Monday, August 18, 2008

NEW TERMS FOR OLD THINGS

Hi, I'm Bo Lumpkin and I've been thinkin'.
It is kind of hard to sit down with a youngun nowdays and tell them about how things was when your were young. They just don't understand some of the terms and you spend a lot of time explainin' what you are talkin' about.
I was tellin' my grandson about how we didn't have runnin' water in the house when I was real young. He asked several questions. I explained about having a water bucket and a dipper to drink out of and he handled that pretty well. He's pretty sharp though and he finally asked, "If you didn't have runnin' water how did you flush the commode?"
Let me tell you, he got wide eyed and interested when I began to explain about the outhouse, especially the catalog we used instead of the tissue you buy in the grocery store. I wish I could have took his picture. He was plumb wide eyed.
He sat there for a few minutes and then he asked, "How did you take a bath?"
I began to explain that we would fill a number 3 washtub with water and let it sit out in the sun 'til it got warm and then my brother and I would take turns takin' a bath in the same water.We didn't really care who went first.
He sat there a minute or two soakin' it all in when he asked, "Just what is a number 3 washtub?"
I had to try and think of an example when I remembered how to tell him what a number 3 wastub was.
"You know that big round tub that your dad uses to catch the entrails in when he cleans a deer." He nodded.
"Well, that is a number 3 washtub that your daddy uses."
He began to laugh and he ran into the other room yelling to his mother, "Hey, Mom, did you know Papaw used to bathe in a gut bucket back in the old days."
I'm Bo Lumpkin and I've been thinkin'. If I had known they were going to be called gut buckets I might have been a little more squemish about bathing every week. I didn't tell him that we just did that on Saturdays.
Ya'll send me an email:bo@bolumpkin.com or bolumpkin@gmail.com
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2 comments:

  1. tooo funny. reminds me of grandmama's kitchen. only we were rub a dub 3 in the tub

    ReplyDelete

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