THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 1 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 1 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

People didn't buy bottled water in 1979. If you had water in a bottle it was because you put it there. And it usually came from a garden hose. When you're a kid in the summertime in south Mississippi, water in a bottle was a thin, warm, stale syrup. It was always hot. Tray ice would never fit through the neck of the bottle and trying to break those cubes in my hand by popping them with a table spoon only seemed to hurt my fingers.

I once tried putting a bottle of water in the freezer until it was a block of curvy ice, but before I even get good and started on my yard chores, it was be melted. The Mississippi heat completely melted it. It was pretty damn hot, to say the least. This happened several times in a row before I finally got the point. God was probably laughing at me. One of the days I was doing yard might not seem quite as hot as the last and from time to time I'd always try it again. But never to any success. For a smart kid, I guess I was a little slow in the area of science and how that related to keeping water cold.

Eventually, I'd come to realize that ice in water worked better than solid ice. So I would use a jug, a cooler or a 30 gallon ice chest, depending on the job. Before I had been around long enough to celebrate double digits, there was usually a Sunday or two a month my dad would have me outside picking up limbs and pine cones so he could mow the yard. The area around our home was about two acres, so the routine was simple. My job was to pile up the limbs and about an hour later my dad would go behind me with a small trailer attached to his riding lawn mower. He'd pick them up and haul them off before eventually mowing the yard. Since I was a kid, my jobs were the safe ones. Not safe in the sense of I might not get hurt, but safe in the sense that if (read: when) I did get hurt one of my parents would be close by enough to attend first-aid before the blood went everywhere.


(to be continued)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 2 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 2 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

My part of the yard work would probably have taken the standard adult about 30 minutes. But given my inablility to give a shit about finishing anything in a timely manner, my little 7 year old self would drag things out for hours on end. I'd moan. And I'd groan. The end result was almost always the same. My dad would come to me and give me some rationalization that being lazy was not what he expected, but it still didn't change things. Hot was hot. And hot meant slow. No matter what I did or how I thought, I couldn't see that being in a hurry had any merit. This was a trait I'd not soon outgrow.

I'm not sure if summertime in those days was actually hotter than it is now or if it just seemed hotter because of my build. I was about average height as the other 1st graders, but I wore ToughSkins. ToughSkins were dark blue jeans made of slightly thicker denim that never even looked comfortable. No matter how often they went through the washer they were still stale. The insides sported reinforced knees which were embarrassingly noticeable after just a few washings. They also made a horrible "swishy-swishy" sound with every step. I think ToughSkins and Chinet paper plates were created by the same guy.

My mom told me over and over I was to wear those targets of elementary ridicule because I was so rough on the knees of my pants, but I knew it was because I was chunky. I don't think I was fat. But I know I was chunky. I know this because my Mom insisted I was not chunky, which only proved that I really was.

Back in those days the highlight of the classroom was running toward your desk and sliding on your knees. Or running to the coat rack and sliding on your knees. Same with the lunch box cubby. I'd run, if the first two or three steps can actually be called running, full speed and drop to my knees. I'd slide a good half a foot or so along the hard tile of the classroom. It felt like three or four feet at 7 years old. I was an olympic star.

My mind conjured images of the long jump where Joe Hurdler lands heels first with arms out front in the sand as pebbles of sand and dirt skoonch into the air. His frontal thighs and chest meet, relaxing his backside into the sand. My version was only this glamorous in my own mind. But I could see it plainly there. I was a titan.


(to be continued)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 3 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 3 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

From time to time this sliding would do a number on my knee caps, a thing I'd regret soon after my college years, but it most certainly took a heavy toll on my jeans right then. Some kids got spanked or grounded because of spills or stains on their clothes. I got in trouble for rubbing the knees out. My dad used to say that his job was to have me at least three complete outfits. "One clean. One dirty. And one being worn. The rest was just extra", he'd say. I had several more than just those three, but they all had one thing in common. The Chinet shards were protruding through the knees like broken cardboard. I'd just have to get used to this.

It was very cool growing up in 1979. Things were calm. I enjoyed school and school work, but at this point school was out for summer and I wasn't always enjoying my time off at home. Home was hot. And I had yard chores to do. It sucked doing yard chores. Luckily, I soon realized that as long as I didn't do too good a job, then I wouldn't usually get very many new assignments. And if I did, at least they'd be about the same as far as their complexity. Very similar to that first time you make it known that you know how to properly load the dishwasher. Soon it just becomes your job. I didn’t want that to happen again. I don't know if my dad caught on to my scheme and just let me slide on the harder stuff or if he might've thought I was just a bit of a tard.

Either way, by having yard work and hating it, I taught myself to became a lackey. I wasn't really a dead beat, but definitely opposed to manual labor of any kind. Probably because it seemed like every time the wind blew in south Mississippi, one of two things would happen. Either 4,387 pine cones would suddenly drop to the ground, almost in unison, or bus loads of limbs would randomly fall from the trees, making the area around our home look like a bad move in Jenga. The problem was, the wind seemed to blow a lot.

I'd drag around the yard cursing elementary variations of profanities in my head about how bad I hated piling up limbs and sticks and pine cones and shit. Dad would come around periodically to relight the fire under my butt and I'd get it in gear enough to troggle through the next section. Usually anytime I could find good reason, I'd create a distraction. One legitimate distraction was always the garden hose. That was an easy fix.


(to be continued)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 4 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 4 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

Many times I'd go meander off to grab the garden hose. Of course, it was primarily my job to keep that garden hose rolled up next to the faucet that came out of the side of the house. And because it was my job, chances are it was always strung out across the driveway or out in the yard like it was on this June day. I guess this wasn't so much a big deal to my dad since I didn't really get in much trouble whenever he found out about it.

Limb patrol was the 1979 version of being on restriction even though you weren't actually being punished. It was extremely boring. Miniature cassette players with headphones had not been invented yet. There was nothing to keep me occupied except the daunting task at hand. And it never happened on a breezy day. Windy days caused the problem. So why couldn't a breezy one take most of it away? Life is tough enough to make any sense when you're a kid. Not to mention the fact that It was hotter than hot. The sun burned fast and I moved slow. Any excuse to get side tracked was only one good idea away.

The best excuse, although legitimate, was thirst. Les than an hour into the day, the temperature felt like 127 degrees in the shade. Beads of sweat would be dripping without hesitation from my brow. It would roll down to my nose and that salty burn would almost always get in my eyes. I'd rub them and it would just get worse, like putting lemon juice on a paper cut, it burned. I could hear my dad as he'd always say, "You should wear a hat like me." But my dad was known for headware that looked like a cross between what Audrey Hepburn wore on The African Queen and what a Vietnamese guy would wear harvesting a rice paddy. I thought I'd deal with my eyes instead.


(to be continued)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 5 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 5 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

Nobody used sunscreen in those days, so my skin felt like it was a little Worstershire sauce short of beef jerky. And I was thirsty by now. I mean damn thirsty. I may only do limb reconnaissance in low gear, but at that moment I'd have run the bases to get a drink of water. Full sprint to the garden hose by the carport. It wasn't rolled up. Of course it wasn't. That was my job. I'd make sure the faucet was turned on as far as it would go. It was. I'd trampse across carport gravel and follow the hose out into the yard. Not paying as much attention as I probably should, I'd have about a dozen ant bites and a couple of rock bruises before reaching the spray nozzle. Ah ha. There it was. Water. Agua.

I pronounced it with a "g" because my pre-elementary education consisted of Sesame Street's bilingual teaching methods. I.E. "boat... barco" or "dog... perro" and of course Kermit would sing "an apple is maaaanzaaaaanaaaa." So even though I did not speak fluent anything, except vanilla American, with much accuracy, I did watch alot of Sesame Street, so I knew, or didn't know as it would turn out, that water was pronounced "og-wah."

I raised the nozzle directly into my sun dried face and quickly pulled the trigger handle firmly. I was ready to enjoy the comfort of Mother Nature’s natural drink. But today would be the day that I'd be reminded of two very different things. A) just how much pressure could build up inside a stretched out garden hose that had been left wide open in the heat of the summer, and b) however much pressure it had build up, that shit gets hot.

I'm not sure if it was the scalding hot water that captivated my attention more or the immediate pain of having that first gallon of scalding water hit my face at 40 psi. Either way, I dropped the hose. It shut off automatically before it even hit the ground. Because of my carelessness it also took a gash out of my shin on the way down. Things didn't always have rounded edges in those days.

I shook my head, tossed my hair back and gathered what was left of my senses. Looking around for witnesses and seeing none, I picked the nozzle back up. This time pointing it in the other direction, I sprayed it out forward from myself for about half a minute. I held it wide open the whole time to let all the hot water escape. Checking from time to time with my finger instead of my cheek, I saw it was cooling off. It actually cooled off rather quickly to my surprise. Then, like any southern boy would, I folded the hose over and crinkled it between my stubby legs to cut off the pressure and unscrewed the sprayer off the end.


(to be concluded)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 6 of 6)

THE GARDEN HOSE (Part 6 of 6)

© Jayson Slade 2010

The cool water flowed out in a girgling, rhythmic motion. It came out from the hose and splashed onto my bare feet. It was nice. It was cool and it was nice. I'd put the hose to my mouth now and this time I'd enjoy it's Earthy goodness in comfort. Today we enjoy our bottled water as we do a watch or a cell phone. It's just there. We hardly could imagine being without it for any length of time. Always having it within arms reach when we may be away from the house or the office is just standard. Sometimes we are only away for minutes at a time, but the bottled water is always near. But when you're 7 years old, doing chores you hate, sweating like a whore in church, with ant bites up to your knees, bruises on your feet, eyes afire and trying to come out of a state of shock from the bloody mess running down your leg, you just can't beat grabbing the nearest garden hose and taking a gulp.

The amazing flavor of the water from a rubber garden hose is unique. Sure there might have been dirt around the metal tip and some shit that looked like it came off grandpa's toenails spotted around the rubber end, but it tasted fine. It wouldn't have hurt us either. It couldn't. Our little bodies got plenty of practice in those days. A little dirt never hurt anybody on our street.

I could have dropped that hose tip in dog shit and it wouldn't have mattered. I'd wipe it off a little then let it run a minute to clean itself off. And stick it right in your mouth. The kids back then didn't know about any five second rule. That wasn't even necessary. We just drank from it. It tasted like summertime. It tasted like Heaven. Well, maybe not exactly Heaven. But it did taste like new plastic smells. It was thick and it was delicious. I'm surprised I never chipped my teeth on the threads of the metal fitting on that hose, but I didn't. And if I had, my dad was always a scream away.

Eventually, my dad would come back around and take up my slack with the limbs and the pine cones. And before it was all done, we'd both drink from the garden hose a couple more times. It was great. Afterward, he'd mow the grass while me and my ant bites would go on back inside the house where'd I'd be a kid just a little bit longer.


the end