Everybody who grew up in Manassa has heard outhouse stories. We were well acquainted with outhouses as more than two of the homes we lived in in Manassa had no indoor plumbing at one time.
There's many a story of a Halloween prank of tipping outhouses. There was a time that one was tipped over on the door and there was someone inside. Luckily for the pranksters, it was tipped over on the door. The big, wide shouldered man could not get out through the hole in the seat quickly enough to get ahold of them. There's another story of a family that was tired of their outhouse being tipped over each year. They moved the outhouse back about three feet, and a group of would be outhouse tippers became involuntary drop ins. I am not sure at this time of my life which were yarns and which were dramatically enhanced retelling of historically based incidents.
I remember the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The pages were a lot rougher than the soft toilet paper that replaced the catalogs when we began using the porcelain pot in the house. It was also nice to get rid of the canopy under the bed when we finally got indoor plumbing in the house on 3rd street. The outhouse became the shed for the garden tools.
I found this interesting outhouse Web site that shows the wide variety of outhouses.
The most intriguing to me is the two story outhouse. I've often wondered what happens to those on the lower floor when the upper floor is in use.Bonnie some years ago created a ceramic likeness of our outhouse in back yard and the moon, the dog, Mom, and Dad. I enjoyed it for a lot of years. It now hangs in Andrea's home. Maybe we can talk her into taking a snapshot of it to share. I thought Bonnie succeeded in capturing the essentials of successful outhouse use in a few pieces of clay.
This portion posted by Andrea:
This is part of the ceramic creation that Bonnie made and I have hanging in my bathroom. Unfortunately, shortly after this picture was taken G'pa perished by way of vibration from my new bathroom cabinet. He fell off the wall and landed, all of him, in the bathtub in about 100 pieces. :*-(
5 comments:
The outhouse and its parts are on my blogg. Unfortunately, grandpa has perished. :*-(
I had my bathroom redone back in April, and adjusted the setting of the outhouse and G'ma and G'pa and the moon. A little voice in my head told me that I needed to secure G'pa better on the wall and not even two seconds later when I shut the cabinet door under the sink, grandpa crashed into the bathtub. I cried.
I'll attach the picture just above this post!
I remember a little joke you used to tell. You would take a piece of wetted cloth and hold it carefully in your palm with two fingers and then execute the actions of walking with the other two fingers immitating a person going up the hill to the outhouse. Upon arriving at the outhouse you discover it is busy. Down the hill. Wait. Up the hill and it is still busy. Down the hill and wait. Up the hill. OOPS, too late. and you would squeeze the cloth and leave a little puddle on the hill.
I had forgotten that one. I'll have to try it on Betty before she reads this on the blog.
Andrea, remember that G-pa was just a piece of ceramics. I'll keep my eye open and perhaps we can replace it. If not, you have the picture and your memory. The memory that ties us back to our family is the important part.
Betty fell for it hook, line, and sinker! I had forgotten how fun that can be!!
I can see the laugher in my mind's eye!
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