Page 57 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

We finally got the hole drilled to a depth of about 100 feet, and it was obvious that we had gotten into a
good pool of underground water.

Then Mr. Bradley put down a larger type pipe which was known as well casing, and then he threaded a
smaller pipe through the well casing down well below the surface of the underground pool we had
reached, and attached a motor and pump to the upper end of that pipe, and it would suck the water up
and out onto the ground. The pump was operated by a motor which was driven by electricity, and Mr.
Bradley installed the pipe into a pressure tank, and my daddy ran the water lines from there on into the
house and out into the barns, and out to the trough where we watered the mules, and a pipe to pipe water
to the cattle when they came to the house in dry weather looking for a drink.

If you have never been without water, you cannot possibly realize what a tremendous blessing that
running water is. It changed our whole life-style, not the least of which changes was doing away with
the two-hole outdoor privy, or outhouse, which we had enjoyed for all those years, as it gave us good
opportunities to examine old Sears Roebuck Catalogs.

With the bathroom inside the house, we just finally let the termites eat up the outhouse.

Perhaps that was not all bad. My daddy had planted a peach tree not too far from that old privy and it
grew to a tremendous size and was loaded with great big sweet peaches every year. It did not occur to us
at that time that the proximity of the tree to the outdoor privy might have had some relationship to the
fact that it bore fruit so plentiful. Notwithstanding that as I recall those peaches were so good that I
would have eaten them, no matter where they came from.

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