I love dirty old bars of soap, the ones that have been on the edge of the sink since the dawn of time and are usually hard as a cinder block and just as rough.
They cling to life longer now than just a few years ago because most households have changed to liquid soap in the pump bottles. But those big old bars, be they green pumice soap or softer brown homemade affairs, have my heart.
They are almost always streaked with dark stripes of dirt, grease and whoknows- what else. Often the same muck decorates the outside doorknob of the back porch, because that’s where the dirtyhanded scoundrels gain access to the home.
What is there to love about a dirty doorknob and a grimy bar of soap?
If you grew up in the country or have lived to a certain age and still have that independent mindset, you know why.
It’s because the dirt means someone has been up to something good. Or if not actually good, something that is going to benefit the household.
It means Mom has been out picking up the eggs from the backyard flock or out pulling weeds and beets from the garden. That means there will likely soon be pickled beets and eggs in the refrigerator.
It means Dad or Pops has been out mowing the lawn or changing the oil in the car, fixing the fence or cutting a low hanging limb. It might mean one or both of them have been lighting the grill or undertaking some serious repair work. Maybe it was just a woodworking project, or they were using the forge to smith a knife, a handmade piece of art that will last generations.
If it wasn’t the adults that used the sad old bar of soap last, it was one or more of the kids. Who knows what they did to drag home that much summertime dirt? They might have been out fishing in the ditch or even the river, digging for treasure in the back under the pecan tree or riding bikes or ponies until the sun went down and Mom flipped the porch light.
They could have been rolling in the fresh grass that Pops just mowed or gathering it up to feed a pet turtle they caught under the edge of the wood pile yesterday. Maybe they were scaling the chinaberry tree to pick the hard green fruit for use as ammunition in a slingshot.
But the dirty bar of soap tells all. It reminds us summer is here with all its hard work and simple pleasures. It guides our memories back to a time past, when coming in the backdoor and washing off the first level of grime from a day’s work at a physical job was standard. It reminds us of when daddy came home and left work behind so he could focus on home life. It tells of the days when grandma picked berries in the morning and baked them into pie in the afternoon to set on the table with supper.
Yes, a dirty old bar of soap can remind us of all that, tell us those stories, if we just take the time to listen.