When Water Was at a Premium

I remember two times as a child when water was at a premium, not in financial cost, but by a lack of water availability. The first place was when we lived in a summer cabin. There were six of us. Mom, Dad, my three siblings and I. If it didn't feel too creepy we could take baths in the creek water that came through the faucets.

Mom, having been from an area of Pennsylvania where this was not considered unusual convinced us this was normal and quite safe. Waterways were not so polluted as they are today. All we had to do was go back out to the dock and look straight down to the bottom of the creek through that clear water. So, what harm was there?

However, we were forbidden to drink this water. The only drinking water came from a spring up a steep hill from where we lived. My father and older brother used to go up there and fill up large containers of water and bring them home. A bucket sat in the corner of the kitchen with a long-handled cup in it. I'm sure in olden times a family might share this cup, going over to it to take a drink. However, Mom poured it into a Tupperware container and put it in the refrigerator so we could pour ourselves an individual glass of water. Otherwise, the long-handled cup was used to add water to cooking pots or for heating up for washing and rinsing the dishes.

The second circumstance where lack of water was an issue was when we lived in a hundred-year-old farmhouse out in the country. The wide creaking floorboards of the kitchen housed a large trap door that led down to the storage cistern, our only source of water storage. Winter snow melt and rain helped to keep the cistern partly full. But, it was necessary to go out to the well as summer passed and the cistern went dry. We had to pump water into large pails which we used to wash dishes or mop floors. (not very sanitary, but we never thought about that).  At first, we all shared in pouring buckets of water into the cistern. But it seemed an unending chore until my big brother rigged up a rain gutter beneath the spigot so we could pump water directly into the cistern. My big brother was a really clever guy! At one point, though, even the well went dry and my father had to order water and have it delivered in a large truck, which then emptied water into our cistern.

When I think about it today, I shake my head in wonder. I live in California now. I lived in Western New York in my childhood. I expect to experience drought here, but not in New York. It makes me wonder what people did in times past when water was at a premium. The world I live in today makes it appear that water is abundant, yet not all that safe to drink. Therefore, it is popular habit to buy drinking water by individual bottles. Truck delivery is done by five-gallon jugs.

Desperate for Clean Water

When you're little, you put your whole body into it. Easy enough to grab the handle and push it up, but getting it back down, you had to jump, put all your weight on it to get it into down position, then lift as fast as you can to get the next one going down.Your best bet was to have a gallon of water handy to pour down inside the pump, in order to not kill yourself trying to pump the water. For my Dad or big brother, it seemed a miracle they could pump gallons and gallons of water into the cistern with one arm pumping. That's how it was with our sweet, pure well water. My how things have changed.

Today there's so much controversy about drinking water. Is my faucet water safe to drink? What about plastic bottled water and it's effect upon the environment. What's your plan of action? Got one? I didn't. Then one day while at the grocery store, I noticed that there were no special sales on bottled water. You know, those packs of 24 handy dandy, carry with you, clean, clear, mountain streams healthy, unpolluted water? That stuff. Since it wasn't on sale and I knew I would need at least the 24 bottles or more to get me through the week, I hesitated. Whoa! If I bought two packs that would be a pretty big chunk of cash.

I thought to save money by calling up the local bottled water company, one of those who bring it to your door in big jugs. You can by the special dispenser, only 80 to 100 bucks if you want the one that gives you instant hot and instant cold water. I got the plain dispenser, a crock and wooden stand, for under 50 bucks. Then there is the bottle deposit. Five dollars up front. Not bad as long as I keep returning the old bottles for the new ones. Then, I could expect the bottled water truck to come to my house and deliver five gallon jugs. Soon I was paying for 5 gallons of "fine" distilled or spring water (probably filtered tap) a month. Still, it was less expensive than buying a month's worth of 24 packs even on sale. Plus, I felt better about not adding to the growing problem of disposing of the empty bottles. Let us not go into the leaching of chemicals into those bottles according to some sources. Save that for another time, when I can get all the facts.

About a year later, I began to be a little haunted by my new set up. I'm sure you know what the water was delivered in? Plastic. Nice thick plastic that wouldn't crack if you dropped one on the sidewalk while unloading it from the truck. The truck driving all over the county with the heat piercing through the jugs of water.

Did you know, by the way, that one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds?  I don't know how much the plastic fiver weighed. It seemed light when empty. One of the hassles I ran into was I couldn't lift the 40 plus pounds up over my shoulder in order to turn it over into the dispenser. So, my options were to stay home and wait for the delivery guy to load one for me. Two problems with that: staying home all day until he showed up, and hopefully have an empty bottle sitting on top of my dispenser to trade in. My other option was to wait until the weekend when my Superman came to visit. Again this depended on whether or not the previous bottle was empty. Sometimes if not entirely, I would take enough out, and pour it into the aquarium, which seems to evaporate faster than I can drink water!

Superman said, it's less expensive to get the water ourselves from one of those water dispenser stores. So I discontinued the service, and we went to the local store and bought two five gallon, and one 3 gallon jugs. We've been going every weekend to refill and reload onto my water crock dispenser.

Now I question the wisdom in this. Wish I had some clear, pure water. Wish I had that pump in the backyard, that pump going deep underground into the well. I would jump up. I would push down. I would prime the pump. I could use the exercise.