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Show Oh Say Can You See? 27 I got my f i r s t chance at swearing because of Hoover Dam--"I went to the dam to get some dam water. I asked the dam man for some of his dam water and the dam man said no." Damns were frowned on at my house. So I chanted the forbidden whenever I could, with a flourish, making sure Mama and Daddy heard. Actually, we called i t Boulder Dam. At one time or another, everybody talked about jumping off or sliding down the curving concrete, but nobody did i t except one time a man from New York did. His note said that he lost his money gambling in Las Vegas and that nothing mattered anyway. "He looked like a mass of j e l l y , " said Uncle Jack, an electrician at the dam. "Could you see his face at all?" I asked. " I t was like a leaky puzzle, liquid in the cracks." I wanted to ask more but my aunt changed the subject. Whenever anybody came to v i s i t we always took them to see the dam. Down to Black Canyon, down to 120 degrees in the shade where heat ricocheted off sizzling boulders. Every time, even now, I stop at the memorial on the Nevada side. The two bronzed angels stand guard over a message: "It is f i t t i n g that the flag of our country should f l y in honor of those men...inspired by a vision of lonely lands made f r u i t f u l " My sister used to say that some of them f e l l off scaffolds into wet, pouring cement. Concrete soup. I always looked to see i f a hand or a foot stuck out anywhere in the dam and checked for bumps on the surface. |
