2011 Student Writing Awards Booklet - Santa Fe Community College

Personal Essay
Honorable Mention
Barbara Robidoux
The Bath Tub in Heaven
The old claw foot cast iron enamel bathtub rested in the same spot for
fifty years. Aunt Mary was the first to try out the tub as soon as inside
plumbing was hooked up to city water in my grandfather’s house. After
that, every Saturday night we all knew Mary was soaking in “heaven” as
she called it. She said it was her reward after working hard all week.
The bathroom was a very small room at the back of the house and the
tub took up three quarters of the space. Mary made the room cozy with
printed wallpaper of clouds and angels. She placed plastic flowers is vases
around the room, even roses on the back of the commode. The tub was
planted there in the midst of heavenly glory. Even the rumbling of the
Boston/Maine passenger train which passed by very close to the house
twice a day couldn’t move that tub. The water might slosh a little but the
tub itself held its ground. We were all accustomed to the house shaking
and the noise of the train over the years became a part of our lives. The
passing of the train was a time keeper we could count on.
Aunt Mary was the fifth born of eleven children. We all lived in my
grandfather’s house at one time or another. The story goes that he won
the house in a card game during the Great Depression. An Italian immigrant
with eleven kids in the 1930’s, he needed a stroke of luck to survive.
Today the house still stands on “Goat Hill” in that small coastal town of
Beverly, Massachusetts.
Mary always dyed her hair black, black and she wore red lipstick red as
sweet marinara sauce. For years she worked as a barmaid at the Anchor, a
local fisherman’s bar at the bottom of the hill. But eventually she got fed up
with the drunken patrons and took a job in a shoe factory down by the
river. It was only a short walk from our house on Goat hill to her work at
the United Shoe Factory. The money wasn’t as good as she made at the
Anchor but Aunt Mary soon established a side business of her own. She had
a head for numbers and it was only natural that she be a bookie on the side.
Friends, family and co-workers were her best customers. They knew
they could trust Mary. In thirty years of bookmaking, she never wrote
down a number. She kept every number in her head. Horse races, sports
games, whatever, the bets were safe with Aunt Mary.
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