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THE OLD WATER WELL

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Two years ago I went back to the old home place where I grew up.  I sat down on the sparse remnants of a concrete water well and cried.

Only one wall remained of what I once called home. The house was in ruins and the well house was the only thing that remained intact.  

The concrete housing I sat on, and electric water pump replaced the hand pump we used when I was a small child. The old hand dug well that mama and daddy labored so hard to dig was the source for the cool spring like tasting water.

They dug the first well when they first moved to the sandy Grant Co, OK farm in 1934. I was only three years old.

It was repaired a few times, and dug wider and deeper in the process.  

One story is hilarious that was told of the digging.

Mama and Daddy took turns digging the well. It was a tiring and hot job, Mama only wore a loose fitting cotton dress when it was her turn to dig, since they lived in a remote place she was comfortable in thinking no one would see ever her.

They used a bucket with a rope tied to it to raise and lower for the dirt removal. The deeper they dug the more they had to use a pick ax.

One day, on the load up, mama was at the shovel, daddy pulled on the rope and it did not move, so he gave it a hard yank.  Somehow the bucket caught mama's loose fitting dress and literally stripped her naked, bringing the dress up with the dirt bucket. She really fussed at daddy for a bit, he saw the humor of the situation and burst out laughing, Mama was not too happy about what he considered funny.

Suddenly he became quiet and said "Hello Harry when did you get here ?"  Mama panicked for several moments until daddy told her Harry was not there and he was kidding. It took her a few days before she saw the humor.

This story has been told many times and I still laugh whenever I hear it.