I became so enamored of the novel simplicity of that life that when I
moved back to the "real world," showers just seemed wholly unoriginal
and definitely unadventurous. There's no opportunity to see a bear in
the shower or cast a fly should the errant trout pass by. On the upside,
there's no chance of getting hypothermia or being sucked into Class V
whitewater. I got back into the habit for the obvious health benefits
and because it's tough to meet people when you smell like a hiking boot.
But I didn't always hold showers in such mundane regard.
DIFFERENT
KINDS
Growing up, there were different kinds: there was the
post-lawn cutting shower. When I opened my first mowing business, the
end-of-the-day shower was more of a payoff than the $30 I had made
cutting three yards. Granted, an 11-year-old doesn't have much say in
matters of personal hygiene if he wants to sit at the dinner table. But
after pushing a mower up hills that would make a billy goat puke, a
shower just felt good.
Of course, there was the hard-to-beat
outdoor shower. When I got older and started bartending in a beach town,
life assumed a very wash, rinse, repeat kind of rhythm. Only the cycle
went more like: lie in sand, play in water, lie in more sand, head off
to work. The pine-boxed outdoor shower attached to the house served as
the perfect intermission between a day at the beach and a night that
lasted into the small hours. To this day, the smell of wet pine will
flash me back to that sacred time that lies between Memorial and Labor
Day.
I went home last weekend. I watched my dad march in the
local Memorial Day parade; watched a tear run down his cheek as he
remembered his fellow Marines who didn't make it home from Vietnam. I
stuffed a few bucks into the hollowed-out whiffle ball bat of a Little
Leaguer working the simultaneous "Bat Day" parade. And I cut my parents'
lawn. It wasn't the same lawn I used to trim two and a half decades ago
and it was, thankfully, a different and lighter mower. But as I stood
in the shower afterwards watching the grass clippings circle the drain, I
realized why I had never, despite my river phase, lost my love for
showers.
While there are the clear health advantages, summer
showers are more about the memories they summon. The ones that arrive
riding on the aroma of a freshly cut lawn or the nostalgic feeling that
comes from helping out a Little Leaguer who's wearing the jersey of the
same team you played for 25 years ago. Then there are the memories that
are unleashed by watching your dad remove his hat during a parade.
Toland
works for Sugarbush in Warren.
