Have you ever been thirsty? I mean really thirsty? Some of you may remember a cowboy song by a group called the Sons of the Pioneers that went like this:

“All day I faced/ The barren waste/ Without the taste of water/ Cool water/ Poor Dan and I/ With throats burned dry/ And so I cry for water/ Cool, clear water/” (1)

Now that’s thirst. O.K., let’s see how old you really are. The Sons of the Pioneers sang in motion pictures with which famous cowboy star and his equally famous wife? Somebody tell me. That’s right. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Some of you who are younger are shaking your heads asking, “Who?”

The theme of “Cool Water” is very close to that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of The Ancient Mariner.” Remember that golden oldie from your school days? After he slew the albatross,…