A Memory of a Farmhouse

In the years I lived on the old farmstead, I was married to a coal miner.


Seriously.

And when you are married to a coal miner you become EXTREMELY protective of your claw-foot bathtub!

You do NOT want that black film anywhere near the ancient porcelain surface of your beloved bathing vessel.

Fortunately the ancient, old farmhouse came with both an outside cellar door and a rigged up shower in the basement.

An old shower-head was attached to one of the pipes in the middle of the floor. Rigged up with hot and cold faucets, a drain and a circular aluminum shower curtain rod, it was perfect.

At least I thought so.

My then-husband did not.

He would come home from work covered in grit and black dust and slam those outside cellar doors open.

I, being the always thoughtful wife, would have left clean clothes and his slippers on a chair just outside his cleansing domain. An old bath mat and a plastic lined laundry basket for his heavily grimed work gear completed his deluxe accommodations.

He would grumble and mutter along with the grumble and mutter of old, copper plumbing, and eventually emerge up the narrow basement steps looking for dinner.

Thankfully my tiny laundry room was tucked into a little porch off the kitchen upstairs so I never had to stay in the old, spooky basement very long.

I only stayed long enough to leave clothes and slippers for a coal-miner forced to clean up each night after work in a nasty shower.

This little memory is written in honor of the letter "N" is written in honor of Alphabe-Thursday. "N" is for nasty shower.

To read other 'N' offerings, just click here.