When I was a small girl, mother had a large bed of rose moss near the kitchen door on the south side of the house. Those flowers loved the sunshine but needed watering daily during summer. After supper, having stood with her hands in hot dishwater, she was ready to cool off. She would put away her apron, shed her shoes and go out and turn on the garden hose. After watering the flower bed thoroughly, she’d hose down the back porch, steps and sidewalk and, often, the whole south side of the house, to help cool it down before bedtime. Naturally, we’d follow along, hoping to be allowed to hold the hose for a while and, maybe, sprinkle each other a little when she wasn’t looking. In any event, mother was not above giving us a squirt or two herself and we usually ended up happily cool and dripping by time the hose was turned off.
As we got older, we were permitted to manipulate the hose ourselves, but there were rules. We could not squirt each other directly with the hose. As the only outdoor water supply it had to be shared. We could use it to fill buckets, tin cans, squirt-guns or the washtub, but could not use it as our personal water pistol. Another rule was that it was legal to throw water at anybody within range. If you didn’t want to take a chance on getting soaked, you stayed in the house during a water-fight. No matter if your hair was freshly curled or you were dressed for church. If you were in the vicinity of a water-fight, you were at risk and it was your own fault if you got wet. There was no protocol for starting a water-fight. At any time during hot weather, anybody could start one simply by aiming a little water at anyone else. It might be as simple as dumping the last drips of melted ice from an iced tea glass onto someone’s foot or as dramatic as ambushing dad from behind the lilac bush with a whole bucket of water when he came home from work.
We even had water-fights in the rain. When we were young teens and shampooing our own hair, we had to rinse it with vinegar-water to get all the soap scum out and leave it slick and shiny. The alternative was to wash it in soft water which was available to us only by saving rain water. There was a rain barrel under the downspout by the back porch and, after a heavy rain, it would be full of fairly clean rain water which we would strain through a cloth and heat on the stove for washing our hair. Saturday morning was the official ‘shampoo day’ and, if you consider four girls all washing their hair within the same hour, you can guess that frequent water-fights started around the rain barrel.
One summer morning, it was pouring down rain when it was time for our shampoos and mother suggested that, since it was raining so hard, we could probably get our hair wet enough to wash it right outdoors in the rain. We did manage to get wet enough to work up some good suds, but the rain really didn’t come down fast enough for a thorough rinse. The rain barrel came to our rescue and the shampoo project soon turned into a full-fledged water-fight. We were already dripping from being out in the heavy rain and throwing water at each other didn’t make much sense but it was one of the better fights in my memory.
My husband got in on one of our impromptu water-fights soon after we were married and I don’t think he ever understood the ritual. It was a late Sunday morning, our grandmother was there for a visit. One sister, with husband and children, were visiting from California and had just come from church. We were sitting on the patio enjoying a lovely June day, when Mother brought out a big pitcher of iced tea and glasses filled with ice cubes. The sister from California, still dressed for church, slipped an ice cube down the back of my husband’s shirt (she has always been impulsive and just a little ornery) and the war was on. The fountain/fish pool dad had built for mother was right next to the patio. Even without a rain barrel or the garden hose, we all got wet.