Cleaning the David Water Tanks as a Summer Job

Did anyone see the movie Australia? It's a true story about the unwanted children who were creamy--neither pure Aborigine nor pure white. In the movie, a creamy and his mother are hiding down in a huge water tank so he won't be taken away like the other rejects to slavery or imprisonment. The tank, which looked exactly as I remember the David tanks, was a pivotal dramatic catalyst in the movie. The David water tanks were being built when my brother Rodney was just big enough to be running around the camp and annoying the men who were digging the ditch around the tank. Maybe he was trying to sell them water or something--but knowing my very compassionate brother, he was probably trying to help them in some way. Mother said he once gave his lunch to some miners who were working on the railroad track and once gave their last bit of meat to a dog that he told Mother, "looked so hungry." The men working on the ditch decided to pull a prank on Rod and told him to go down into the ditch and get something for them. He walked straight into a yellow jacket or hornet's next. As they laughed at his vulnerability--meaning no harm--Rod ran crying all the way home.

When he was 18, however, Rod, along with my classmate, Kenneth DeBoard, actually got the job of cleaning out the David water tanks. I wonder how much water those huge tanks held? Today, I thought of Australia and the water tank where the water rose higher and higher threatening to drown the mother and her creamy son. I imagined Rod and Ken as they scrubbed the walls all the way to the bottom and drained the sediment.After rinsing out all they could, they swept any residue into a bucket and hand carried the many buckets, one by one, up the ladder to be dumped. Then, the tank was rinsed again.Remember the creamy holding on to the ladder and trying to save his mother from the rising water?

When Rod and Ken's tank passed inspection, it was filled once more with the fresh mountain water flowing from the top of the hill (or was it from the water supply Princess Elkhorn had designed and built for the camp?) Rod swears that was the cleanest water tank in East Kentucky. The company gave jobs to some of the college boys in summer to help with their expenses. My parents always appreciated this incentive to stay in the camp. That old double edged sword again.

I don't take water for granted and know the engineers performed miracles in David so we could have running water in our houses. We were proud! But most of all, I'm proud of the good citizens that Rod and Ken became-proving that a little dirty work and hard labor might be good for young people. Would you allow your young boys to go into an empty tank and do this work?

Later,
Peace,
Judy