Water Wasn’t The Problem With Mom’s Tea

I took it for granted. I believe everyone else did too. It was just water after all. Oh sure, it was cool, clear, clean, and refreshing—especially on a hot July day after you’d run all the way from the baseball field over by the Pajama Factory to the house.

Or when you’d been hauling hay from “can to can’t” for Dewayne Melton. Or splitting and stacking up a mountain of firewood in the dreadful heat of early August for the long winter ahead. Shoot, sometimes we’d stop and “water up” right in the middle of a hide-and-go-seek game because we’d about dehydrated ourselves to death chasing each other around the house.

Our water was so good and pure we could drink it out of a rubber hose with none of the ill effects and long-lasting consequences that you read about today.

And you talk about versatile! We drank it, cooked with it, made ice out of it, took baths in it, sprayed it on each other, filled balloons….

Of course, none of it taste as good as a Coca-Cola or a 7-UP. But I don’t think it was supposed to. Water has been around longer than dirt. Towns grew into cities beside good watering holes. Civilizations depended on a fresh source of water to sustain them. And that is a good thing. I’ve never heard of a Root Beer or Dr. Pepper saving a man’s life after he had been lost and wandering in the Sahara Desert for a week!

The best thing about water when we were kids….there was a never-ending supply. And it didn’t cost nothing!

It was as simple as turning on the facet. Mother would fuss at us for drinking it right out of the spigot. But she didn’t make a point to stop us. I reckon she figured it was one less glass to clean.

We didn’t know back then that McKenzie, Tennessee, had the best drinking water in the entire known world. It was blissful ignorance. The water came from a deep well. Mr. Luther Brewer was in charge of the whole system. We didn’t think nothing about it at the time. But I have come to realize over the years, he was possibly the most important person in our little town.

We had two options when we sat down to eat. Milk or water. It was one or the other. It could have been both, I guess, but we weren’t all that smart out at the end of Stonewall Street. If Brother Hatcher was joining us for lunch after church, we had a third choice, tea.

But that option came with a terrible flaw. Because of World War II our tea wasn’t fit to drink. When the War Board rationed sugar, Mom saved it all for Leon’s cereal. (I’ve told you many times he was her favorite.) She drank her coffee and tea ever after with no sugar. That Brother Hatcher tea (or any she ever made) didn’t have more than a pinch of sugar in it. I couldn’t drink it. Bro. Hatcher did, but I saw him cringe a bit when Mom wasn’t looking.

His good Southern Baptist Ecclesiastical training wouldn’t allow him to spit it out!

I now believe Mother also missed the boat on the cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussel sprouts confrontations. You know about these, she would admonish us to “finish those last few bites of cauliflower son, there are children in India that are going to bed hungry tonight.” (Chickpeas used to be on this list, but after one serving in 1954, Daddy intelligently outlawed them forever.)

I’d say yes ma’am, but my heart wasn’t in it. I saw no connection whatsoever between hungry little people in India and the last three bites on my plate. However, in retrospect both Mom and I should have been worried more about their water quality.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

I went off to college and discovered the water was ok. But it wasn’t nothing like back home. I learned to drink it out of necessity. I moved to Florida and found the water was absolutely horrible.

I had no idea people lived like this! It was safe, I’m sure. But it wasn’t as clear as real water. It sometimes had an odor and the taste was a bit off. It made me realize all over again how special my upbringing was.

And nobody, regardless of origin, birthright, religious affiliation, or number of likes on Instagram, can afford to take our water for granted anymore.

I found myself in a watery pickle. I couldn’t get a job back home. Those people knew me too well. I couldn’t live on this water. I refused to buy water someone put in a bottle and claimed it was purified, labeled it as dipped out of a mountain stream, or promoted it as being fresh as morning dew….because not one single drop of it was certified by Luther Brewer!

I turned to Diet Cokes to survive. So far, so good….

Refreshingly yours,
Kes