Showers & Texas Water Towers

I think most people don't give much thought about their shower arrangements -- I'm not talking baby showers or wedding showers. I'm talking about water from a shower head.


I started paying more attention to such things when I had the privilege taken away from me. No, I didn't do anything wrong. My mother wasn't mad at me and I wasn't in Brandy's dog house -- if there is such a thing.

When I was a missionary in the West Indies, I lived on the island of Antigua for six months.

Trust me, I didn't see this side of the island very much.

Anyway, unlike other islands in the Caribbean chain, Antigua did not have soaring mountain peaks that pulled down the rain. Fresh water was scarce. In fact, we had to rise early in the morning to fill our gallon jugs for the hour that water service was available.

We couldn't even get our water from inside our second story apartment. The water pressure wasn't strong enough. We had to go downstairs and fill up all 30 of our milk jugs every morning or else we couldn't shower, cook, wash dishes or flush toilets (We had five gallon buckets for the toilet tanks).

I share all this because it was in Antigua that I learned to take three gallon showers.

I also learned that the water was much warmer if you put your three gallons up on a high shelf for 24 hours. Heat rises. We didn't have air conditioning and kept our windows open all day long.

I took cold showers for eight months straight when I lived in Grenada. After a while it wasn't so bad. The shower in our small house was crudely made of concrete and painted red and the shower head was really just a spigot that was angled above your head.

I actually had a view like this for two months while living in Grenada.

When I was a college student at BYU I remember letting the water warm up for what seemed like a long time -- 10 to 20 seconds. I swear the tap water there was snow melt. I never had to put ice in my water in Provo. It came out so cold, I didn't need it.

One time we filled a small pool up for Paul Ivan and even though it was the middle of summer he couldn't swim because it was too FRIGID. On another hot July afternoon we visited a park and walked over a bridge like this one below that spanned the Provo River.



I remember being surprised at how the rushing water below made the air above it so cool. Natural air conditioning.

Well, in Texas there are water towers that dutifully hold water for residents. These towers are all over the state. If you aren't Texan and need proof, click here.

Each summer here I am reminded of the shower conditions in other places where I have lived. One of the things I like about Texas in the summertime is that if you let the cold water run a little bit it turns warm because it has been baking in a tower all day.

I imagine it might be different for people who live near very large water towers or in more populated regions, but that's the way it is here in Lorena. I like to think that it was Grenada that prepared me for no heat showers during summertime in Texas .

One thing is for sure, though. I sure use a lot more ice cubes in Lorena than I did in Provo.