Boyhood Bathroom Blues

Today has begun with the weirdest weather since my move to Florida. I get up early most days and always look out the window to try and get a quick view of what to expect and decide which tee shirt goes best with my cut-off jeans. I looked out this morning and could not see a thing. Visibility zero with the thickest fog I’ve ever seen. I could hear traffic 10 to 12 feet from our front porch but could not see headlights or those super bright school bus flashers.

At this moment, it’s 9:16 AM and now I can see the hedges across the street where folks congregate to wait for the trolley bus, but I cannot yet see the Gulf of Mexico fifty steps or so beyond them. The temperature is at 68 degrees, and according to the weather reports on TV, will be today’s high. After noon, the temperature is going to plummet (rarely heard in these parts) and is expected to be in the low 40’s as evening sets in, and then get into the 30’s tonight, even below freezing further inland. I’ve decided to take a quick break to shave and shower, before it gets too cold.

I immediately think of when I was a kid in West Bridgewater, MA and our old house at 361 Spring Street. First Dave and Willa Sheehan with their two boys, David and Christopher, then as time went on Patricia, Victoria and Andrew, but always, only one bathroom. It was upstairs, had no shower, only an old claw footed bathtub, the entire room was very small. One could easily sit on the edge of the tub and shave at the same time. In an era, when all the DIY shows show double vanities, we could only have dreamed, I remember the mirror fogged easily, and if the sink plug was worn enough, your warm shave water frustratingly slowly escaped. To have a seat on the great porcelain throne, gave one an opportunity to see out of the full-length window, which overlooked the flat roof over our kitchen. Beyond was Mama’s vegetable garden (“don’t eat my tomatoes”) and further out you could see a pleasant view of maple trees and Snell’s field and the water tower, and in a few years a second larger water tower, unseen but beyond the towers was the Sunset Avenue School.

The bathroom in winter was different, as snow and cold would obscure most everything from view outside. A big outer storm window would let Jack Frost make beautiful random ice paintings on the inside of the window. Only a very small radiator, on the wall next to the toilet, and a short piece of pipe tried to keep that room warm for the morning ablutions of 4 then 5,6,7 people, who always seemingly were trying to gain entrance simultaneously. The door was locked by an old fashion hook and eye latch, high on the door, which had been replaced several times when knocking turned into pushing and pushing turned to ramming so that a hostile nation, seeking only to relive their bladder pain, could enter. At moments like this, in the tub one stayed below the water line as he tried to read a comic book or catch a drag or two off of a Pall Mall and yell derisive expletives to a brother, while begging for him to hit the bowl and not let his urine reach the pipe or radiator, which immediately sent up an aroma that clogged one’s nose and senses for hours. When it was freezing outside, that little radiator pumped out BTUs from the sun. Sitting there, you’d have to be careful not to let your outer thigh or leg touch it or bare feet hit the pipe as getting burned was easy, my siblings and I probably still have the striped scars.

This is the place I remember, when our flesh wasn’t melting, that my brother, Chris and I would stand and against all the railings and pleadings from Papa, would blatantly defile his razor and shave our collective peach fuzz, and use up the shaving cream from the little wooden cup and brush on the side of the mirrored medicine cabinet and then somehow forget to at least run the blade under water to clear it of our manly beards. This was one of just a few hot buttons Papa had.

Chris may remember more buttons, but I can vividly recall Papa hating to feel the crunch of sugar on the kitchen floor from our using it on our cereal, or anyone touching the crossword in the Enterprise, especially on Sunday, or ever touching his tools (especially all those funky wooden ones used at New England Tel. & Tel.) and to bring this to full circle, anyone daring to try to use the bathroom when he was in there, which was never a good idea.

As I said, my brother and sisters might recall others, like walking in front of the TV or interrupting a conversation with other adults (which brought out the now famous “children should be seen and not heard” oratory). The best thing, as I look back, is that none of these sins carried the death penalty. Only to disrespect God or mama or any one in authority could bring the threat of “madame la guillotine”, these occasions were very few and far between, and I’m still here. I always, still do, maintained the philosophy that it was far more desirable to bring honor to your parents and family and most of all to God, and that peace could be extended when one was in this mind set. It may well be that my view of the world is, at its base, not so much driven by what happened in a tiny bathroom so long ago, but the thinking and private chats with God that occurred there as I prayed and wondered what my life would be like, then BAM! BAM! BAM! I gotta go, come on, you’ve been in there all day!!!!