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My thirst crept
through the day.
As farmers, we
worked in the sun. My forebears didn??™t plant trees for shade. They
built houses for shade.
The sun could be a
bully. The hard, physical work created a ravenous thirst.
We didn??™t spend
time looking for a safe place to drink water.
We were not
particularly wise to the ways of the world, but we knew where to go when
thirsty.
We weren??™t street
smart, but we were hydrated.
We??™d go to that old
pump situated in the middle of the yard and wish for water. It wasn??™t a
wishing well. We just pumped like crazy and wished for water. The pump
was the go-to-guy on hot days. It brought up cool water from deep in
the ground.
The communal, metal
drinking cup, dented from experience, hung from the old pump. An old,
stiff, rusty wire provided a hook for the cup. The handle of the pump
was exercised and water ran into a pail located under the pump??™s mouth.
The cup was used as a dipper. To get a drink, you dipped one out of the
bucket and then hung the cup back on the wire for the next thirsty soul.
Everybody drank
from the same cup. My mother was not a big worrier about germs, but
mothers and lawyers are required to think in terms of worst-case
scenarios. My mother expressed concern about everyone drinking from a
single cup. She warned me about using the same cup as men who chewed
tobacco. Men wearing moustaches or beards drinking out of a communal
cup bothered her. She said you never knew what might be living in all
that hair, but she suspected horrible things lurked there. There were
those who claimed that the cup made it possible to pass along a cold
from one person to another, but we shared every contagious malady
whether we drank from the cup or not. Mom advised me to place my lips
on the dipping cup as close as possible to the handle. She reasoned
that fewer folks drank from that area and I??™d be less likely to make
contact with a germ in that vicinity.
No one drinking
from the cup felt compelled to point out certain critical health issues.
We did dump the
bucket and rinse it quickly before dipping into it. We did this to wash
away any chicken feathers, bird poop, or wiggletails that were in it.
There were seldom any wiggletails in the bucket. That??™s because most of
them were in the rain barrel that stood alongside the house. The barrel
collected rainwater and wiggletails. Wiggletails are mosquito larvae
and move through the water with an ungainly jerky motion.
I loved that old
pump and its partner, the dented cup. I would have to admit that part
of the reason for my feelings was likely because that when I was at the
pump, I was not working. I was a grinning boy, happy to be dragged away
from productive work.
I was a tall drink
of water??”about half-full??”when I would take the thirst challenge. There
were days when I would drink endless amounts of water thanks to a
generous and understanding bladder. There were days when I would drink
so much water that I could hear it sloshing in my body when I??™d give
myself a bit of a wiggle. I??™d drink until my thirst was compromised.
The water was free and I couldn??™t get enough of it.
It was my habit to
take one of Mom??™s delicious biscuits, poke a hole into it with a pencil
and fill the roll with honey. I??™d pinch the end and stuff it into my
pocket. I??™d ball up a bologna sandwich and shove it into another
pocket. There the foodstuffs would commingle with whatever else was
hiding in the deep, dark recesses of my pockets. The cold water from
that old pump helped me wash such foods down.
At that time, I
didn??™t suspect that because things were the way they were, they would
not stay the way they were.
The old pump is
gone and it took the dented cup with it.
Change is seldom
easy, but not always bad. If Jack and Jill would have had bottled
water, Jack would never have fallen down and broken his crown.
The cup was from a
time when ???neighbor??? was both a noun and a verb. It should still be so
today.
Drinking from an
old communal drinking cup taught us all a lesson.
We??™re all drinking
from the same cup.
?©Al Batt 2005
71622 325 St.
Hartland, MN 56042
snoeowl @ aol.com |
