Lessons from My Dad: Hand Washing

My father taught me to wash my hands. I spent my formative years living on a farm in northeast Nebraska in the late 1940s and 1950s. If you’ve never seen or smelled farmers in from cultivating or planting or feeding cattle or harvesting, then you need to know, they are often covered in dust and grime of all sorts and they smell like sweat and hay and maybe grease or manure, and there's also an aroma, or aura, of the outdoors.

Dad’s washing routine sticks in my mind. At the Stanton farm, we had a basement with an outdoor entrance and a mud sink. Dad would trot down the steps, doff his coveralls and boots, and roll up his sleeves. Then he would bend over the sink, turn on the water and grab a bar of soap. He would lather his hands until soap bubbles dripped from them, then he would hold them under the running water and rub them together, fronts and backs in a swiping, rotating motion, and scrub his arms up to his elbows. Next he would cup his hands under the flowing water and splash it on his face, washing off the dust from his face and ears and neck. Then he would straightened up, grab a towel and dry his face and neck, swipe the towel through his hair, and dry his hands and arms. Now he was presentable for the table. I learned my hand washing techniques from him.

He also taught me to wash my hands and face first thing in the morning. He would say, “Wash the sandman out of your eyes.” The Sandman came to visit us in the night, you see. We knew because he left sand deposits in the corners of our eyes. So my morning bathroom routine, after relieving myself, has forever been to wash my hands and splash water on my face, Dad's method.

For many years, I thought everyone did that. Children often think what happens in their own homes is the way everyone does it. We learn later from visiting friends that not everyone does the same as we do.

Imagine my surprise a few years ago, while traveling, when I began seeing signs in restaurant and gas station restrooms with instructions on how to wash hands. Don’t people know that? I wondered. I guess not.

Now in this COVID19 crisis, we are given detailed instructions on how to wash our hands. I look at those instructions and think, thank you, Dad.

Dad with three of us children on the farm, Winside, NE, summer 1947.

Dad with pigs on the Winside farm, 1947.

Dad with his cattle on the Stanton, NE farm, about 1955.