Baths, Buckets, and Lessons Learned: Memories of Life on the Farm

Well, lemme tell ya somethin' here, partner. Back in the days before I was even knee-high to a grasshopper, my folks got by just fine with a good ol’ windmill and a sturdy oak bucket for all our water needs—drinkin’, cookin’, and cleanin' up. When I was ’round four years old, I recall we still had that windmill spinnin’, but now we’d gotten fancy with a hand pump to pull the water up. I reckon it felt like a big upgrade back then.

Come my seventh year, Daddy decided to tear down that old windmill, and in its place, he put in one of them newfangled electric pumps right in the well. To top it off, he ran pipes straight into the kitchen so we could have water right inside the house. Lord, I tell ya, we thought we’d gone and made it to town livin’! Only catch was, we didn’t have no hot water heater yet, so for warm water, we’d fire up the stove. It took a while to heat enough water to fill up that ol’ number 2 washtub for a bath. Once we had the water hot, the whole family took turns bathin’ in it, same water, one after another, right there on the kitchen floor. Yep, that’s how it was—so, baths were reserved for Wednesday nights before prayer meetin’, Saturdays for town visits, and Sunday church. And I gotta admit, we were a little *ripe* between washes.

Now, let me share somethin’ funny about that ol’ #2 washtub. Back then, me and Mama would get our baths first, and by the time it was Daddy’s turn, the water had cooled off a bit but was still good to go. Daddy would climb into that tub, sittin’ right in the middle of the kitchen floor, which had a door opening onto the porch. Now, folks who came visitin’ always went to the back door, which we kept wide open with just a screen door to keep the critters out. Well, wouldn’t ya know, one fine day, right in the middle of Daddy latherin’ himself up, one of them right-righteous ladies from the church showed up. She came to the screen door fixin’ to knock, but when she saw Daddy sittin’ there in his altogether, her eyes just about popped outta her head! She let out a holler, turned tail, and ran faster than a fox in a henhouse, yellin’, “I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING, I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING!” From that day forward, anytime she came by, she’d start shoutin’ her arrival long before she got near the door. Lesson learned, I reckon!

By the time I was nine, the farm got to be a tough haul. We packed up and hightailed it out to California, where Daddy took up a job as head ginner at one of the cotton gins his buddy managed. Let me tell ya, he made more money in three months of ginnin’ than he did in a whole year on the farm! But Daddy was a man of the land—his heart belonged to that Oklahoma dirt—so when ginnin’ season wrapped up, we headed back to the farm.

Now, with that California money, Daddy went and built us a proper bathroom onto the house. We got ourselves a lavatory, a shiny new hot water heater, and even a big ol’ porcelain tub—way bigger than that number 2 tub! Boy, I was happier than a pig in mud. I could take baths every day, and sometimes twice. Then came the day I laid eyes on my first shower, and, well, that was it for me! When I got hitched, my wife couldn’t believe it—I’d take a shower every morning, every night, and sometimes sneak in a third if the mood struck me. And you know what? I still do.