Rome, that is, its citizenry, have met for more than 2000 years and still meet every morning to draw water from the fountain in the plaza. A beautiful stone carving in the shape of a boy leaning against a rock while peeing into a pond shaped bowl adds humor to an otherwise daily necessity. Women gather and dip their pitchers and tankards into the cool water for the household’s needs. And the conversations flow freely. The daily newspaper could do no more and, likely, no more accurately.
2000 years later, my mother was one of those who drew water from our Cuny Table “plaza fountain.” I suppose, in the absence of other women there this morning, she contemplated the morning’s radio broadcast of events and activities from all around the world. 
I suppose she found this task a refreshing break from the daily drudge of feeding the horses and tending the babies. (She liked horses. Maybe she liked us kids too.) I was perhaps three years old. My sister was perhaps two. Mom had wrestled two 10-gallon tin cans from the new 1953 Willys Jeep Panel. Somehow, she was going to load those 60 pound water filled cans into that panel. I guess she was strong as well as tall.
The mesa wall supplied crystal clear cool water from its side, much like the hills that supplied Rome’s water. A rocky and then sandy ditch captured the seeping water and directed it into a galvanized pipe perhaps as big around as a glass pop bottle. The pipe spewed the water into a “horse tank.” The tank, shaped like a large barrel cut in half or like a half-pipe at a ski slope or a skate board park, quietly accepted the cool water. (There were no stones carved like a boy standing near the tank.) The tank was always filled to the top. A drain pipe at the top of the other end allowed the excess water to continue its journey down the mesa side, into the badland gully, on into Fog Creek, and from there to the Missouri River and into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Mexico.
I put a blade of grass in the tank and watched it slide over the waterfall and into the gully. I lost it from view in the shadowy canyon. I can only hope it made its journey to the warm Gulf.
Moss waved in the cool waters in the tank. Wind-blown dust and sand had filtered to the bottom of the tank and provided anchors for roots holding long green stems against the water’s gentle currents. The moss waved like the skirts of hula dancers I have since seen in Hawaii and on TV. Maybe the moss, too, was telling me a story which I was too uneducated to comprehend. On another occasion I had seen a snake slither across the cold water to the far side, hoping to find safety far from humans. I understood its concern. I sought shelter on my side of the tank far from snakes!
Mom always told us little children to “Be Careful!” in capital letters. She was busy with a hard job. We had to entertain ourselves, carefully. I could just see over the edge of the tank. I could feel the water with my hand. It was COLD.
There was a grassy rise, like a natural bench, just above the tank. Cattle and horses had worn a path between that rise and the tank. The path was dry on the high side and sort of muddy and sandy on the lower side. No other animals contested for the water rights this morning. The livestock usually appeared about midday, when the sun was the hottest and it was time to nurse the babies for their afternoon naps. The mothers shared a good cud chew and reassured each other that the world was at peace, at least right here.
I admired the moss, maybe like a teenage boy admires skirts. Its wave and wiggle were hypnotizing, enthralling, subtly engaging all of my consciousness. But my gaze was interrupted!
My baby sister floated by! In the tank! Her nose was about an inch below the water’s surface. She was calm. She was not choking. Her eyes were open. She seemed to be admiring the sun while her winter coat kept her warm from the cold water. Should I try to pull her up and out? But she was so calm! I followed her travels along the tank edge and looked to mom for help or guidance. Surely it was against the rules to float in the water like that!
Yet mom did not seem concerned. She set the tin can to the side. She put the lid on it. Then she reached in and pulled my sister from the tank. She calmly removed the sodden coat and found dry, warmer clothes for my sister. She loaded the water cans and drove us all home to the house on top of Cuny Table. Just like any mother would have done any time in the last two millennia.
Now, 70 years later, every time I drive up that winding (now almost arrow straight) road climbing the east side of Cuny Table, I look for that horse tank and I imagine a little Roman boy and his sister playing while their mother fills her amphora from the waters of the Trevi Fountain.
