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You might wonder why Iowa’s great institutions of higher learning placed so many expensive buildings on flood plains.

In 1993, Iowa State University’s Hilton Coliseum turned into the world’s largest aquarium, and we were hit with a horrendous bill for guppies, not to mention all of those little plastic castles and shipwrecks.

Then last summer, Hancher Auditorium and other buildings at the University of Iowa took on thousands of gallons of water, nearly equaling the volume of beer consumed in downtown Iowa City on a Saturday night.

The decisions about locating those structures involved many well-educated people, suggesting that the working class is right to disparage fancy book learning in favor of common sense.

But that can’t be the answer. Higher education must have value. Just ask one of those poor saps without a college degree whether he agrees that much of 17th-century philosophy is an adjustment of the new mechanistic science to theological and other pre-mechanistic commitments. You’ll see a hint of humiliation on his face as he slowly backs over your foot with his Escalade.

I must admit, it never dawned on me that there was a flood threat when I was a student at Iowa State. But in my defense, I was an English major, so I really wasn’t expected to know anything. Oh, once in a while someone would demand to hear some iambic pentameter, but you could always distract them by persuading one of the ag students to yodel.

Civil engineers, however, spend hours agonizing over whether to specify half-inch bolts or nine-sixteenths. It’s their job to analyze every possible threat to a structure, whether it’s earthquakes, wind and fire – their “Greatest Hits” album is now available for $8.99 at Amazon.com – or even the occasional outbreak of Irish dancing.

When somebody suggested placing an auditorium next to the Iowa River, what happened next?

Engineer: So how’s about we set it right here by the river? People like to look at water because it inspires subconscious memories of our rise from the primordial swamps. Also, they like to throw rocks in.

Architect: You sounded like an English major there for a minute, and I wanted to slug you, but then I liked the rocks part.

Engineer: Thanks.

Architect: Enough debating. I have to get back to the plans and make the seats even smaller. I’m trying to win a bet.

The problem, as pointed out in our little play by Engineer (deftly portrayed on Broadway by Liv Ullmann), is that people are devoted to building alongside water. Oceans, lakes, ponds, streams, rivulets, springs; anything beyond a moist towelette, they want to be there.

The upshot is that a place like Davenport only makes the news when the Mississippi River floods or Cary Grant dies there. It’s too late to do much about Cary – I’m assuming somebody buried him, right? – but wimpy people sometimes suggest that maybe the Quad Cities should build some levees or something.

Forget it, say those hardy river folk. Yanking carp out of the sofa cushions now and then is a small price to pay for that wonderful view.

Or consider Des Moines. It sprang up at the confluence of two rivers, a spot much better suited for organized mud wrestling.

Remember, though, that in the days when Des Moines was being settled – Tuesdays and Thursdays, mostly – a nearby supply of water was vital for drinking, turning gristmills and carrying disgusting waste downstream to Ottumwa.

Nowadays, we can pipe our drinking water over long distances, we have replaced water-powered gristmills with, I believe, big steel rollers pulled by prisoners, and we treat our waste so thoroughly that it can safely be sent to Ottumwa via the U.S. Postal Service.

But we’re stuck with these rivers. And that’s why you see so much smart money going into the sandbag futures market.