geographic

The houses we grew up in only had one bathroom, so Grandad's house seemed rather luxurious because it had one and a half bathrooms. Downstairs there was a small tiled bathroom with only a toilet and a sink. Its hue was sort of brownish orange, and during the summer days when we stayed at Grandad's, that little bathroom seemed to have a special coolness. Perhaps it was because of the tile and the porcelain which was cool to the touch even on a hot summer day.

Downstairs Bathroom

It was a comfortable place, and there was a little rack of magazines to peruse while sitting on the toilet. For a while, there were some very old National Geographic magazines in the rack, so it made the space seem like it was a bit disjoint, out of time, and out of space. One could shut the door and be transported to a summer day in the late thirties and read about the danger clouds looming in Europe and the new hundred mile an hour streamlined train engines thundering across the American prairie. The little room also had the ground floor opening of the laundry chute, which was a wonderful thing to us. Then when done with the article, it was time the flush the toilet, wash the hands and return to Wisconsin in the early eighties.