"Marco" "Polo" "Marco" "Polo"

It’s official. Summer is here. I heard the usual dire prediction for Toronto on the radio today; May – July is going to be hot, humid and dry. Here we go again, thought I to myself, the even number houses get to water their lawn on even numbered days and the odd numbers, the odd days of the month. There will be pleas not to wash your car, use your lawnmower or BBQ and even water rations. That last one might be a slight exaggeration. But in a few years who knows?

My mind, as it likes, traveled back in time to when I was a youngster. As we were the poor pool-less family on the street, we made do with a slip and slide, running through the sprinkler (the one we ‘bought’ from the Catto family down the street after my brother decided to play golf with it, and my dad decide to fix) and attacking each other with water pistols (no super soakers for us) and water balloons.

No water rations though! No sir! Then I got to thinking, maybe this whole global warming thing is more cyclical than we are led to believe. You know, 25 years no water, 25 years lots of water. I never heard ‘requests’ over the radio to cut back on your watering or reports on the evening news (I was very advanced and inquisitive for my age) that water levels were “dangerously low”. Why then were my grandparents so tight with the H2O???? Maybe their generation had suffered through a “warming” phase in their day.

We used to go visit and play. By play I mean get dirty (see the Jell-o story) and would need, not want, to be bathed. This was difficult for my parents at the best of times. Even with a tub full of toys and water. Bernice would put the plug in (why let ANY escape down the drain) and let water run for about, oh I don’t know, 30 seconds and shut it off.

“In you get” she’d say smiling. Being the obedient little children we were, oh that’s right, we’re talking two or three at once, we climbed over the edge of the tub and into water that was as deep as a shallow puddle during a drought in July. “Don’t splash around too much”. Lady, are you kidding? The only way I was going to splash anyone was if I spit on them.

We would get soaped and shampooed, then be rinsed with cupfuls of water. Trust me when I say, the tap did run again. You were lucky if you got to go first, cause second, third and fourth sat in the same water. I think the last of us came out dirtier than when we went in.

My siblings and I have tried to determine the source of this odd ritual. Our grandparents were not cheap. After the bath we were allowed to stuff ourselves with pop and ice cream. They took us out for dinner and shopping just about every time we had a weekend with them. Maybe it was payback for the time we clogged the toilet with toilet paper just to see how much would actually go down. I wonder?

(For the record, the photo is from my parents tub of plenty.)