I usually don’t brag on my own work, but this article surely must be a good one. At least it was that good. How do I know? My computer “ate” it just as I was copying it to a jump drive. Let’s see if I can re-create it and make it even better.
I was going into the men’s bathroom at work a few weeks ago when a sign to the left caught my eye: Meals And Memories Are Made Here
Thankfully, I never knew of any actual meals that were made in the Union County Board of Education’s men’s room. I know for a fact that many meals found their ultimate end there, and I’m hopeful that not many memories were made in the dispositions!
The house in which I was raised from age six to nineteen had no inside bathroom. For our comfort, we had what our gentried, gentle-natured, perhaps “citified” ancestors would have called a “chamber pot.” My father had a more crude, down-to-earth “countrified” expression for that useful object that you wouldn’t expect to hear the preacher say from the pulpit.
Bad as it was to have to use this vessel in close family quarters, it was practically mortifying when visitors, especially overnight guests, were present. The only thing that made the “---- pot” more to be desired than the outhouse was cold weather and fear of snakes and spiders.
Nevertheless, day or night, most of our guests wisely chose to avail themselves to our outdoor “privy,” which was located approximately 50 feet from the back of the house. The very word denotes privacy, and privacy is never appreciated more than when Mother Nature’s calls must be answered. There are just some things that can’t be ignored.
I can assure you that no meals were ever made in our outhouse, though my sister-in-law Agnes always asked her daughter, my niece Rosemarie, during their visits if she needed to visit Ms. Jones’ stewpot. Perhaps it was for this reason that beef stew never appealed to me when I was a child.
My father never lived in a house that had an indoor toilet. Poor ol’ Dad also had a bad habit of leaving the door open in warm weather while he was “taking care of business.” This was probably not so bad in the Thomas Holler, but in downtown Maynardville straight across the road from Maynardville Baptist Church on the main highway to Knoxville, it was scandalous!
One day Earn McPhetridge was driving a busload of kids to school and saw Dad in the outhouse through the open door. Earn later told Dad, “Frank, you’re supposed to shut the door when you’re in the toilet.” (I knew Earn McPhetridge well enough to know that he used much more colorful language to describe what Dad was doing in the outhouse, but for the delicate among us I’ll allow you, Dear Readers, to use your imagination.)
Dad replied, “---- you, if you was keeping your eyes on the road driving that bus you wouldn’t know what’s going on that ain’t none of your business!”
Dad tended to be offended at people who thought they were too good to use his outhouse. The greatest offender was his sister, my aunt, Vallie. Vallie and her husband Jacob Percy (he was called “Pers”—pronounced “purse”) would occasionally come to visit.
Many times they would bring Dad’s other two sisters with them, my aunts Duskie and Fleetie. Duskie was the oldest, and though she had moved to Knoxville years ago and had an indoor bathroom, it didn’t bother her one bit to return to her roots and use a good ol’ country outhouse. Duskie always had the good sense and courtesy to close the door. Fleetie was the youngest, a little more delicate than Duskie, and I’m not sure I remember her ever using our outhouse.
But Vallie was a different story. Vallie was a very clean, germ-conscious woman. When she would “come to the country” (the name given to the trips to Union and Grainger Counties), she would bring a quart jar of purified “city water” with her, as country well and spring water might be untreated and full of germs. She would also bring a paper milk carton with the top cut off so her bottom wouldn’t have to make contact with the unsanitary wood of our outhouse. She would bring a fresh carton every trip, but leave her used carton in the rafters of the outhouse.
This absolutely angered, enraged and infuriated my father. None of these words alone can convey the depth of his contempt. Dad and Vallie argued about that. “---- you,” he’d tell her, “when you was growing up you went out behind a bush or tree or anywhere you could get, but you’re too good now. You’ve got above your raisin’.” Then he’d go on and talk about how all his kids had “got above their raisin’, except for Ronnie here, and he will too when he grows up!”
Dad and Vallie never got along. Though the visits usually lasted from 30 minutes to maybe an hour, they never seemed to end before Dad and Vallie had an argument. I must admit, that was one thing I loved about the visits. A person can’t pay for entertainment like that.
Vallie’s hair had always been groomed “just so”—not one hair out of place. On one of her visits she was sitting on the arm of the couch. All of a sudden, she reached her hands to the sides of her head and said, “This wig is burning me up!” She jerked off her wig, exposing her real hair, which was short and “bobby-pinned” all over.
I was probably about 12 at the time, and I was shocked. I never knew Vallie wore a wig, and obviously neither did Dad. He stared at her, his mouth fell open, and his eyes blared as he said, “What in the devil have you done to your head?” Vallie giggled at Dad’s shock.
So what else did Dad and Vallie argue about? Everything. Dad was an alcoholic most of his life, and he swore a lot (“cussed”) when he got drunk (“lit”). Vallie was always trying to warn him from the evils of drink and foul language.
In Dad’s later years, he made his peace with the Lord and began attending church. Dad still struggled with his addictions, particularly the bad language.
Vallie asked Dad one time, “Frank, if you’ve been saved, why do you still cuss?” He replied, “I’ve just done it so long I’m in the habit.”
In the late 1970s Dad and Vallie’s half-brother Rob, a resident of Liberty Hill, developed cancer. Dad went to visit Rob frequently. Dad and Rob got along well. Rob visited our house fairly often before he got sick, and he and Dad would sit under the shady box elder trees in our front yard and whittle those sweet-smelling sticks of cedar for hours at a time. It seemed from the stories that Vallie told from her childhood and youth that she never cared for Rob very much, and I think Dad resented her for that.
One Sunday after church, Dad, Mother and I spent the afternoon at Uncle Rob’s. We returned home and Vallie called to see how Rob was doing. Dad was mad because none of the rest of his family had been to visit Rob.
He told Vallie, “---- you! If you’d get your --- up there you could see for yourself.” Dad more or less told Vallie what he thought of her not visiting their sick brother. Vallie asked Dad, “Frank, have you started drinking again?”
I never remember seeing my father any madder. He got so mad he couldn’t talk. He spluttered and stammered a little before slamming the phone receiver so hard into its cradle that he almost ripped the old rotary-dial phone from the wall.
Soon his speech returned. Dad ranted and raved about Vallie to Mother and me until he got so out of breath he had to sit down. When he had recovered sufficiently, he stomped to the outhouse, ripped the “---- box” from the rafters, and savagely tore it to pieces. That seemed to bring a measure of peace to my father—the knowledge that the next time that Vallie visited that she wouldn’t have a “box to ---- in” at Frank Mincey’s outhouse!
I leave you, Dear Reader, with a few thoughts.
There are two kinds of people.
Those who back-up their computer work, and those who wish they had.
As I've grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but ticking a lot of people off is a piece of cake!
Hard to believe that I once had a phone attached to a wall, and when it rang, I picked it up and said “hello” without having a clue who was calling.
There is no such thing as a grouchy old person. The truth is that once you get old, you stop being polite and start being honest.
First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper. It's even worse when you forget to pull it down.
"I don't do alcohol anymore—I get the same effect just standing up fast."
– Anonymous
Grey Poupon and Docker Pants will merge and are expected to become PouponPants.
Don't forget to pull the chain.
Some people you're glad to see coming; some people you're glad to see going.