Bathtubs Do Not Make Good Rowboats

I honestly wish I could say we had an occasional sane and practical moment when we were growing up.  Really, I do wish I could claim that.  I even desperately tried thinking of one.  A moment, that is.  I block off all random thoughts in my brain while shuffling around in an attempt to pull one out…a moment, that is…and all I get is a steady droning hum with a sporadic “chirp” tossed in.    

Here’s a quick replay for some of you older kids like myself who may have forgotten what I’ve blogged about lately.  Childhood.  A mother with super-human endurance.  Four kids whose ages spanned two years apart (my aunt who is eight months older than me, two brothers and, of course me,)  plus two younger brothers separated by 18 months in age.  Living in the country.  Few restraints in outdoor activities.  Actually,  there were guidelines laid out by our parents stating what we could and couldn’t do.  However, we tended to take their comments more as mere suggestions rather than direct orders.  More than once we discovered our mistaken judgment was followed by some hard core discipline.  Did I mention before some of our activities weren’t clearly thought out before we’d undertake them? 

Case in point:  When you find an old, cracked bathtub in a pile of junk, it’s best to leave it be.  It’s been tossed there by someone for that reason.  It’s junk.  But, to four kids with time on their hands and overactive imaginations; it’s a boat.  Plain and simple.  Can’t look at something like that and not think it’s meant to go in the water, since it once held water.  I think that logic may have been our ‘Waterloo’.  Oops, sorry….I couldn’t resist that one.

It took all four of us to drag that old tub to our house, which, happened to have a large irrigation ditch on one side and a smaller irrigation ditch on another side.  Was this the perfect place for us, or what?  (We lived there three years and this is the place all four of us older kids drew our fondest memories from.)  “The Ditch Camp”, near the “Eagles Nest.” Life was great!  Okay, back to my story.   We had to some how repair this old cast iron contraption so it would float, but it wasn’t going anywhere with cracks and holes in it.  One of us came up with the idea of using the bucket of tar our dad kept in one of the out buildings.  Great idea!  So, we slapped tar all over the inside of this tub, several layers deep.  This was done with great enthusiasm and total belief we were quite clever.  You’d have thought we’d give the tar some time to dry.  Nope!  Didn’t seem necessary.  After dragging the tub to the bank of the big ditch, we immediately began to argue over who would take the first ride.  My brother Dick out argued us other three by insisting we should do it by age.  Which meant, he as the oldest got to make the maiden voyage?  We grumbled, but allowed it was fair.  The three of us held the “boat” while he scrambled in.  It floated!  With great ceremony he paddled away….with whatever we deemed workable for oars….to the cheers of the crew that was running alongside on the bank of the ditch.  He drifted quite a ways before we all tuckered out and had to pull him and the erstwhile bathtub out of the water.  We dragged the “boat” home, thoroughly pleased with ourselves before noting how yucky we all were with tar smeared all over ourselves.  Wouldn’t you just know none of that tar washed off in the water?  How were we to know that….we were just kids? 

I can still hear my mothers angry screams when she saw the four of us covered in tar.   Have you ever had kerosene applied to your body with an exceedingly stiff brush?  Not something I would recommend.  Starting with the first of us who was cleaned this way by one angry woman on through the next three kids, there was a lot of yelling by her and even more crying by us.  She was one mad mother who didn’t care a lick about what creative genius’ we were.  For any of you who never had tar on you, this is something plain old soap and water doesn’t take care of.  Apparently, at that time….kerosene was the only thing that did the trick.  Every spot on us that was black with tar was quickly turned into bright red skin, at least where we were lucky enough to still have skin.  I think she rubbed a great deal off of all four of us.

You would think a lesson was learned there, wouldn’t you?   Janny and I were nothing, if not tenacious.  We yearned to try boating in the tub ourselves.  Memories of why that tub wasn’t blown to pieces by our dad have escaped me, but for whatever reason, Janny and I were able to reclaim it.  We had an afternoon when my brothers weren’t around, so the two of us dragged the old tub to the ditch and slid ‘er into the water.  Janny held on to balance it while I climbed in.  As soon as she let go it immediately flipped over, trapping me under the tub.  The ditch was full and running at the time, so the water was dragging me and the tub downriver, all the while scrapping my rear on the bottom of the ditch while I was clawing at the edge of the tub attempting to get it off me. 

You’d think this scenario would’ve been bad enough, but unfortunately, we had put the tub in the water not far from THE WATERFALL.  Yes, this was meant to be all in caps, because the waterfall was something we had been warned many times to stir clear of, and apparently sufficient fear had been instilled in us because so far a little cruise over the waterfall hadn’t been added to our ‘to-do’ list.  Nor, did we want it now.  Allow me to clarify.  This waterfall was a two level concrete barrier of some sort that the ditch water ran off of with a bunch of rocks and boulders at the base of it that made a large current.  I don’t recall what its use was for, but it lead to terrifying ramifications in our minds, probably put their by the folks.  The current was dragging me very close to it and Janny, in her fear of THE WATERFALL, stood and screamed while I was seeing my life flash before my young eyes.   Terror gives even a young idiot extra strength apparently, because without a bit of help from the screaming Janny,  I was able to get the tub off of me before mom or a potential ride over the fall arrived.  I think I would’ve preferred taking my chances with the waterfall.  It was a very angry mother….again….who took us to task over that little mishap.  I’m sure at this point in our lives we more than likely had calluses on our butts, but she still found some spots that reacted to a whipping with sorrowful cries and whimpers. 

We never saw the old bathtub/boat again.  It had only been launched and ridden one time and sunk another and we never even had the chance to christen it and give it a name.  But, we were left with fond memories and a new philosophy.  ‘Bathtubs do not make good rowboats.

        Kay                               Steve                           

 

Dick

Don't have a picture of Janny scanned

in to my computer,  so she will have

to remain a mystery at this stage.