I was always fascinated by the motions of nature, especially water. I would watch and study the movements of a creek, hydrology is what I think it is called. There must be something that is installed in the Baskerville gene, it’s just that some brothers seem to drawn to the macro end of the scale while I was always interested in the micro side of water movement. I could study the ripples of water as it flowed over different terrain along a creek path, where the water would in fact seem to stand still in forming little waves as it poured over some small pebble creek bed. I was also fascinated by the unrelenting pressure of the water to move along a creek bed, and at times spent many hours creating obstacles in its path to either halt the flow or to watch as the water was in fact diverted to another section of the creek that had be bone dry for a long time. The calculations in contours, rate of water flow, effects of rise and fall all caused me to stop and observe for many hours, this was due in part to the fact that I was not trying to save my life whilst plunging down some torrent creek or being swept away in a bottomless boat, no I was at the other creek that was barely deep enough to allow tadpoles to swim, but still it held my attention. The other boys would be off somewhere else and I would find myself alone with my tadpole creek, observing and calculating. So when my chance came where I was allowed to participate on a large water body, a river, with my parents approval, I just had to explore the hydrology of this greater expanse of water. So forget the small pebble creek bed with small undulations, this was a river and demanded a greater challenge in observing even greater movements of water, yes my moment was here and I engaged in an activity that would divulged the river’s hydrology secrets. And as I was accustom to working and studying alone I thought nothing of working alone again even though Sam, Helen, Tom and Dad were in very close proximity. So my experiment was set and I became totally engrossed in observing this mighty power of hydrology, a chance in a life time for me. The way the water would rise and fall, the way that it would deviate around this obstacle, the way in which large waves would stand up and bounce around held my individual attention for about half an hour. I was in my own world, in my world of calculating and observing natures motion of water. I was totally oblivious to the sounds of the rest of the family as they sat near me on that river, obviously enjoying the water in their own special way just as I was enjoying it in my own way. I was totally immersed in this experiment that I was performing until Helen broke my concentration as she sat in the back of the rowboat that Tom, Helen, Sam, and Dad had been rowing and asked what I was doing hanging over the bow for the last half an hour. Aha! Someone else may be interested also in my hydrology experiment, so I reached down over the bow to water level and removed from the front of the bow a largish plank of wood that had been performing beautiful wave pulses every time the others pulled on the oars, for I had noted that if (a) was a large force on an oar and (b) was a large plank placed perpendicular across the bow then a + b was always equal to an extreme reaction of the water pulsating in a myriad of directions and form. The look on their faces when that dripping wet plank was held high, definitely told me that they had no idea that (a + b) was in fact an awe inspiring revelation and obviously did not understand these highly intellectual computations that I had been devoted to. I was relinquished of my hydrology obstacle and the last I saw of it was it being thrown through the air to land in the deepest part of the river and as if to defy its humility it created one last circular surge of water to leap into the air and then fall back and then it slowly drifted away. I was then shackled like a slave to an oar and ordered to row back home, There seemed to be little sympathy for me as I proceeded to struggle with that oar and I quickly forgot my (a + b = c) for now it felt like (a + b = a + b).
