Muscatine

THE TINY CABIN
 
A social worker from a Big City in Massachusetts recently transferred to the Mountains of North Carolina, and was on the first tour of her new territory when she came upon the tiniest cabin she had ever seen in her life.

 Intrigued, she went up and knocked on the door.
 
 "Anybody home?"  she asked.
 
 "Yep,"  came a kid's voice through the door..
 
 "Is your father there?"  asked the social worker.

"Pa?  Nope, he left afore Ma came in,"  said the kid.
 
 "Well, is your mother there?"  persisted the social worker..

 "Ma?  Nope, she left just afore I got here,"  said the kid.
 
"But,"  protested the social worker, "are you never together as a
family?"
 
"Sure, but not here," said the kid through the door.                   
"This is the Outhouse!"

 (City folks don't know nuthin!!)

Yep. I remember the outhouse era. And the old, iron wheeled push mowers. Todays brats are spoiled.

My grandfather died about 7 yrs ago, and he still used an outhouse.....his cabin had running water but he never built an indoor toilet. He lived there year round for probably 20 some odd years.

Some of my outhouse stories:

Back in the late 1940's and early 50's I was a kid living on a farm about 10 miles from Muscatine.  We had an outhouse (sometimes called a backhouse).  It was a 2 holer.  I remember having to go out there at night before turning in to bed.  It wasn't that bad until rumors started that there was an escaped panther roaming around Muscatine and the vicinity.   Man, talk about making quick trips to and from!  I don't think we had a lock inside the outhouse door.  I can remember being afraid of some mean black wildcat jumping into the structure while I was "indisposed" or jumping out from behind the cedar trees and sinking his fangs into my neck.  I always tried to talk someone else into going with me to hopefully share the danger.   I guess this had to be around 1950.  Even my uncle that lived in town near a ravine/dump (all ravines were dumps in those days) said he heard a panther or mountain lion scream off in the woods.  Scared the devil out of us when the grown-ups started talking about that kind of stuff.

Also remember men coming over one time and digging a new pit and moving the outhouse over to a new location.  My Mom cooked dinner for them (dinner was the noon meal).  I remember dad telling here that whatever she did, don't serve chocolate pie!!

Those were the days.  By the way we did have "outhouse Hollyhocks" all around the darn thing.