I want to tell you about the most amazing tub I have ever known. :)  It was a silver galvanized tub about 2 1/2  feet wide and 2 1/2 feet deep.

As I sunk down into my nice hot bath tonight with bubbles up to my ears I thought about how absolutely wonderful it felt to just lean my head back and relax in the nice hot water. As I closed my eyes briefly and shut out the household for a moment or two and enjoyed the steam from my water rising around me my mind traveled backwards down memory lane once again.

I was returned to my youth when there was no nice enamel tub in our home and no hot and cold running water -- in fact there was not even a bathroom in our home. We had an outhouse and that outhouse still was in use when I left home at 17 and stayed in use up until my Mother died in 1987. 

We bathed in a galvanized tub that sat in the back shed that we filled with the hot water that we boiled on the wood stove after we had carried pails of it in from the well. There was no time to relax in the tub especially in the winter because it was so darn cold out in that shed in the winter that you moved pretty quick.  LOL 

We used to carry water in from the rain barrel and heat it on the wood stove to wash our hair. My Mother swore that rainwater was the best thing for your hair and made it shine. If there was no shampoo you used the bar soap to work up a suds and then rinsed your hair with the water in the pot beside you.

Mother had a wringer washer and she would fill it with boiling water and wash the clothes and then run them through the wringer into the galvanized tub full of luke warm water for rinsing them and then back through the wringer. She would dump the tub and refill and go through the process again to be sure they were well rinsed. Then we would hang everything out on the clothesline.

I can remember her scrubbing that galvanized tub with boiling water and vinegar and salt until is shone. Then she would take the tub outside and sit it on top of the grate on the open fire pit and fill it with water and lots of ears of corn. Once that water got boiling and the corn cooked we had a feast out there in the backyard with our plates full of tater salad and corn and hotdogs or hamburgs. I always loved it best when she got sweet corn but there were times that cow corn was what we had and it fed us too.

If someone came to visit and had a tiny baby and there was no where to lay that baby down my Mother would put a nice thick soft blanket in that galvanized tub and there that baby would lay down. 

If there was a crowd coming to supper that galvanized tub sure did hold a lot of spinach or cabbage or beet leaves or fiddleheads boiling away on top of the wood stove. Man that tub could feed an army !  LOL 

If it were pickling season that galvanized tub would hold a lot of jars or relish or sliced bread 'n butter pickles as it sent the wonderful aroma through the house as it bubbled away waiting to be put into jars and stored away for the winter.

At Hallowe'en that galvanized tub held a lot of apples for the trick-or-treaters to bob for. 

Ah yes that old galvanized tub had many uses and when I look back I have to giggle at what my grandchildren would do if they had to eat corn on the cob out of the same tub they bathed in. Oh yes I can hear them now -- "Oh how gross!!!" 

Ah well times have changed and we have become spoiled with the modern day conveniences and some folks are so unappreciative of all the amazing things that modernization have brought to us. I am thankful for all the conveniences however because I can remember back to when I did not have them.

I could tell you stories  ... ah yes I could ... but I will leave them for another time ... and if you come to supper I promise not to use a galvanized tub to cook it in  :)

Until next time take care of you 
hugs,
Misker