Call of the water

Every hydrologist has to start somewhere.

Mine was in The Mudderland – officially known as Harford County, Maryland.



At some point in my late teens, overwhelmed with utopian vision that the corruptible world would never find a chink in my armor, I slipped out the backdoor and left her fertile waters behind … for good.

Or so I thought.

The Mudderland finds a way to pull you back. First in a fleeting flash that you brush aside, quickly returning to your business … only later to be interrupted by her whisper in an intermittent wind that blows through the trees above, which you duly note, then casually put off … until months (sometimes years) later, in a palpable sense of longing you can no longer deny – let alone shake off – you find yourself accelerating into a mad dash – back through time and space, even into the fifth dimension – to land back at her soggy shores, kneeling down to drink heartily from her running waters, and know once and for all (and yes, how could it have ever been otherwise) that all is forgotten and equally forgiven: 

The Mudderland was always there waiting from the moment I first left!

In short, I guess what I am trying to say is that I attended my 20th year high school reunion.

That was back in November.

Here’s a short video clip from that trip – of Kilgore Falls of the Falling Branch tributary.



Downstream it feeds into The Mudderland’s central flow way and hydrologic standard bearer – Deer Creek.  Then it flows into the lower stem of the Mighty Susquehanna and on into the Chesapeake Bay.