Life in the Great Outdoors

 

Legends of America

A country type blog I follow has the oddest stuff posted, odd and great. See what you think.  

 FDR's outhouse, used by George Washington

Clara’s Auntie May had come down to stay with Clara and her husband for a few days.

“Where’s your loo?” she inquired after she had downed three cups of tea.

“Thur ‘tis,” Clara told her, “down the garden.” Off went Auntie May, and when she came back she looked quite worried.

“Well, that is a dreadful place,” she cried, “and you got no lock on the door neither.”

“We don’t need no lock on thur,” Clara’s husband said, “we bin livin’ yer fer this thirty years and we ent never had a bucket of s*** stolen yet.”

Told by a neighbor to my aunt, and then to me.

Many stories could be told about outhouses. We think of them as purely a rural convenience. But that is not true, outhouses were the only facility available for use. Even the rich and famous were out there. Heck, the walkways along the street had interesting outhouses. Men were the usual occupants.

 

So, there you have it. The world can claim their own type and style of outhouses. It all depends on money, time, and hard digging. Only then can it become elegant or at least stand up in a strong wind and storm.

 

 Tomas Jefferson's design

We are so lucky.

Our own bit of heaven was not a piece of joy.

 

Falling into Bad Company

 

Building Plans available
This example is in much better condition than the one at Grandma's house.

Following Halloween shenanigans, outhouse tipping continued. Every house built in late 1800 era sported an outhouse, a necessity for the pre-plumbing days.  Some were quality, meant to last for many years.  Others were built in haste and their construction showed rickety and rotting wood.  Easy pickings, they were targets of gangs of boys treading through darkness and, with little effort, tipping those over.

My Grandmother Amy lived in one of those old houses and had one of the latter outhouses.  This made her graying and rusting outhouse a frequent subject of the outhouse gang.

Each time Grandma Amy had to phone my father, who then drove through dusky hours to place the structure back over the pit. After almost every night's misadventures, Dad and Grandma devised a plan:  move the outhouse over into wild roses, leaving the pit open under a dark moonless sky.  While they waited in silence and darkness with an occasional smirk and giggle, these monsters approached through with giggles of their own.

Moments later screams and profanity were heard as surprised boys tumbled feet forward into the open pit, a not-too empty pit at that.

Grandma and Dad switched on the porch light, and armed with flashlights, they smiled down on faces of well-known-miscreant teenagers. What the.....get us outta here...damn you...

Grandma armed with a water hose and Dad with a rope managed to pull the three boys out.  A casual stream of water dripped down over the excrement covered boys, leaving a healthy amount of odoriferous matter behind.  Dad directed them to place the outhouse back over the pit, promising to inform the town's mayor about them.

Following the order of penance, grumbling in whispers, the boys settled every outhouse through out town, securing them safely and securely in place.  They even assisted my father in building a new outhouse for my grandma; they also dug a new pit for her outhouse, refilling an old full pit in with soil.

This was a memory that gave Grandma a source of giggles the rest of her life.  God Bless Her.


A few years later, an addition to her house included a toilet and sink.

Amy Lucy (Dolly) Nichols Peck
July 1970

Those who act in haste, repent in leisure...

Building Plans available
This example is in much better condition than the one at Grandma's house.

Following Halloween shenanigans, outhouse tipping continued. Every house built in late 1800 era sported an outhouse, a necessity for the pre-plumbing days.  Some were quality, meant to last for many years.  Others were built in haste and their construction showed rickety and rotting wood.  Easy pickings, they were targets of gangs of boys treading through darkness and, with little effort, tipping those over.

My Grandmother Amy lived in one of those old houses and had one of the latter outhouses.  This made her graying and rusting outhouse a frequent subject of the outhouse gang.

Each time Grandma Amy had to phone my father, who then drove through dusky hours to place the structure back over the pit. After almost every night's misadventures, Dad and Grandma devised a plan:  move the outhouse over into wild roses, leaving the pit open under a dark moonless sky.  While they waited in silence and darkness with an occasional smirk and giggle, these monsters approached through with giggles of their own.

Moments later screams and profanity were heard as surprised boys tumbled feet forward into the open pit, a not-too empty pit at that.

Grandma and Dad switched on the porch light, and armed with flashlights, they smiled down on faces of well-known-miscreant teenagers. What the.....get us outta here...damn you...

Grandma armed with a water hose and Dad with a rope managed to pull the three boys out.  A casual stream of water dripped down over the excrement covered boys, leaving a healthy amount of odoriferous matter behind.  Dad directed them to place the outhouse back over the pit, promising to inform the town's mayor about them.

Following the order of penance, grumbling in whispers, the boys settled every outhouse through out town, securing them safely and securely in place.  They even assisted my father in building a new outhouse for my grandma; they also dug a new pit for her outhouse, refilling an old full pit in with soil.

This was a memory that gave Grandma a source of giggles the rest of her life.  God Bless Her.


A few years later, an addition to her house included a toilet and sink.

Amy Lucy (Dolly) Nichols Peck
July 1970