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The Outhouse

Sat, 20 Aug 2016, 04:31 PM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

1. Getting Things Wrong

“You got a few things wrong in that story about the white table,” my mother said.

“I kinda expected that,” I said. The truth of the matter is that I figured that’s the way “oral” history goes, so I told it as best I could.

“But don’t be timid mom,” I added. “Send corrections.”

I could hear her smile. “You know me… I don’t have that problem.” 

Yes, mom, you don’t have that problem — a trait you in fact handed down to your eldest son.

“Are you going to tell stories for the rest of those pictures?” she asked.

Well now. There’s a thought. Of course, there were a dozen pictures. That’s quite a project, and any of us might grow tired before the stories end. Yet…

2. Not A Cabin

So consider this picture from among those:

I actually had it open on my desktop at work the other day. It was late on Friday. The office was mostly empty. And my boss’s boss wandered by and looked over my shoulder.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he smiled and said, “A shed.” 

I looked at the picture. Then at him. Then back at the picture.

“Actually, an outhouse,” I said.

“Oh,” he replied politely.

3. A Story About It

Let me tell you, dear reader, a story about that outhouse…

To start with, you should know that the western side of the lower peninsula of Michigan is sand. I mean it; it’s all sand. (The glaciers did it.) The forests, the orchards, the berry farms, the asparagus fields and all the lakes, swamps and bogs are just decoration on top of pure sand. (For example, see this.) As a consequence, digging holes up there is a breeze compared to, say, digging in the black gunk and white caliche and limestone down here in Central Texas. 

Now, my family likes to dig. We like to dig in general, but holes in particular. Partly, I suppose that’s because a hole is to dig, as Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak tell us. But we also dig because there are things that need digging in order to get done… like outhouses.

So what you see in this picture, is our outhouse. And there ever has only been one: the very same structure with the very same seats (yes, two differently-sized seats, side-by-side) and the very same door that has adorned this corner of the woods, behind our cottage for generations. But although it’s been the same outhouse, from time to time, we have had to move it. To a different place. To a different hole. Because… you know.

As I recollect it, when we were young, my cousin and brother and I dug a hole that was almost over our heads. Then followed many years of frequent gatherings of many people in that place. And some time when I was in graduate school, my cousin and brother dug another hole in the sand (because… well you know). I heard the story of how that hole they dug was the deepest that had ever been, the stuff of legend.

And then years came and went. Another generation was born, and they grew up, and then one summer, it came time again to move the outhouse, because… you know. So it fell upon them to dig a new hole. From Texas, I heard the story of how that hole those three cousins dug was another great one. And if I am not mistaken, they also dug a spectacular compost pit that lasted for years and years, because it too was so deep.

This year, my brother cleaned out the outhouse, texting me an outhouse ready message as we were driving from Texas. Swept the floor. Stocked the toilet paper. Made sure the buckets of lime were full. Chased away the daddy long legs. 

And there it stands in that picture, early in the morning with the eastern sun slanting thru the forest. It’s turned away from the cottage, of course, facing into the woods. So, if you are so inclined, you can sit there with door wide open and gaze out on the spectacular view of Oak and Maple and great White Pines and even a now-twelve-foot-tall Beech that my grandfather tended in his later years from the day he spotted it poking out of the leaf mould, lopping overhanging branches from a crooked Maple sapling that had a head start. There you can sit, contemplating whatever you might contemplate.

No, it’s not quite a shed; it’s an outhouse: The Outhouse.

© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License