Diminishing Returns
From the
Spring
Waukesha Mineral
Water
Sixty years ago
- 70 YEARS NOW -
I was sent to the Silurian
Spring vestige
Weekly, to get water
bubbling up from the ground
Through a plain pipe;
No finialed, turreted
monuments around then,
No platformed exotic
encirclements
No delicate parasols, in the after-days;
But for the history keepers
to thankfully tell us,
- See below footnote
-
Gone is the heraldry of
Waukesha
As the vaunted
Saratoga of the West,
The intricate and ornate
vaultings,
Carves and turnings
The Victorian porticos
Resort and spa hostelries
Drawing Chicagoans, New
Yorkers,
By railroad
To the little
Waukesha
Wisconsin’s
Painted depot boards
All splintered and
demolished by hasty people
In a hurry for advancing
modernity
Where celebrity and
gossamer
Once lavishly held forth;
After
Lofty and mystical spring
names
Like Almanaris, Arcadian,
Bethesda,
Clysmic,
Fountain Crescent,
Horeb, Hygeia, Mineral Rock,
Orchard, Roxo, Silurian,
Solarian,
White Rock
diminished into
antiquity
like the detritus of
a briefly upswept vortex,
soiled newspapers and
flyers
scattered, blown by a
departed train
The hefty claims for the
curative properties
Of
Waukesha spring water were
de-claimed;
No longer did wealthy
foreigners
Disembark at the town train
depots for
Halcyon days of taking the
cures
In charming, unlike
anywhere else
Waukesha
surroundings;
It was indeed something
different to come here
Even sometimes sitting in
big tubs
Having also poison-sucking
Waukesha mud
(Yes, even our mud)
packed to their chins by freshly-clad nurse
attendants
while
sipping the mystical, magical
And ever-tendered
Waukesha
Water
Bearing labels of
be-gauzied winged nymphs;
Those were days of
caveat-emptor in
Reckless, truth-stretching
advertising;
Claims were made without
legal constraint
Allowing the water
entrepreneurs,
The stockholders
To boast, to fable, to
inscribe
On enthralling and storied
bottle labels
Of
Downright cures for
diabetes, Bright’s disease,
Gravel, dyspepsia,
rheumatism, jaundice,
Indigestion, costiveness,
dysentery,
Chills, and nervous and
sick headaches.
Those cures were just at
nearby
Inscrutably-boweled
Silurian Spring;
Elsewhere in
Waukesha you could get
other systemic-trickling,
enigmatic spring waters
offering remedial panaceas
for gout, dropsy,
water sure to be
diaphoretic, anti-emetic,
even thirst allaying
(!)
and a lessening of nausea
and gastric distress,
Not to mention a cure for
all liver and kidney diseases.
I would come home those 60
years ago
Pulling a coaster wagon of
filled variously improvised
Water holders
From the constantly running
pipe
of the Silurian
Spring,
A plain pipe then in an inglorious recessed,
concreted
Uncelebrated stair well
of about 6 feet deep in the
Silurian park
Located
To the immediate east of
the Soo Line
railroad depot
The pipe now cemented
over
I would tug my Zep wagon up
the slow incline of Silurian park
– now called
“Waukesha Springs” but in name only
–
across Hartwell,one block
down Beechwood
and one block to our corner
at Arcadian
and
Colton street
There my job was to take
the storage
Containers down into our cool basement
And refill our table-worthy
National Brotherhood of
Potters brand
Ice-box water jug, with the All-seeing
Eye
Trademark on the bottom,
the sprays of Oriental Poppies
Painted in the glazed tan
background on the two broad sides
Oh,
It was and it still is a
lovely crock,
A yawning hollow to hold
and hallow
A curved yet overall
rectangular shape that
Allowed for cozy nesting
among
Other ice-cooled
perishables.
We’d put it right up
against the melting ice
To insure a shockingly cold
drink
Now the ice box morphed
into an electric refrigerator, and
It may contain cans of
superfluous diet soda
and fruit juices
But, stay, for the
plainest, most rewarding
Truly thirst-quenching
drink
I’ll have some deep gulps
of still crystalline
Waukesha
tap water
Anytime
Now direct from of the sink
faucet
But still held in
The chilly crock;
The squeaky cork-lined lid
Still making the heavy clay
clunk
Of ceramic meeting ceramic
when seated
As it always did
Lamentably,
Waukesha
water is warned to be
at the opposite extreme of
greatness
And unflourished writings
from the water utility warn
Warn of toxic radium levels
now
-
by now we must nearly glow in the dark –
and the earth below and the
vastness above
Are tainted, soiled with
pollutants;
But old Waukeshans
Are game old fish
With shredded fins,
and
We swim in the pond we were
given;
These are post-Saratoga
days
And we had it good;
What of those to
come?
They won’t have,
They will never have
The Brotherhood of
Potters
Crock that held
The stuff of conjurers
Next to a fifty pound
Block of ice
