splish splash

 On this day in 1933 Prohibition was repealed, so it is, fittingly, National Repeal Day.  It's also Bathtub Party Day.  Now I have given a number of parties in my life, for birthdays, New Years Eve, Halloween, the usual, but I have never hosted, or even been invited to, a Bathtub Party. I'm not even sure what a Bathtub Party would be like. Would you and a few of your closest friends be standing around in your tub, drinking (bathtub gin?) and singing (because singing always sounds better in the tub)?  Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember one Bathtub Party.  I was five years old and my parents were entertaining our pastor and his wife and daughter.  Little Holly Heiny and I hit it off right away and had a great time playing together after dinner while the grown-ups talked.  In our roaming around the house we discovered that there was an inch of water in the bathtub.  I don't know why the water hadn't drained or why we decided that splashing in it would be great fun.  We took our shoes off, but, for some reason, left our socks on, then got in the tub and splashed and splashed and splashed.  Evidently we were a little noisy because before very long my father came in to see what we were up to.  He was not amused.  Scenes of slips and falls, concussions and law suits probably flashed through his mind. He lifted me out of that tub, zippy quick, gave me one quick swat on the bottom (the only time in my life he ever spanked me - no doubt that's why I remember it) and sent me off to tell my mother what I'd been up to.  It gets blurry after that but I'm pretty sure I was sent right to bed and Holly's parents took her home.  I'm glad that when, as a grown up, I entertained our pastor and his wife at our house, things went much better, except for our dog chewing a big hole in the pastor's wife's sweater.  But that's a story for another day.