shootings in the schools. It makes me think maybe there is hope for the world yet. Is there anything more heart warming then the quills and laughter of small children on a hot summer day.
When the man closed the hydrant he told the kids just wait a few minutes and it will be raining. He was not wrong. About and hour later awe got hit with a torrential downpour that flooded the road, the back sidewalk and the play ground all. It would not have been so tenable if the near by hospital would have better drains in their parking lots that take up 2 full blocks in and L shaped pattern on higher ground then where I live. We get all the run off from the rain hitting the pavement of the 9 huge parking lots. If they had set the drainage up properly more of the water would either sink into the ground or stay on a straight course to the storm drain.
