Canopy

Just returned from visiting my father in North Little Rock. As usual, he regales us with tales of yesteryear. Don't know how we got on the subject, but he was telling about how they used to have street dances. He wasn't into dancing with the girls, but the guys used to stand around on a street corner and dance. Can't imagine what kind of moves they might have tried. Then he got onto rich girls and poor girls. He said the way you can tell them apart is by figuring out what kind of canopy they have. At first, I was puzzled, but then he explained, "A rich girl has a canopy over the bed and a poor girl has a can-o-pee under the bed." For the uninitiated, the can under the bed was called a chamber pot (by the refined) and a "slop jar" by poor folks. Just so you know, I used to use one of the confounded things. Granny (who raised me) made me kneel down by the pot and do my business every night before crawling in bed. Then, should you need to go in the night, you just rolled out of bed onto your knees, extracted the pot and bingo! Caveat #1: Always slide the pot UNDER the bed. Not a pretty picture if you tip it over in the night. Oh yes, your first chore in the morning was to empty said pot.

P.S. There used to be a corny poem about this subject. Can't remember the words exactly but it was something like: "When I was just a wee wee tot, Before I crawled up in my cot, Mom made me pee whether I could or not, My Mother." Maybe someone will remember the words. cmmjr