You may have seen in the newspaper last week that my federal water dish, Beaver Lake, is 50 years old this year.
There was a big shindig up at the dam Thursday with speeches, hand-shaking and tours of the Beaver Dam power house. I thank the Army Corps of Engineers every time I whet my whistle at the lake shore or the faucet, because the lake provides our drinking water.
I'll be quenching my thirst more indoors once the weather gets chilly. Trouble is, the cat butler is slow in detaching his hiney from his rocker to open the bathroom faucet a crack so I can drink my fill. That's where I've been getting a drink since the nasty winter of 2011.
A lot of nights, the CB let the faucet run a tad to keep the pipes from freezing. The pencil-thin stream was perfect for slaking my thirst. Right then I, Boat Dock, decreed the oval sink would heretofore be my indoor water dish.
So I'm annoyed when hunting seasons open and my manservant is at Camp See No Deer and not seeing to my needs. It's a pain on Saturdays when the Razorbacks are on and the cat butler won't crack the faucet until the next commercial.
Shoot, I could dry up like a falling oak leaf. My thirst is so powerful the sink looks like a desert floor. There's a bleached cow skull by the drain. The bathroom light burns like relentless Death Valley sun. Finally, he saunters toward the privy and turns the handle. The one with the big "C."
It's hard to teach old people new tricks and training my two-legged wasn't easy. Whenever the flow wasn't just so, I'd sit on the counter and give him The Look. Too little a twist and the drip is too slow. Too much and it's like trying to drink from a fire hose. Took a couple of days, but he got the hang of it, just a trickle thin as pencil lead, but not thick as the whole pencil.
Once the flow is right, I place both paws in the round sink. I point my behind toward the ceiling, tilt my orange head and start lapping.
Thirst is a thing of the past. After five minutes of slurping, I head up to bed for an 18-hour power nap.
Much as I enjoy taking my eight glasses of water a day from the bathroom sink, no drink of water goes down better than one in the great outdoors.
Happy birthday to my federal water dish, Beaver Lake, where I quaff until I slosh.
Boat Dock is feline outdoors columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His column appears when he feels like writing one. Write to Boat Dock on his Facebook page.
Sports on 10/11/2016