Did you wash your hands?

Every magazine and newspaper lately has carried an article on the best way to prevent catching the flu. In addition to eating healthy foods, exercising and getting enough rest, each message says to wash your hands often.

That seems simple enough. We have all been taught to wash our hands since we were small children.

During the summers when I was small our parents encouraged us to wash our hands at an outside faucet that had a concrete basin under it. This kept the water mess out of the house, where the kitchen sink was the other alternative for hand washing.

Most of our summer-time friends did not have running water so they often washed up at the pump during warm weather. However each home would have a drinking bucket with a dipper floating in it. If there was any water left in the dipper after someone took a drink, it usually was poured into a washpan that sat beside the bucket. This water was used to wash hands until it got dirty enough to pour in a larger bucket nearby for the "pig slop."

I don't remember being told how to wash my hands. We just got them wet; rubbed them together and then maybe dried them on a towel if there was one nearby.

In the winters when we were in Washington, D.C., we either washed our hands at the kitchen sink or upstairs in the one bathroom that served our family of 10. Again, I don't remember any instructions. We were to make them look clean, and avoid making too much of a mess.

In our early marriage years our well went dry during the droughts in the '50s. Our hand washing reverted to the days of our youth except we did have a drain from the bathroom basin. But we had a bottle of water by the basin to sparingly pour over our hands for washing.

When I was director of the Neighbors Center, our workers took a course on how to care for those with infirmities or age. I took the course along with the workers so that I would be able to understand the needs. One of the questions the Nurse Educator asked me was, "Do you know how to wash your hands?" I thought she was kidding. Not so. She had me demonstrate, without any water, the motions I would use.

I failed. I didn't wash in between my fingers. I didn't pay attention to the ends of my fingers and the fingernails. And I didn't keep at it long enough.

Since then I have heard that you should wash your hands as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday to You" two times. If you notice in public restrooms it is a rare person that keeps at it that long.

Then there is the matter of soap. The articles stress that soap should be used each time and lathered up on your hands. No more sticking your hands under a running faucet and saying you have washed your hands.

I'll have to admit that even though I now have been trained and have read several articles on the subject, I still often skip the soap. After all I was just here at home and wasn't doing anything very dirty. But they tell us we are not after the dirt we can see as much as the dirt we can't see germs! I wonder how our generation ever lived to a healthy old age. We didn't know how to wash our hands. We used common drinking cups. But we did survive, or most of us anyway. Maybe we should still get a flu shot, however.