Learn which bacteria you just drank

Where people drown and people serve, it’s Monday Mail.

River

Today’s opening is from “Find The River” by R.E.M.

Holiday

Speaking of hitting the water, just when the heck is Memorial Day, anyway? I need a three-day weekend.

Let’s see. ... This is the 15th, and it’s … aw, man: May 29 – still two weeks away.

Water

Did you know you can learn to bacteria-test the water you’ll be swallowing Memorial Day weekend? Just imagine skiing with your friends before telling them you found high levels of fecal coliform in their lake.

The Chattahoochee RiverWarden and Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center will hold a free adopt-a-stream bacterial monitoring workshop 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the 3535 S. Lumpkin Road learning center.

“Participants will be trained and certified in bacterial water quality monitoring techniques,” the announcement says, so take the course and you’ll be a certified bacterial water monitor. “Stand aside!” you can shout at people fishing from the bank as you flash your certificate. “Certified bacterial water monitor coming through!”

You probably can get more realistic information by visiting Chattachoochee RiverWarden on Facebook, emailing criverwarden@gmail.com, or calling 706-649-2326.

Beasts

In the email comes a message regarding an April 23 column about spiders and giant snakes and monster lizards.

The latter are invasive species now turning Florida into a sort of swamp-monster nightmare theme park: the golfer-eating Burmese python and a newcomer, the black and white tegu lizard from South America, which grows up to 4 feet long.

That column also mentioned fire ants, another invasive species ruining the South:

“Having read today’s column, it reminded me of a government-sponsored project a few years back. They dumped tens of millions of dollars into a project to get roaches to pollinate the local flora. Seemed like a good idea at the time. The bee hives were dying off, endangering the crops (no bees, no pollination, no vegetables), and the roaches were thriving, no matter what poisons were used on them. So why not train the roaches to pollinate? Turns out that the only thing they ever pollinated was kudzu. Now they’re trying to get fire ants to eat the pythons in the Everglades.

Best regards, as always,

David.

Dear David:

I am reminded of some friends who while renting a house downtown decided the way to get rid of roaches was to get an exotic lizard that eats roaches, and let the lizard roam free inside.

I don’t recall whether that worked, because the bright green poop the lizard left everywhere was so disturbing no one cared about roaches anymore.

Rain

Here’s an email about this year’s April Fool’s column:

I had to get through two paragraphs of your April Fool’s day column before getting “suspicious.” I’m waiting on a new roof – the guy should have started last week, but it wasn’t raining, so the roof wasn’t leaking.

Lois Tryon.

Dear Lois:

I once rented an apartment with a bathroom roof that leaked so badly caulk fell into my hair while I was trying to shower. The rental company sent a roofer over, but he said he couldn’t fix it unless it was raining so he could see where it was leaking. So I moved out.

This story was originally published May 15, 2017 at 12:24 AM with the headline "Learn which bacteria you just drank."