Water Witcher

I was recently presented with a big problem at the Church wood lot. Steve, a fellow wood stacker, couldn’t find the water line to his house. His line is plastic and therefore undetectable. “Would water witching work to find the lost line”, I asked?

Steve brought up childhood memories of old Rod Thurston and his bicycle. Rod was a douser or water witcher and dug the wells that he had witched. He charged $25 to dig a well and if he didn’t find water, you didn’t pay. He tied his pant legs with a piece of string so his cuffs wouldn’t get into the chain of his bike and peddled very slowly like he had no place to go. Behind the seat, there was a rack with big springs at both ends and clamped tight under the springs were his willow dousing sticks.

Augie Takatsuka wanted a well dug so he could water his strawberries. He called upon Rod to douse for water. Dousing is divining for underground water, using a forked willow stick or wire. It is strange to watch the divining rod “dipping” in the douser’s hands. Often the douser can tell the depth at which water will be found by the “vibration” or pull on the stick or wire. Cave paintings in northwestern Africa indicate the practice to be 6,000 to 8,000 years old.

Rod’s hands trembled as his stick dipped. Augie threw a pocket full of change on the ground to mark the spot. They dug down for 20 feet when the ladder started to sink in soupy quick sand at the bottom of the well. Quicksand indicates the presence of water. They got out of there quick. Rod divined and dug many wells on Vashon over the years.

To see Rod coming down the road on his bike was a diversion for us kids, playing with our toy cars in the dirt. His bike was old and rickety with wooden wheels which made a clacking sound on the gravel road as he peddled. He weaved from side to side and the shifting of his weight caused the old bike to creak.

One of the kids would see Rod coming down Beall Road on his rickety bike and yell out: “Rod is coming, Rod is coming”. He sometimes had a little treat in his pocket, usually sticky hard candy, no wrapper and covered with lint. I ran into the house to show Mom what Rod had given us. I opened my hand full of linty candy and she said: “Thank Rod for the candy but don’t eat it”. After that we never told Mom about the candy and washed it off with the hose.

One day Mom told us to jump in the car because Rod had invited her down to listen to him play the violin. Rod lived in a tar paper shack on a logged and burned area on the downhill side of Ridge Road. He had a coffee floor in lieu of dirt, having spread his coffee grounds there for years. It made a nicely packed floor of a consistent color. He told us kids that he had been looking for the “lost chord” for a long time. We didn’t know what he was talking about and thought his violin was “squeaky”. We listened respectfully but didn’t think he was very good. His little garden was very neat and orderly, but not very big. He would invite people to come down to his shack and he would give them potatoes. One man brought a sack to fill and Rod gave him two potatoes,one for him and one for his wife. Then he threw in a third. “Two are all you are likely to eat”, Rod said, “But I’ll give you another just in case”.

It’s too bad that old Rod isn’t with us any more. He might have doused for Steve’s lost water line.