When I was in first grade, we lived at Clinton Sherman Air Force Base in Oklahoma.  It was home to squadrons of B-52 Stratofortresses that were sent on daily missions to Moscow, apparently, according to "Fail Safe" only to be called back at the last minute every time.  Yes, really.  They ran the jet engines all night for maintenance and flew them off early every morning, one after another until all the Dads on the base were away.

Our house was on Sioux Trail, just inside the compound fence that abutted lonely State Road 44, directly across from the Black Eagle restaurant.  The only traffic on the road was on Sunday when everyone from the base went to Clinton to go to church and to the cafeteria, might have been Luby's, for lunch. Will Rogers Elementary, where I attended first grade was about a quarter mile from the house.  Middle was not in school yet, and Youngest had not been born.

Sioux Trail was a fun place to be a child.  Michael M., my best friend, was in the house directly across the street (base housing, every house looked exactly the same).  Because it was a different time, and probably a little because we lived in a fenced compound constantly under the watchful eye of the Air Police who monitored every move lest someone try to take pictures of the Stratofortresses, we wandered from sunup to sundown unsupervised all summer long in our cargo shorts and flip flops.  What did we do? Who knows, but at least some of it involved gathering specimens of the local wild life. In fact, once when Grandmother and Big Daddy visited, Grandmother was shocked to find a horny toad in a box and live grasshoppers in a jar in my sock drawer, part of my summer collection. "Mom lets me keep 'um there. Yeah, she does."  In the fall, we biked to school with our Roy Rogers lunch boxes with three sandwiches, a bag of chips, an apple or bannana and . . . Hostess Cupcakes, two please. 

Once I remember tent-camping in Michael's back yard when my parents were out late.  After the requisite amount of marshmellow roastin' and firefly chasin', his mother called us in to, of all things TAKE BATHS. 

First of all, whoever heard of outdoor tent-dwellers coming indoors to take baths.  "We NEED to stay outside for the full camping experience."  She rejected that argument in a heartbeat.

Well, "we're going right back outside, so its a wasted bath, Lordy Mercy."  Yeah, I tried invoking efficiency with a reference to diety, and even that wasn't more persuasive.  Maybe they were Unitarian, I don't know.

Michael offered that we could just as easily hose ourselves down outside and be done with it, but she wasn't having that at all, and something about his half-hearted tone convinced me he had been through this without success before.  "Save yourself" he seemed to say.

I suggested that while Michael might be in need of a bath, I, in fact, had taken a long shower that very morning and even washed my hair "with soap!" (that might have almost worked, but Michael and I had been digging up stuff, and so my fingernails belied that idea even though it was actually true).  

So, in spite of my pointing out all those indisputable facts in the most reasonable and respectful way, Michael's mother remained unmoved and unsympathetic:  "Your mother said for us to treat you like one of our own, and WE take baths every night in this house."  Ahh, I recognized another point to make, "we aren't in the house, we're in the back yard."  Wham, she volleyed that one away like Jimmy Connors with a backhand swat. 

Well, that was all there was to it.  Clearly, direct opposition was not the best approach, but I couldn't fold.  I mean, I just couldn't imagine getting "neked" in the first place, but certainly, NOT at someone else's house.

Luckily, Michael went first giving me time to paw the ground, clean the marshmellow mess, and generally piddle around outside hoping she'd forget and we'd be back to camping fun. 

No such luck. 

When she came out again to retrieve me for my ablutions, I couldn't even convince her that "my bike tire is leaking badly, so I need to stay outside and pump it up."  She simply insisted, "Come in." And she punctuated her command with "now," sweetened with a promise that, "If you come in now, we'll have ice cream."  Yeah, she used the ole, Rocky Road surprise ploy. 

As I hesitantly entered the kichen eyes darting left and right sensing a little danger but fully hoping to be handed  a frosty bowl brimming with a smooth and yet crunchy frozen dessert, she added "after you TAKE A BATH," and slammed the back door.  Surprise! 

Well, you can see, my hemming and hawing and doddling and foot dragging did nothing more than delay the inevitable.  She had me right where she wanted me:  in the house, less than a grasshopper leap from the tub.  She was ready.  The water was drawn!  Towels were laid out.  Soap and shampoo at the ready.  I was trapped.  Cornered.  Penned like a steer in the corral chute.

With no attempt to conceal her triumph, she led me to the bathroom door, shooed me in and said, "hop in the tub."  Then, in a moment of welcomed discretion, she shut the door from the outside.  I was alone.

I immediately noticed that the window was too high and too small to crawl out.  I remembered that there was a rose bush under it anyway so escape that way was not possible. 

"Are you in the tub yet" she called from the hallway. 

"Nah, I can't get my shoe off, its tied in a knot." 

"I'll come in and untie it." 

"NOOOOOO.  I can do it!"

Obviously,  the delay tactic had worn thin, and she was in the power seat, so I knucked under, sort of.  

I spashed around in the tub a little, and even made some scrubbing noises. Eventually, I forgot my rebellion and was generally having a grand old time afterall peppering little toy boats with the rubber balls trying to sink them.

Suddenly, SHE came in with all those Aunt Polly-type questions and running comments like: "What's all that noise," "You're getting water on the floor," and "It's time to get out." 

Needless to say, I was mortified. 

Someone else's mother had just walked into that most private of all places. The bathroom. And, there I was, in the tub, no bubbles, towels all hanging on the rack waaaaay across the room. 

So, I did the only thing a self-respecting 5 year old could do when told to "get out of the tub."

I stood and reached for a towel.  She shreeked.

"What are you doing in the tub in all your clothes?"

"You said get in that tub, now!" 

Honestly, she hadn't said anything about taking my clothes off first, and dang it, I wasn't about to get "neked" in someone else's bathroom.  No way.  No how.  I assumed everyone knew that.  And someone was going to wash my clothes any how, and I'd just done that too.

Well, to bring all this to a happy conclusion, let me just say that I did bring my Captain Kangaroo pajamas, so I grabbed a towel, dried off, and put them on. While she hung my jeans and shirt out to dry, me 'n Michael went outside and ate ice cream and told stories until we fell asleep in the tent.