marshg246
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- Jul 12, 2015
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I live alone and only go to the doctor and grocery store. I once in a while have a visitor. In the shower this morning I realized that my last shower was last Saturday. This caused a flashback.
In the 50s and 60s we would visit my grandmother in Elba, Alabama. She had no electricity, gas or running water, so the house was heated with a wood stove and in the kitchen, she had a fancy wood cook stove. Fancy because it had a water tank on the side to make hot water. To fill it or to get water for any purpose, she went outside and used the handpump well to fill a bucket.
Saturday night was bath night. I big round wooden “tub’ was brought in the kitchen and filled with warm water (cold from the well and scalding hot from the stove). The women and girls went first, then the grown men, then the young boys, and in the 60s the one stinky teenager boy last (me).
My grandmother made the soap. It was pig fat, lye, and a little of any perfume she was given as a present. I’m not sure if I was cleaner or dirtier when I came out of that tub, but I suppose my teenage boy stink was gone. When you stood up to get out of the tub, naked, my grandmother would pour a bucket of tepid water over you to rinse you off.
TomU visited me for a few minutes this week - I hope I didn't smell too bad.
P.S. It's weird being alone. When my wife was alive, I took 7-10 showers a week. One every morning and more depending on how demanding the "honey do list" was that week.
In the 50s and 60s we would visit my grandmother in Elba, Alabama. She had no electricity, gas or running water, so the house was heated with a wood stove and in the kitchen, she had a fancy wood cook stove. Fancy because it had a water tank on the side to make hot water. To fill it or to get water for any purpose, she went outside and used the handpump well to fill a bucket.
Saturday night was bath night. I big round wooden “tub’ was brought in the kitchen and filled with warm water (cold from the well and scalding hot from the stove). The women and girls went first, then the grown men, then the young boys, and in the 60s the one stinky teenager boy last (me).
My grandmother made the soap. It was pig fat, lye, and a little of any perfume she was given as a present. I’m not sure if I was cleaner or dirtier when I came out of that tub, but I suppose my teenage boy stink was gone. When you stood up to get out of the tub, naked, my grandmother would pour a bucket of tepid water over you to rinse you off.
TomU visited me for a few minutes this week - I hope I didn't smell too bad.
P.S. It's weird being alone. When my wife was alive, I took 7-10 showers a week. One every morning and more depending on how demanding the "honey do list" was that week.
