what do you prefer: bath or shower. and why

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You know, Emily, it's funny the strange things we remember from childhood and aren't we lucky that we do remember them? And something like that is special as it is a part of our childhood and is something that we can't ever get back again! Loved your description of sitting in the tub and banging your feet on the bottom until someone came it to get you. When I was a kid I only had baths as we didn't have a shower and I remember the feeling of wrapping myself up in a soft towel after a bath. Nowadays I could probably get in a tub but could I get out without falling? Naah! I'll just stick to showers, thank you very much!

 

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@ritanofsinger Lovely memories; thank you for sharing! What do you think your family members would think of modern “conveniences” like cell phones, and electronic noise machines “tablets” given to 1-year-olds?

 

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at bill: yes I do like remembering my childhood (or some of it!). I also have a lot of bad memories connected with it.
another " bath" memory I have, is the toys I used to play with. a yellow rubber ducky and a yellow boat (the boat was tiny!), and by the time I'd placed the ducky in it, the boat sank and the ducky fell out. but they were fun to play with on their own also

 

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I remember my bath toys, too. I set up some pretty elaborate scenes.

 

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Oh yeah, @Emily 91 and @snow, I, too, had a bathtub fleet of little boats and I'm sure there must have been a rubber ducky or a rubber something somewhere in the mix! I think I had a red and blue ferryboat that might have had wheels under it, and I'm sure there was a sailboat or two. But was there any room left over to actually have a bath??? :O

 

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Gotta say that as a group, we have way too much time on our hands. Who ever thought we would get over 45 posts on the question of shower or bath? Gotta smile at this!

 

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How I loved reading the bath experiences of all of you. It's very comforting.

emily91 your description of banging your feet on the tub was so neat. I don't know what you personally looked like, but I sure imagined the scene. So sweet. Thank you.

As I began to raise my last grandchild I wanted him to have a memorable childhood so I began with taking him to parent-tot swim lessons at an indoor city pool when he was 6 months old (I was 65.). (I was actually able to get disposable swim pull-ups for him!) So he loved the water right from the start. He played with his toys in the bathtub and sitting on the floor of the shower stall when I took a shower. (At seven years of age I played with my toys on the floor with my dad in the shower. It must be an inherited trait!)But what my grandson really liked was playing with his Legos in the bathtub. At nine years of age he loved for me to read to him the story of the Titanic, then finally he built a Lego model to show me how and why the ship sank.

 

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Hi @ritanofsinger, that must have been quite a history lesson when your grandson built a Lego model and showed you how and why the Titanic sunk! :O As for playing with Legos in the bathtub I hope he didn't leave any in the tub for you to step on or to sit on! That would have been a real eye-opener!

 

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snow -- Those grandparents lived at a time in our history where a lot of things were changing the world. Just getting their first telephone, the old wall mounted wind up phone where you connected first with "Central" and she connected you to the party you were calling, was a change that took time to incorporate into their lives. When I was 6-years old my grandpa took me to the telephone office in town (the living room of a house on Main Street) and I got to see Central connect the plugs to the board with holes in it. She wore a head band with what I called ear muffs and microphone even then.

It was a big deal for them to use a phone, in the late 1940's. They saw the car take the place of wagons; my great-grandma told me that she came to Kansas in a covered wagon when she was 12. Then they saw airplanes and so much more. I think they would smile and shake their heads at a 1-year-old using a tablet! What next? Maybe any citizen, regardless of age, being allowed to vote in our elections!

My late husband gave me an IBM Selectric typewriter in 1967. I told him I wished somebody would invent a typewriter like that which I could use on an airplane. He said, "That will never happen." I had a portable manual typewriter, heavy as all get out. Today I have a MacBook Air but unfortunately I don't travel anymore! I wonder if our times are getting better or if it's just changing?

 

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My mother was born in 1907. A story I was reading in the 90s made me count up all the changes she saw in her 92 years of life. Her father was killed by a trolley-car. There must be some "historic ones" still running? From electric typewriters to cars to planes to radio to TV. She saw computers, but I don't think ever used one on her own. She could type at high speed - on a manual; she tried an electric and with about 50 years of using manuals, went back to them. My college portable typewriter was "tiny" - and I can't even imagine using it in a plane. The noise! I flew once as a child - a family emergency - and never again until the military put me in one at age 25.
My wife was "rural". They had the wind-up phones and party lines into the 50s - you had different rings for different people.
And incontinence products were very hush-hush.

 

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Hey @AlasSouth that says it all! For someone born in 1907 the changes they've seen have gone almost literally from horse-drawn wagons, Model Ts and hand-cranked phones with party lines to jumbo jets and tiny little phones that somebody with bigger fingers than a toddler would have a hard time punching in the numbers. Yes, I'm including myself! And I remember those little portable typewriters and no way could anyone really seriously consider using them on a plane simply because of the noise they made!
And incontinence products just weren't seen anywhere out in the open and I can imagine if you had to wear them you would have to go way in the back of a drug store and discreetly ask for them.
And of course someone from 1907 wouldn't have had this forum in which we talk about incontinence and products very openly and matter-of-factly and learn that it is a universal problem.

 

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A few times, typewriters were used as musical instruments. Besides the keys hitting the ribbon and paper, remember the Ding!riiiiip of the carriage return? Maybe someone needs to build that into the software!

 

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Hey! I like that idea! I bet it can be done, as long as someone with expertise in designing software is willing to do it! That'd be really cool! There was a, well, not really a song, but a musical piece. I think it was done by Leroy Anderson of the Boston Pops? It had the sounds of a typewriter just as you described! And it was complete with bells and carriage return.

 

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AlasSouth -- My mother took my younger sister and I riding on the trolley in Tulsa, OK just before they ended that transportation. I vaguely remember it as I was probably four or five years old, early 1940's.

I think your idea of building the carriage return "ding" into the software is a very novel idea. The thing I used to despise was having to do corrections on the carbon copies! And then Ditto machines came into vogue so corrections had to be done by scraping the thick ink with an exacto knife! I worked at Boeing Airplane Co. in Wichita for 2 1/2 years as a clerk/typist. What a great experience that was including the carpools that I was in. So much fun.

In 1947 when my family first moved into a house just across the Tulsa city limits, we lived in the county. We had to get on a waiting list to get a phone line and then when we got it, it was a four party line. There was a female teen in a family who would get on the phone with her boyfriend and they wouldn't say anything but kept the line busy. Even when my mom would ask them get off so she could use the phone they just ignored her. And Mother complained to the phone company. After living there four years we were finally down to a two-party line and then we moved to Kansas.

billiveshere -- You're right about the noise of the manual typewriters -- Whew!! And you're right about the keys. If you typed too fast or irregular, like I did, the strikers would get jammed up. Even had that happen on the IBM Electric with the balls!

OMG the memories ----When I was five years old I walked with my mon to the drug store a couple blocks from our duplex in Tulsa. As we were standing at the cash register I was looking around and saw a box on the very top shelf behind the druggist and apparently quite loudly I asked my mom, "What does K-O-T-E-X spell?" She didn't answer me! Anything to do with your body from the waist down was taboo to speak of. How we've changed huh?

 

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You're correct billiveshere, It's called The Typewriter Song by Leroy Anderson, I used to play it one the piano.

 

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Don't remind me of carbons! It might be your only copy, or the nearly unreadable 3RD, and the teacher made you do it over because she wanted an "original". Now copy machines are so good, you can't tell which is the original. Ugg. Mimeo was a pain - you had to be a perfect typist - the "correction" on that green original showed when you printed. (I was never a perfect typist.) But we liked the smell of purple mimeo ink.
By regulations, the military always gave you 50 copies of your orders for transfer: all memeo, but they rubber-stamped one, in red, that said "Original". Military logic is an oxymoron.
Had a girlfriend who could out-type a IBM selectric - she had a "speed certificate" she got in secretary school.
Lived where I had to have a one-person phone line; i was on call for Search And Rescue. Either Bravo-6 or Bravo-2 (that's how many hours you had to get back to the ship - except both skippers demanded half that time. The phone company took the problem user off the party line - problem solved!
And I bet your Mom's face turned bright red....

 

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Hi Rita, I didn't know there was a piano version of The Typewriter Song. I've only just heard the Boston Pops version. But playing it on the piano must have whipped you into a frenzy!
But at least you could play the piano! 'Fraid to say that @billiveshere and playing the piano just don't mix!!!!:O

 

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Funny billiveshere! -- The version I had was in a piano book of Leroy Anderson's compositions. It was a fun one to play. And don't be impressed. I'm a genuine amateur in the actual playing but a good and fast note reader. So I can play anything but usually not at the speed recommended if it's to be played fast. I especially like to play waltzes.

I was in the first year of studying music theory at a community college in Denver when three months before finishing, my late husband and I sold our home, he quit his job as a tech writer, we bought a motel in the mountains and moved our family to a small ski tourist town. My music teacher begged me to continue but there was just no way to make everything work. I did continue to study as I had time so that I wouldn't lose what I'd already gained. But the move turned out to be a really good thing for our family in spite of many challenges. And my teacher and I continued to be friends.

 

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@billliveshere I believe this typewriter song was in an old Jerry Lewis movie. Whos Minding The Store.

 

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@ritanofsinger Can you please be my surrogate grandma? Both of mine have passed (they were both lovely and loving) and you sound like you’d sure be a great one!!!!!!!