When
we first moved to Kentucky, a good friend who had a huge background in water
resources insisted that we have our septic tank pumped out. So we did just
that. Not knowing a soul down here, I chose a name out of the local phone book
which, as memory serves, was a very professional name, such as “Jim’s Septic
Service”. Well, it is Kentucky and a fella has to name his company something.
Jim
showed up in an older pump type of truck, hopped out, greeted me, shot the sh*t
for a few minutes and we sized each other up. Then he asked a question that I
had no answer for. “Where’s the tank?”
Uh.
I dunno? I looked at him helplessly. He surveyed the ground, thought about it
for a minute and then said “I’ll bet it’s over there” and pointed to an expanse
of grass just where my yard starts to ease into the horses’ pasture. He said
“We can find it.” I thought maybe he had a map or something in his truck of
where everyone in the county had their septic tanks, I mean, they do this for
property lines, so maybe down here they added other important stuff, like the
septic tanks and buried wires and things. Nope.
What
he pulled out was a highly unscientific piece of equipment. It was a dowsing
rod. You can read about them here:
I
would like to point out to you the last sentence in the first
paragraph:
There
is no accepted scientific rationale behind dowsing, and there is no scientific
evidence that it is effective.
Well,
I saw this guy use this device and I saw it work. He didn’t strike me as the
kind of guy that would show off. He just wanted to do his job and by golly, he
found the septic line and then the tank, a couple of quick digs with his shovel
and he found the lid easily. I know the studies say it’s chance but I SAW this
myself. I asked about a hundred questions about it. And unless it worked, why
would he carry these metal posts around? So he must have had good success with
it.
The
“how” and “why” questions still remain with me, though.
