My high school years, 48 to 51, we lived in a small town with no running water but an abundant town pump. It was in the middle of the town between the Bunyai's house, the telephone operator, and Michalicz garage and it was the water source for all the townsfolk. The pump didn't supply, surprisingly, heated water, so we heated it in the copper boiler on the wood stove in the kitchen on Saturday night and all five of us bathed in the tub, mother first: me last: feminism unleashed. Philip said , " We all peed in it before Jim bathed. " I am mindful of the doom saying of Chicken Little concerning Canadian water shortages looming and what are we going to do when it happens as I look at Saskatchewan in those years with our reliance on rain for our gardens--- 20 inches a year --- and the town pump. Because we lived in the CNR railroad station we could melt snow in the copper boiler in the winter instead of going to the town pump but I was lazy and usually got the snow too close to the tracks so it always had some cinders in it from the steam engines coal burning and it was uncomfortable for the bathers. At least it was meager justification for me since it was quid pro quo for having to bath last. My Strata council colleagues are counseling drastic water use reductions at this time and I may sympathize with them but I am going to bath and luxuriate in the hot soapy water frequently since I now have heated running water without cinders, at least for a little time.
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