Pressure

Oh, hear me sing

The praises of power

That comes from the tap and the shower;

A beautiful thing.

After months of having nothing but a trickle from the faucet, we finally have normal water pressure.

The crew from Bruce's Underground (his underground what?) showed up Friday with a backhoe and shovels to install a new water connection from the main under Main Street to our house of the clogged artery. It took them all day, and cost us $2,500, but it's worth it.

Fennville Factor

For months we've had little more than drops from the sinks and shower. The toilets took 10 minutes to fill; the washer took days, it seemed, even for a small load. In fact, it's been more than a year since we had enough force to run water through a hose to the garden.

Once we determined the problem was outside the house, but not in the city's waterline, we set about finding someone to help. Once again, we hit what I call the Fennville Factor. This iron law says that contractors and professionals will do everything under the sun to avoid coming to Fennville because everyone here is poor or a minority.

I called three plumbers to come down, and only one finally took my call. He suggested that he could not help me, but that I should call Bruce's Underground (a great name for a Scottish rock band or World War II movie starring Van Johnson) because, well, that's what he would do.

Luckily, Bruce was not afflicted by the Fennville Factor and promptly showed up. Seems he had worked on a house just down the street and felt Fennville people trustworthy. Poor but honest.

The only delay: We had rain and lightning the first two days the workers were scheduled to arrive. The sun finally popped out Friday.

As the crew was wrapping up that day, the foreman showed me a section of pipe from the ground. It was about the size of a toilet paper tube, but the inside was so encrusted with rust and sediments that the actual hole the water had to pass through was less than the diameter of a pen.

The pipes were at least 50 years old, probably 75 years old.

Well, the water runs great now. I about blew off my skin when I stepped under the shower.

The aftermath

Now that the water works are done, we are left with a side yard full of mud. Needless to say, the kids love it. Thus, the photo up top of my youngest daughter's shoes waiting to be rinsed on the back step.

Thought: My name is mud -- and I like it.