The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

I was 16 years old, still on the farm, eager to make money. So when Virgil, who had just purchased the neighboring farm, hired me, I was eager to go.

He was in the heating, refrigeration, and electric wiring business. Although he was a licensed electrician, he did a various number of things, but on this day, we stopped at a shop on a side street in the town closest to us—Riceville, Iowa. He said that the local excavator-backhoe guy wanted some help.

The next thing you know—we’ll call the backhoe guy “Digger,”—Virgil and he were standing on the sidewalk in front of a small shop, wondering just where the city water came in. Well, Virgil said, “I’ll see if I can pinpoint it for you.” He went to the service van, dug around in the back, and came out with what I now know was a pair of silver solder brazing rods. They’re round, quite thin, and 18 inches long.

He bent the ends at a 90-degree angle, just enough to fit in his hands, which left most of the rod sticking out in front of him. With that done, he proceeded to walk slowly back and forth along the sidewalk, “hmmming and ahhhing” to himself. Finally, when the rods moved sideways over the same spot in the sidewalk numerous times, he told Digger that the line to dig up was just there.

I was a suspicious teen-ager. I’d had enough adults at various times pull things on me, which either made me look stupid, or got me sick. The sick part was a vividly memorable moment with a mouth full of snoose (chewing tobacco), followed by an even more memorable retching and gagging and then having to bale straw in the hot August sun.

So I was suspicious about these two grownups wandering up and down the sidewalk, making believe that those two metal rods were actually doing something. I went from suspicious to resistant to rebellious when Virgil insisted that I try it.

“Excuuuuuuse me,” I said, allowing as to how I may have ridden the turnip truck into town, but I hadn’t yet fallen off it, and wasn’t about to be convinced to jump now by two guys waving coat hangers around. They seemed to get quite a big chuckle out of my protestations.

It had only been a couple of weeks beforehand that Virgil and I were down in some dark, poorly-lit basement looking in the dark for a freezer to fix. After searching around for some light, Virgil instructed me to reach over and grab a metal water pipe, which I unsuspectingly did. He then licked his pointer finger, stuck it up over his head into an empty light bulb socket, and then with his other hand reached over and grabbed me by the ear.

YIKES!!! I got a pretty good shock. Okay, he said, run up to the van and grab a light bulb, this socket is hot. Not too long after that, he tried to pull that one on me again, so now, him convincing me to look like an idiot with a poor excuse for a tv antenna in my hands wasn’t going to happen.

“You probably can’t do it anyway,” Virgil said. Well. To a teenager, those are the magic words. Next thing you know, I grabbed those rods, listened to him tell me they had to be balanced quite gently, and found that indeed, one can find stuff underground that way.

Dowsing, or devining, it’s called, and it’s viewed by many pretty suspiciously. But I’ve found more than one sewer pipe buried in the concrete in peoples’ basements. I’ve always had water running while I was looking, but I’m not even sure that’s necessary.

When it comes to divining, or dowsing, be prepared for skepticism, though.