I remember when every home had a little house out back. It was placed close to a back door. Of course, it was. When someone was in a hurry, the shortest route was best. If the little house were in a nicer neighborhood, it might be painted to match the house. In our farming community, it was a weather-beaten necessity, not to be celebrated with a fresh coat of paint.

In case you are too young to have used the facility, let me describe it for you. Of course, there were variations, just like everything else. Our outhouse in the various places we lived was a two seater placed at a comfortable height. Comfortable for adults, that is. Us kids had to hop up. Dad never had to build one. The previous resident left one already broke in.

There was a spring-time chore to be done. Dad would tip back the outhouse to shovel out the piles that had accumulated over the winter. What a stinking mess. He would load it into the manure spreader and haul it out back to spread it on a field far from the house. Then lime would be spread in the pit and we would start filling it up again. Of course, if company was coming, Dad would place a coating of fresh lime under each hole. That was about all you could do to clean up the smell.

I remember when I started school at that country school on the corner of Sears and Reynolds Road. There were two outhouses out behind the school, one for the boys and one for the girls. I think the boy’s was on the left and the girl’s on the right. It was always the same at every school as was the cloak room at the school’s entrance. Boys hung their coats and their hunches on the left and the girls did the same on the right side.

To visit the facility we would raise our hand to get the teacher’s attention. One finger or two would give her an idea of how long we would be gone. Everyone knew why we were going. No secrets there.

I have seen outhouses with multiple seating. There were always two seats for the adults. Why I don’t know. I never saw two going at the same time. Maybe one or the other was a favorite to sit on, fewer splinters. There might be a smaller hole at a lower height for the little ones.

I never knew there was such a thing as Charmin or Scott’s or whatever else the tissue was called back then. The Sear Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, or Spiegel catalog was either on a wire off the wall or laying on the seat. It was something to read while we performed our chore. It didn’t take long until all the softer pages were gone, leaving the very smooth glossy pages, not our favorites. When we were living on a tenant farm during the Great Depression, money wasn’t wasted on luxuries. Toilet paper would have been a luxury. The catalogs came in the mail, free.

You would never know what you might find out there. Here on Summer Road is a cabin back off the road with its own outhouse. Vine covered, just off the path to the cabin, it invites visitors to stop by. I did one day when we were out exploring. Everything was going at its normal pace when I happened to look up. The biggest black snake I have ever seen was draped over the top of the door, just watching me. How could I get past that huge snake to make my getaway? The snake wasn’t moving. I ran out like I was on fire. A ways off, I stopped to look. He was still there, watching me leave.

Needless to say, that was my only visit. Inside plumbing that doesn’t involve a long black snake is the only way to go.