Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - Pondering - 8 February 2026

The other day, having stumbled across a small block of free time, I decided to take a break and have a small ponder.  While sitting in my ponder spot and trying to decide upon a topic, my eyes fell upon the bathtub.  The tub is a little hard to ignore since it takes up the most space in my Fortress of Solitude.  “As good a topic as any”, I said to myself since there was no one else present at the time.

I haven’t had a bath in over twenty years, I don’t think I even know anyone who’s had one lately.  The topic doesn’t come up often so I’m not absolutely positive.  I have a few acquaintances who, when approached from downwind, don’t seem to have put any kind of bathing high on their priority list.  I, on the other hand, hose down with fairly frequent regularity on a seasonal basis.

Can it be that personal hygiene is on the decline?  Nope, everyone I know showers.  Who’s got time for a tub bath nowadays?  By the time the tub is filled to a proper dunking level, I can be showered, shaved and five miles down the road.  Showers save time and water.  The tub takes forty gallons to fill, showers use about two gallons of water a minute.  One tub full=a twenty minute shower.  There hasn’t been a twenty minute shower in our house since The Princess went away to college.  In fact, after she left for school, the local water table rose five feet.  I frequently think how fortunate for Ithaca College that it was located at the end of one on the Finger Lakes, good planning I call it.

Back in a simpler time, I loved the tub.  First of all, it was bigger than the sink where I was first introduced to the routine of soap and water.  Granted it was a little crowded what with my little brothers and their toys, but good clean bubbly fun.  I finally got old enough to have my own bath time.  I didn’t miss the brothers, but I did miss the toys.  I quickly discovered the joys of Ivory Soap.  It was one of the major joys of my childhood.  Admiral Brooks spent hours sailing his 99 and 44/100% pure battleship upon the porcelain seas.  Ivory makes a great submarine too.  You can hold it under water and when you let go, it jumps right out of the water.  If your soap toy got boring, you could always slide down and see how long you could hold your breath.  That usually got soapy water in your ears and it was kind of fun shaking your head back and forth to hear it slosh.  Turning the water on using just your toes to warm it up when you had been in so long that it was starting to get cold has fun and led to the ability to peel a banana without using my hands which was a great hit during my college days.  When you finally got out, you were all pruney, wrinkled and white.

I have fond memories of those soaks but I’m not going back to them.  I don’t have the time and we don’t use Ivory Soap anymore.  In fact, sharing my life with my fair Queen means that it’s hard to find a bar of soap anyway.  There are all these bottles and jars full of stuff that make bubbles and get you clean but I can never decide what I want to spend the day smelling like.  My male friends look a little askance when I show up smelling like a floral coconut bouquet.  I think that after all these shower years, I’d feel kind of scummy after a soak and would want to shower just to get the soap residue off.

Tubs are still a part of our life though, a few years back, we redid the bathroom and actually thought of eliminating the tub in favor of a really nice shower stall.  The shower stall was easier to get into and didn’t require sitting on those sandpaper strips people glue to the bottom of their tubs so they don’t slip.  We wound up putting in a tub, what’s a bathroom without a tub?  We’ll probably never use it but it is there if we ever want to.  I’m not going to use it, at my age, the last thing I need is more wrinkles.

Thought for the week—Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they don’t recognize you.

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

whittle12124@yahoo.com