Clean Water, Standard of Living

Photo from Wilson-Blair School Museum in Western KY

 
Yesterday evening, WV American Water Company issued a DO NOT USE  alert for their water supply because of a chemical leak just up river from their treatment plant. At the time of this posting, the alert is still in effect, and no one knows just when clean, safe water will be restored. That brought to mind some thoughts from a conversation earlier in the day with a coworker about growing up in WV.
    We were talking about how life has changed in our lifetimes. He is much younger than I, so I've seen many more changes, but he was raised in a very rural, WV area where many of our childhood experiences are similar. We both have seen times where outdoor toilets were a common sight in the WV hills, along with wood fireplaces and "pot belly stoves," and hand-dug water wells. The picture I've posted here shows several items with which I am very familiar - the water bucket and dipper, along with tin cups, a wash pan, and wash table.
     When I was very young, my grandparents lived on a 100 acre farm in a lifestyle that would now make an Amish family's life seem almost modern. The water all came from a hand-dug well with a dip bucket that had to be lowered by a chain over a pulley. The water was then drawn up and emptied into a two-and-a-half gallon bucket similar to the one pictured. The water was then carried into the house and sat on the side of the kitchen sink, where a dipper hung nearby. That was it...the entire drinking water supply for the household, and let me tell you the water tasted wonderful! It was pure and refreshing, with just a slight mineral taste. Water for washing clothes, bathing, and watering plants came from a rain barrel, which caught water from a downspout off the roof when it rained. Occasionally a little bleach was put in to kill bacteria and settle anything that may be floating in the water.
     Life was much simpler then, in some ways, and yet more complicated in others. We had to bring wood in for the fireplace and wood-burning cookstove that grandma still used until I was about 8 years old, or so. On cold nights, a block of #9 coal would be brought in and placed on the hot embers in the fireplace to keep the house warm till morning. Black soot would settle on everything in the house, and I often went to school with the smell of coal soot on my clothes after spending a weekend there. Even though I had no game system, ipod, smartphone, or other modern luxury, those days are some of the best memories of my life.
 ***
    Water is something we often take for granted in America. My daughter has been on two mission trips, one to Haiti, and one to Peru, where clean, safe drinking water is a precious rarity. Clean water is life. Not having it means sickness and death. We are just a bucket and dipper away from a very, very different America. When the local water company issued that alert, my thoughts went immediately to how much our lives would change, almost instantly, if clean water was not readily available. We don't know when our local water supply will be cleared up, but it won't take very many days for us to find out just how much it means to us.