Bloggin' Umholtz

Down at the Necessary

         Yesterday’s blog about cow tipping got me to thinking about a family story I hadn't thought of in years.

         Once upon a time there were three brothers. Their names were Allen, Dan and Joe. They were not from Italy and they didn't own a successful chain of pizza parlors, but each did become a successful businessman and for that reason I shall offer no more details as to their real identity. They had a boyhood friend. His name was Fred. Fred became a well-respected Professor of Agriculture at a large eastern university, so he too will remain mostly anonymous.

         These boyhood friends did everything together. They hunted, they fished, they rode sleds and teased the girls at the local school, which by the way, was a converted chicken coop. No kidding. They lived in a small Appalachia farming community that was close enough to the coalfields to also be considered a small Appalachia coal mining community. Occupations were very flexible at that time. If it was Tuesday, and your dad was hoeing corn, he was a farmer. If it was Wednesday and he was setting props in the local coal mine, well he was a coal miner and if it was Saturday and he was helping a neighbor put up a barn, he was a carpenter.

         Now for the shocker, there was no TV. There was no Nintendo. There wasn't any Internet. There weren't any Ipods, digital cameras or cell phones. For that matter there was no phone period. There was a wisp of a newspaper and just the bare glimmer of a radio. Naturally, our boyhood friends had to find ways to amuse themselves.

         There was only one street in town and it wasn't paved. You lived in a house on one side or the other. When you walked out your backdoor, it was just like walking out the backdoor of the house next door. Everybody had a barn with at least a pig, maybe a cow and of course the requisite source of transportation horsepower…a…horse. Some had chickens. Some had honeybees. Quite a few had smokehouses and every last one of them had an outhouse.

         And this is where the tipping part comes in. For you see, our boyhood friends, their lives devoid of modern entertainment opportunities, thought it would be keen fun to tip over outhouses.

         A tradition was born. And in giving birth to this tradition the boys also unwittingly gave birth to its eventual demise. Every autumn, when the corn was shucked, the honey collected, the pig slaughtered and the hams hung in the smokehouse to cure, our intrepid heroes would choose a moonless night (such nefarious dealings are best completed under cover of darkness) and scurry from yard to yard tipping over outhouses as they went.

         It was a simple process. They would sneak into the yard, and once certain the coast was clear, would use their ample farm boy strength and upend the offending building, quickly scattering to the shadows and proceeding to their next victim.

         They were careful not to choose the same outhouses every year,except for one, and they left no evidence except for shoeless footprints in the dew-laden grass. They even tipped over their own outhouse once or twice and dutifully helped their Dad set it upright the following morning. The next morning, many a farmer/coal miner/carpenter was somewhat irritated, standing in their backyards in longjohns, Sears catalog tucked under one arm, all dressed up…and no place to go, so to speak.

         There was one outhouse they got every year. It belonged to Farmer Brown. Farmer Brown is not his real name of course, but Brown will work just fine for the purpose of this story. Farmer Brown didn't like the boys. He referred to them as scofflaws and hooligans. They laughed. Mostly because at the time they had no idea what scofflaw and hooligan meant. If they had known, they might have proudly agreed. Converted chicken coop schoolhouses were not your peppermill of education, you see. They in turn did not like Farmer Brown. They thought he was old and mean. While Farmer Brown may have been old and mean he was also pretty darn smart. You don't get to be old and mean without picking up a trick or two along the way.

         One moonless autumn night our boyhood friends set about their annual ritual, saving Farmer Brown’s necessary for last. Farmer Brown’s necessary sat on a little rise in his yard. It was just the right distance from the house to not be offensive and not to far to risk serious frostbite in the winter. One by one the boys snuck up over the rise, stealthily approaching the back of the outhouse.

         Years later…when I had three of the four scofflaws in question in a relatively well lubricated state of mind, courtesy of some well distilled liquid libation, I asked them in what order they approached the outhouse. I got only a few well-worn smiles for my answer. Obviously I hadn't lubricated them well enough.

         For you see, anticipating the attack upon his latrine, Farmer Brown had beaten the boys to the punch. He had slid the outhouse forward and tossed an old gray horse blanket over the open hole.

         I know these facts. Three of the four boys went in the hole. The fourth stopped in time, which was a good thing, because the three in the “hole” needed a ladder to climb back out. The water in the creek below town is very cold that time of year and scrub as you might, you just can't get the entire stink out. Converted Chicken Coop schoolhouses have an aroma all their own, especially in the autumn, when the coal stove is lit, so other smells go largely unnoticed. Farmer Brown’s outhouse never got tipped over again. For that matter neither did anyone else’s. No one, except for the four boyhood friends, knows who went in the hole and who didn't. Three of the four have since gone on to their great reward, leaving only Joe and he’s not talking.

         I guess that’s information we're just not going to be...privy to.