Older Brother And His Kids

A Comment made by one of my friends, has started me down memory lane, Again!
I am the oldest of seven (7) kids. Unlike today, we were kids not children. No one ever ask how many children do you have it was 'always' how many kids do you have. Must have something to do with time and place I was born and raised.

At the advanced age of 10 I was charged with care and feeding of 5 younger brothers and sisters. I got them up, dressed, fed breakfast and out the door every morning. I could change a diaper faster than superman could leap a tall building. During the day, I was their mentor, friend, playmate and did my best to prevent serious injury. I tended to their scrapes, cuts and scratches. Pulled stickers and thorns from hands and feet. It seemed that one of them always had a goat head in a foot, or cactus thorns in a hand!

Bathing was a real battle at times. Our bathhouse was located next to our only water source, an Airmotor windmill with a wooden overhead storage tank. It provided water for house, livestock water and a little water for our garden. It was really bad water, not bad for you bad, bad tasting. It was gyp water, meaning it contained dissolved gypsum and had a gypsum smell and taste. I digress, back to bathing.

If you wanted warm water to bath in, first you built a fire in our old wood stove, heat a few buckets of water pouring then into an oblong metal tub that was used as a bath tub. So, feeling a cold water bath would do them no harm, most of the year bathing was a cold water event. Grin.

60 Years Later when one of them become sick or injured, I still feel that it is at least in part it's my fault. I was not there to insure their safety and care for them. I'll sure be glad when they grow up so I don't need to spend so much time baby setting..