Water's Not Obsolete

I was nine years old.I remember the day like it was yesterday.We walked onto the showroom floor where my uncle, a freshly minted college graduate, was selling TVs and, partly because he was my mother's brother, we were going to buy one.It was the early 1970s and color TVs were the latest technological breakthrough.We bought a "big" RCA model-the screen was maybe 25 inches, or about the size of a present-day computer monitor.It was from watching that TV that I learned about the Vietnam War and Watergate from Walter Cronkite, known as "the most trusted man in America."(I admit, while I watched the news carefully-as carefully as a fourth grader could-I thought the news about Watergate was about a river and a broken water gate.)TVs like that are obsolete now, replaced by "smart" TVs, which really are not TVs at all.They are more like a computer monitor populated with apps from which you can select a massive number of viewing options.And for an extra payment, your smart TV can connect you to ABC, CBS, NBC-something that was standard, at no additional cost, with our RCA.The good, or bad, reality, depending on your opinion, is that smart technology has surpassed the traditional TV experience and has won the battle of how we watch "TV" and are enticed to pay more.Telephones, as I knew them growing up, have also become obsolete.But don't think for a moment that they did not have technological breakthroughsbecause they did.In fact, the avocado green, rotarydial phone that hung on our kitchen wall allowed me to replace the short cord connecting the handset to the phone base with a 10-foot cord.With the technological change, I was freed up to make a call and get something to drink from the fridge at the same timemy phone was mobile.What more could I want?However, even with enhanced mobility, landlines could not keep up with cell phones.And in the end, as we all know, landlines were doomed to become household relics.Ultimately, cell phones have won the battle of how we text each other (calling is so 1900s) even if a new iPhone costs $2,000.One thing that has not been made obsolete is tap water.Sure, water has had to change over the yearsbut still, it has kept its value and largely its market position.While TVs and phones are important, water is more important.And while the cost of water has gone