A Quote by Tom Dreesen

We were so poor we had no hot water. But it didn't matter because we had no bathtub to put it in anyway. — © Tom Dreesen
We were so poor we had no hot water. But it didn't matter because we had no bathtub to put it in anyway.
We were so poor as kids. I didn't even see a bathtub, running water, hot water, commode - we didn't have any of that. We started with a humble log house, milk cow, garden-raised our own food, killed a hog every year in the fall, and had the meat hanging up in the smokehouse - that was our childhood, me and ol' Si.
"Our first conversation was on the phone. I was in the bathtub, and I had to tell him that I was in the bathtub because I was afraid he would think I was, like, playing in the toilet when he heard water swishing around. [...] Then we had breakfast in Santa Monica, and I spit egg inside of his mouth when I was talking.
We didn't have running water. We had to get water from wells, and there was a stint where I lived with my grandma where we had to get water, bring it over to the house. You had to boil the water because you never knew what parasites were in the water.
Once I showed up at my sister's with a baby rabbit I had bought from some children because its ears were cold. I put the rabbit on a hot water bottle and massaged its ears for quite a while. After all, I knew that all healthy animals had warm ears.
I had such a horrible childhood. My father was already married with three children when I was born and my mother didn't know. So we grew up poor. We had no hot water until I was 17. I went to work in a factory, and worked and saved for months until I had the money to come to England.
I had three toy buckets, and I would put hot water in them because we weren't allowed to sit in the jacuzzi - we weren't old enough - so I would charge people $1, and everyone would line up, and everyone would sit in this disgusting hot water-sand-filled thing, and I would get $1 and go to the snack bar and get an Oreo.
Being in a bathtub with Jackie Chan, I don't know, it has a way of bonding you I'll tell you that. I don't know if there are some weird undertones. It was like we had met in Los Angeles and we didn't have that much to say to each other but, after that bathtub scene, we were great friends.
I’d heard about the Baptists from Jacob Henry’s mother. According to her, Baptists were a strange lot. They put you in water to see how holy you were. Then they ducked you under the water three times. Didn’t matter a whit if you could swim or no. If you didn’t come up, you got dead and your mortal soul went to Hell. But if you did come up, it was even worse. You had to be a Baptist.
We did the opening tailgate party - I'm not a big football person - and it started to rain. I was a little sick and went back to the hotel where we were all staying. We didn't know whether Prince was going to go on or not because the rain got so bad. He had already prerecorded it just in case he couldn't go on. So I'm sitting there wrapped in blankets, with a hot water bottle and hot tea, and he goes on and it's the most magical thing I have ever seen.
We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.
I had a friend at college who took being poor very personally. He started showering in the sports centre next door and said he wasn't going to pay for the hot water in our flat any more because he didn't use it. He made me and my other friend pay the bills on our own.
I was homeless for about 8 months, I refused to live with my dad or anyone for that matter. So I stayed somewhere that had no hot water, ever, no heat, I told myself I have to be strong and get through it on my own.
Here's a history lesson: when men took power of their lands, all of a sudden, women became a prize. In order for us to be protected, we had to make sure that we had our partner on our side. We were put in a position where our vulnerability was a life and death scenario. And we were taken advantage of, and we were put in a certain place that we had never been put in before.
My family supported me. I wasn't hot-housed at all as a young child; I didn't go to any kind of gifted school. They didn't exist in the very poor parts of England when I grew up in the 1980s. I had a great time to learn, had access to libraries and teachers who were patient and enthusiastic when I showed ability in some subjects.
There were times when we didn't have hot water or a phone line. But I guarantee you, we always had cable, and it was always on.
When we were growing up, we were so poor that our heritage was the only thing we had. Mama would say, 'Kids, pour more water in the soup. Better days are coming.'
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!