Writing for CNN, Bill Weir asks the tough questions about the 21st Century reality along the Colorado River. Here’s an excerpt:
“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting.”
My old man loved that old quote, almost as much as he loved whiskey, water and the American West.
Bill Weir Sr. was a big-city detective with the soul of a cowboy.
After a particularly rough week of murder and mayhem, he tossed his badge on his captain’s desk with indelicate instructions on where to put it.
He packed his saddle and skis and left Milwaukee for the mountains.
Once he was settled as a Coloradan, that old quote took on fresh significance.
Atop his horse alongside a dry ditch or knee-deep in a trout stream, he’d grouse about water rights and population growth and the inevitable day of reckoning.
“One day we’re going to raft the Colorado, kid,” he’d say. “Before it’s gone.”
