Harrowsmith – September 2019

Harrowsmith Fall 2019 | 251

few times back and forth, one of
those houses being the one my
mom was born in. There were
second cousins on the other side
of the tracks.
My sense of “normal” was
first challenged when talk of
bath time was brought up in a
conversation years later. I had
casually mentioned that we
shared baths in the country.
We had a well, and you’d think
we were living in present-day
California, with the rations my
parents imposed upon us. To
save water, all five of us would
take turns in the bathtub over
the course of an hour and a half.
The lucky one who remembered
to call dibs on first bath early in
the day had the most pristine
experience. Suds (created by
a generous squirt of green
Palmolive dish soap) would be
spilling over the sides, humidity
fogging the mirror. Last bath
would be a lukewarm affair,
bubbles long dissolved, and if the
three women in the house were
of shaving age, there could be an
accidental spill of the glass dish
used to dip the razor and rinse
the stubble. Apologies to the next
unsuspecting bather. My dad
was usually the sacrificial lamb
(meaning last bath), but the rest
of us battled it out. Sometimes,
even if numbers were fairly
called out, somebody would take
too long and there would have to
be an intervention.
Though I dreamed of having
a Slip ’N Slide (basically an

over-priced yellow sheet of

plastic used as a wet runway to

slide end to end on), advertised

on commercials as endless fun

in the sun—no way. “What a

waste of water!” We had greater

thrills anyway—my grandfather

irrigated the tobacco field

across the road from us with

the world’s biggest sprinkler

known to childkind. This thing

would send out a thirty-foot arc

of firehose spray. When the wall

of water hit you, the force could

actually knock you down. The

water came from a nearby pond,

so while it was refreshing, you

inadvertently ended up with

bits of duckweed and other pond

debris in your swimsuit. Running

through the irrigation spray

between tobacco plants and

rows involved deft footwork, as

we were also half-blind from the

water and whipped by the broad

tobacco leaves.

So maybe this part wasn’t

normal. But we were homesteaders

before it was a thing. We were

off-grid before it became a

TRAVEL & CULTURE: FREE TO A GOOD HOME

To save water, all five of

us would take turns in the

bathtub over the course

of an hour and a half. The

lucky one who remembered

to call dibs on first bath

early in the day had the

most pristine experience.