I’ve seen a few memes over the past someamountoftime (my observational bias could have this as a couple of weeks or three years but it feels recent) that state something like “all these kids with their $30 water bottles and I don’t remember drinking water until I was 25”.

Geez. (Jeez? What is this word)

Where I grew up there were bubblers. (Bubblahs if you want that Massachusetts accent) They’re called by other names. Drinking Fountain I believe is most on the nose. Here is a stolen internet graphic.

These fountains used to be a staple of modern life. I remember they were in nearly every hallway, corner, by the bathroom of every indoor  professional building. They were outside in city public areas, parks, the roller rink, whatever. Free clean water everywhere. They even would place multiple, of different, heights to accommodate different  people.

Many had a cooling element to get the temperature just right and from everything I’ve ever read, having separate ones for dark skinned people and light skinned people was the greatest offense of the Jim Crow laws separating public services based on “race”.  I fully understand that of all the horrible things Jim Crow laws were, this is not even close to the worst offender but it’s prominence in my education as a main issue is as  concerning to look back on as people thinking we didn’t drink water when it was so common, you didn’t need to carry a bottle to carry it in.

Oh, this is sort of what they looked like in this other stolen internet photo.

You probably recognize it. They still have them at some stadiums, old public buildings, or at the airport. The modern ones often have a water bottle filling station which helps bridge the cultural divide between generations. The biggest difference between now and when I was young, is there is never a line now, whereas 20 years ago, when a class or movie let out, many people would race to them to avoid the line. “Hey pal, leave some water for the fish” was the most common way of saying “hurry the fuck up, I’m thirsty” back then.

I have no idea how it happened, but it’s obvious with this and tap. We’ve been convinced to stop trusting our public water supply because risk of contamination to find more costly water from plastic bottles that are complete contaminated or by buying very costly home filters. Often while receiving steep water bills to ensure the water getting to our homes and public spaces are clean. It’s a whole environmental thing you could read about for weeks. The better way would be demand clean water everywhere, but that’s going to be tough with politicians also trying to roll back those requirements so businesses can put a half percentage on their margin by dumping toxins back into the rivers or air. Hail capitalism.

We used to drink out of houses too, which has a very toxic taste and mouth feel but is catalogued in my mind as a comfort food and I’ll still partake if thirsty.

I think for a lot of people the act of lapping at a fountain stream of water reminded them of being a dog. With the lines that used to form (always behind the person for the privacy sake of the bent lapping) there was always an awareness of everyone thinking “what a dog this person is being right now. Woof” which probably led to the first person thinking, maybe I’ll bring mine in a bottle next time and derailing the whole fucking project.

This photo I took myself and I’ll leave the stock photo tag to prove it.

Anyways, yes we drank water all the time in the 70s and 80s but we were forced to lap at it, like fucking dogs.