Today is number 43 for me. I've reached a milestone with this one. My mother was 42 when she had me, so I am officially MORE than half her age now, for the first time in my life.
This doesn't necessarily make me any wiser, but I've been reminiscing about a few things. First, I'd like to list the things I have truly learned in my 43 years. I'd like to, but there isn't a thing I've learned that someone else didn't learn first, or learn better. And the list of things I DON'T know is much longer. Perhaps someday, I will actually make that list. Until then, I'll be satisfied just adding to it.
One thing I was thinking about these past few days was the old tin tub I had to bathe in when visiting my grandparents. It would sit on the floor of the kitchen, and my mother would pour hot water into it. As a child, I could fit quite easily into the tub, but as I grew, it got more and more difficult to bathe in that thing. Forget the fact that I was BATHING IN THE KITCHEN!
I felt that I had truly reached a turning point in my life when I was finally allowed to shower in the bathroom! Of course, you could just as easily get scalded or frozen in that shower if anyone so much as LOOKED at the kitchen faucet. And if you were there in winter time, you would be lucky if the water didn't freeze right on your body the moment you stepped out of the shower!
If it felt like that had happened, all you had to do to warm up was head back into the kitchen. My grandparents had an old wood stove in there that always had a fire going. There were even some dishes cooked on that thing, even though there was a newer stove. And if you got sick from the frozen droplets on your freshly bathed body, you could perhaps drink a cup of mint tea cooked up on that stove. Not that anyone in the house knew how to make that actually taste appealing in any way....
Happy Easter, everyone!
3 comments:
Happy birthday!
And don't forget that you also bathed in the kitchen sink!
If I remember right, when I was a small kid and bathed in the old tin tub in the kitchen, Grandma's kitchen actually had a door that closed so the people in the living room couldn't see you bathing. Does anyone else remember that door?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. GIGGLES!
I remember the door, but it had a window in it, so Grandma would hang a towel across it. What was gross was if you had to bathe AFTER someone else, because it was so hard to fill it with warm water. I bet it was fun to empty, too.
And when we were little, there was no shower to choose, and no toilet, you had to walk down to the outhouse. EWWWWW! And there was no toilet paper until Mom got to a store, there were catalogs and you had to tear off a page. :0s
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