No sincere and competent tour guide of our area would fail to point out the wonder of the used tub yard west of Oxford. Dozens of long used, ultimately discarded pieces of iron and porcelain, some standing on claw feet, many with their sloping backs sluicing water through to unplugged drain holes. Not many look very modern or high fashion, more likely having come from a hardware store than a fashion furniture boutique.
Once set in place in a bathroom, the bathtub becomes invisible -- except when there is a ring around its side. Recognizing its significance in our homes, perhaps a moment of tub reflection is in order, though organizing thoughts about this versatile fixture is difficult.
One approach might be a consideration of its users. Would not a photo album of all the users who had stepped into it in its lifetime be of interest? There would be beauty and there would be gross ugliness, tall folks who had to bend their knees to fit in and short folks whose legs wouldn't reach to the other end. And there would be racial and ethnic diversity; after all, most cultures tout cleanliness. Children would be carefully lowered into the tub, and elders would carefully step in until they couldn't make it at all. Before that time, some kind of handrail would be clamped to the side.
As with the picture records of bathers is of note, so too are the disparate uses to which the humble tub submitted. The most frequent and predictable is that people added water, got in, and cleaned themselves. A usual commodity in bathing is soap. Over a decade or more, just how many bars of soap would be handled in a family tub? How big a pile would those bars make in an empty tub?
One note about baths may be useful. Not everyone likes hot baths. Times and activities at times prescribe cooler water, and in early times saved the necessity of firing up a stove and heating water to be poured into the tub. Though a hot bath may not leave one in a near swoon as a hot spa does, it often results in a sense of well being, not far from euphoria. Not all of us simply get in and wash, preferring instead to pour various salts and other things in to make the water smell better or be more medicinal.
Bathing is easily the most common use of tubs, but it is by no means the only use. Inone peculiar sense, a bathtub may be a life capsule.
Romance finds its way into tubs, sometimes resulting in babies. In time, those tub babies grow in those same claw-footed necessaries.
And finally, somebody's life may end there, either by the hand of an evil individual or the person's own hand. Then another sort of cleansing is in order to prepare the place for the next bather. There being none, maybe the tub gets hauled out to the tub yard.