The Water Tower Walk

As a teenager, I enjoyed walking to this unique local water tower, shown here looking like a fortress in a post-apocalyptic film:




In the summer, and in context of the lovely surrounding neighborhood, it's prettier.  But one day, I decided that I would not revisit this beloved landmark (except once) until I had been published for real.  Like in a magazine, for money.

I used up my one grace visit quickly, and for well over a decade and a half, not only did I avoid visiting the Washburn Tower, but I averted my eyes whenever I saw it or its red light on the horizon.

When I finally sold "Begin One Way" in August of 2019 and it came out in December, it became clear that I would spend my birthday trudging through the snow to visit this old stone friend at last.

There was now a fence preventing me from touching it directly, which was a shame.  Had people graffitied the poor water tower in the intervening time?



But the impassive stone guardians were still the same as ever.  I'm told this water tower came close to making it into Emma Bull's War for the Oaks.



The access tunnel below was tricky to get to over the ice, and forbidding to behold:



I trudged wearily through the cold January afternoon until, at dusk, I came upon a small Chinese restaurant that I'd seen many times but never stopped at before or since.  A steaming hot meal there was just the ticket.



But the water tower was not the only thing I'd forbidden myself until publication.  In 1996, I bought three Snapple beverages, back when it was sold in bottles. Two of them, I drank when I finished some minor accomplishment or other.  But the third, I reserved for publication.  I took that bottle of pink lemonade to college with me and back.

Here's what a bottle of pink lemonade looks like at age 23:



And here it is, open at last!



I won't say it was still good.  But it was potable!  I put it down over the course of a few days, sip by cautious sip.

In the meantime, my friend Carolyn had heard about my rite of passage, and though by then she had moved out of town, she sent her aunt with a big bottle of fresh Snapple Pink Lemonade to help me celebrate!  What a lovely gesture.

I later told this story as one of four truths and a lie in a Getting to Know You forum game on Yucata.de.

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