Pushing limits of relationships

Ive been a reporter since 1988 and have covered a lot of criminal cases, written about hundreds, maybe thousands of people and have never failed to be amazed at human behavior. Is there anything people wont do to each other, given enough provocation or meanness?

In court the other day, one of the dozens of attorneys I come into contact with every week shared a story with us after a hearing. It seems there is an elderly man with plenty of money but who refused to install indoor plumbing in the house he shared with his wife of many decades.

Actually, a septic tank or connection to a sewer system is required for a house to have indoor plumbing and the man refused to have hole dug and a tank installed so they could have a toilet and the rest of the works.

This revelation led to a discussion about how and why someone could be so thrifty, nay, cheap. He allowed a water line to be put in on the property but only to the back porch. This meant his long-suffering wife had to collect water there and bring it into the house. In the 21st century?

We all wondered why a husband wouldnt allow his wife to have hot and cold running water and a toilet. Someone said maybe hed gotten so used to not having plumbing that he was satisfied with the way things were. You dont miss what you never had, right? Of course, we all commiserated with his wife, knowing everything she had to do to live 50 years or more without indoor plumbing.

We made jokes about them having to use an outhouse, or even a chamber pot on cold nights, and wondered how long it took to heat enough water to take a bath. How did she wash clothes? When I was a kid and our washer broke, my mom would wash clothes in the bathtub in a pinch. Ive helped her. Its danged hard.

The attorney kept returning to his primary point and that is the guy had money and could afford to put in a toilet and faucets.

The topic then turned to domestic issues in general and how men and women treat each other in relationships. When I worked in Carrollton, I wrote about an angry woman who boiled up a pot of rice and pigs feet, woke up her boyfriend with whom shed been arguing and threw the contents on his upper body as he sat up in bed. He survived but was burned. She was arrested and charged.

I was in court some months later when her case came up before Judge Aubrey Duffey. If I hadnt seen it for myself, I wouldnt have believed that the man stood with her and begged the judge to not send her to jail.

I love her and were going to get married, the man said. It was all my fault.

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Pushing limits of relationships