Saw a diaper advertisement recently for children that have issues with bed wetting. That brought to mind that an incident that happened long ago in a place far away.
When I was a kid, my folks would send me to my grandparents place each summer for a few weeks. It was great. They lived on a lake up in Northern Michigan. So spent plenty of time on the small beach, greasing around in the woods and fishing. Of course the best part was spending time with my grandparents. My Grandfather spent most of the time sitting in his big leather chair, chewing on a cigar and reading Louis L'Amour books until he conked out with his Dobermans sleeping at his feet. Of course he didn't sleep all the time and when he was awake he was full of stories of the old days. He worked for Chrysler Engineering as a driver so he had all kinds of tales about driving up to Hudson Bay with Polar Bears for cold weather work or Arizona for the hot stuff. Gramps was a 32nd degree Mason and I guess that kind of endeared him to Walt Chrysler who was also a Mason. As such Chrysler picked Gramps as a chauffeur - not some something that Gramps wanted to do as he was more interested
in engineering but one did not reject the bossman out of hand during the Depression. They struck up a deal where my Grandfather would do it for one year. During his work he got to observe some interesting people - some of the Fords, Howard Hughes, Louis Chevrolet [I wish I would have asked him more questions but one can't go back]. He sure knew what he was doing behind the wheel of a car. He had a Plymouth Scamp with the 318 in it and drove everywhere at something just under light speed. I took every opportunity to ride along with him in the Scamp rocket. Vrooom!!!! Whee!!!! He also volunteered as Chief of Police for a small town outside of Detroit - well his salary was $1 a year. They had a telephone mounted in a tree in the backyard to reduce the chance of missing a call. It was a quiet place obviously but he had a few good law enforcement tales as well.
My Grandmother? Well.... The best way to put it was that she was a trip. Just wide open. 100% of the time. Great looking lady, even into her 80's. With her appearance and fun personality she could maybe have made a splash in old Hollywood perhaps. I spent hours and hours fishing with her and loved every minute of it.
I know the above doesn't obviously tie into bed wetting but just wait. We are getting there. One summer when I was a real little dude - maybe five or six, I got shipped off the Grandparent's place. Also going along would be my cousin Dave whom is a couple of years older then me. Then as now, Dave had a bit of weisenheimer in him. Apparently he also was having some bed wetting issues as well. I guess my Aunt and Uncle took him to the Doctor whom inspected everything and pronounced his piss pouch 100% A-Ok. They then took him to a head shrinker whom found no malfunctions with his Id. With a clean bill of health in body and mind the bed wetting was a real mystery. No matter - ship him Up North and will be well.
Expect it wasn't. First night we are up there and in early morning hours a shout rings out "Gramma!!! I'm wet!" in the most assholeynish [is that word?] tone possible. Hell hath no fury like an old German lady awakened in the still of the night to deal with piss. She jerked Dave out of the house, stripped him naked and hosed him down. Then she grabbed one of those old style straw brooms, set it on fire and put it like six inches from Dave's nose. "If you ever wet another bed again, I will burn your ass!".
There were no more bed wetting incidents during our stay there. I don't know about when he got home but at least up at the Grandparents a miracle cure was found. No clucking commiserations,
no warm, dry, fresh Pee-Jays. Just a drenching in cold well water out in the yard and the 100% guarantee of a seared rump roast if it happened again.
