This is the back of the house on Spring Valley. See us standing by the corner?The window closest to Joe B. and me is the bathroom. It was a tiny room. We called it the 'bathroom' but it didn't have a bath. It had a narrow little shower. My mother hated not having a bathtub. You couldn't take a "real bath" without a tub.What was the big deal about a “real bath” anyway? Whenever we went to my Grandfather’s overnight, she had us all take a bath. “A real bath” she always enthused, and so what was an unreal one? I wondered. She’d only let us have about an inch of water in the bottom of the tub. You can’t really take a bath in an inch of water – you can just crouch there naked and shivering while you splash it over you bit by bit. And the water just gets all slimy and dirty. Joe B and I hated baths when we went visiting.
Actually we didn’t like the shower at home either. That’s because Dad had learned how to shower in the army and he made sure we showered the army way. First you turned on the water and got wet. Then you turned off the water and soaped up. Then you turned the water back on and rinsed off. This meant that the water was always either too cold or too hot and in between you were standing there all naked and shivering and dripping with water.
Both my parents believed you had to be careful with water. You didn’t waste any of it. That’s why you had skimpy lukewarm baths and short showers. The only good thing about this not wasting water was that we didn't have to shower every day.
And at least both baths and showers were better than "spit baths". That’s when your mother saw a spot on you and spit on her handkerchief and rubbed it off. Yuch! This usually happened when you were at a store or in church or some other public place and couldn't point out to her how unsanitary this sort of 'bath' was.
I know you are wondering--if we didn't have a tub, when did Joe B. get his famous bathtub boat? I'll tell you about that later.
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