WHEN HE BEGAN HIS WALK THROUGH THE DESERT

he weighed 225.  But that's the way it is out West in these United States.  He also had arms, but that's another story for another day.

Today, it's about dehydration.  You see, I've been achy.  Left foot almost gouty, almost drawn.  Back ache.  Left knee pain in the muscle.  Especially at night in front of the television.  Not so much at the computer.

My drinks consist of coffee, Diet Coke, sparkling lemonade, and some mineral water Wal-Mart drink that contains no calories, and finally maybe two or three bottled Desani.  Not enough for the desert.

So today, I drenched myself in ice tea, unsweetened.  It helped. Even if you stay indoors, which I don't much, dehydration occurs in our warm months.  Taking clothes from the washer and hanging them in the laundry room finds them drying so much quicker these days.  As they say, it is a dry heat.

One who grew up on delicious Miller Lake water, I couldn't get enough as a kid.  A Coke, the only diet was Tab which tasted worse than cough syrup to me, was a luxury reserved for an after-victory Little League game treat or an occasional meal outside the confines of our own kitchen/dining room.  So it was good old water for me.  And if I didn't have time to go in the house, there was usually a hose at our house or a neighbor's to quench the dry mouth.

As our town grew, but did it really?, we went to Rend Lake water.  And I found other wetness.  I never really got over it.  Miller Lake spoiled me for all time, I'm afraid.  Now I'm a bottled water man, but it's never as good as the tap water I grew up on.

Back then, I had muscles, but they never ached.  Not that I recall.  Plus, I never groaned when I got up from a chair or had to bend down to tie my shoes.  There must have been something in that water.