What a 'witch' friend turns out to be

Now folks, there is one thing that really turns me off. I see red when I hear someone unjustly criticizing a friend of mine. I was sitting in a local coffee shop, and just to have something to do; I was listening to a group sitting at the next table.

At first, they were talking about what everyone else is talking about, the outlandish tax evaluations. But then, I heard someone ask, "Do you know Buzz Watts?" One of the other guys replied, "Yeah, I have known Buzz for some time. Do you know that he is a witch?"

I didn't wait to hear the answer because I knew it already. There was no way that Buzz could be a witch. I have known Buzz and Shelda Watts for some time. He always seemed like a nice guy and he acts pretty normal. I knew that Buzz was born in Wrencoe, down on the river, not in Transylvania. He has been around since Oct. 21, 1934, and has lived here all his life. In that length of time, someone would have detected any witch leanings he might have had. Shelda married him in 1953, they had four children, and they adopted two Native American girls. There has not been one peep, to my knowledge, from any of them about this witch business.

I decided the best way to find the truth was to go out to Wrencoe and ask Buzz, eyeball to eyeball. I drove out to their place, and I found Shelda out in the yard. She said that Buzz was around someplace, acting like he was busy. In a moment he walked up, and I looked him right in the eye and asked, "Buzz, are you a witch?" He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Yep."

It took me a while to recover from the shock. But here is what I learned about Buzz. He is what is known as a practitioner of the ancient art of water witching, or water dousing. He started dousing about 1957, and his teacher was Granville Moore, of Laclede. Buzz told me that he not only learned how to "witch out" the water, but also how to tell how to get the depth of the stream. I told him that this whole thing was amazing, but I heard Shelda say, "No, it's spooky."

Buzz says that he often works with a friend, Arie Poelestra, and they check each other's calculations. He stated, "We have done about 40 wells around Wrencoe, and we have never missed on any well, but we have missed as much as 30 feet on the depth of two wells, but both of them were in solid rock. We have never hit a dry hole. I can pick up a water line underground if water is flowing through it. I can't if it is shut off, and no water is moving."

I asked for a demonstration. Buzz got two rods of number nine cooper wire, and started slowly walking toward me. Nothing happened at first, but then the rods started crossing. He kept walking until the rods were completely crossed and he said, "That's where the water is." I found out that a forked, limber willow stick would work just as well. Buzz then showed me a rod that had a line attached with a washer on the end of the line. He stood over the place he had found water, and after a moment the washer began to bob up and down. This is used to determine how far down the water is, each "bob" is a foot — this one was 48 feet down.

I asked if anyone could be a water witch. I was told that some people had "the touch" and some didn't. I felt like an over-eager teenager when I asked, "Buzz, can I try?" He showed me how to hold the copper rods, and I started walking. Sure enough, those things started crossing and I ended up near where "the witch" had stopped. I then used the washer thing and, miracles of miracles, it bobbed its head off. I had about nine bobs more than Buzz, so by my calculations, he was off nine feet.

After my time with Shelda and Buzz, I have come up with an idea. I think I will go into the water witching business. I can't think of anything more exciting than to sit in a coffee shop and hear someone say, "Yeah, I know Bob Gunter — did you know he is a witch?" Now folks, that is really "food for thought."