Monday, July 19, 2010

Outhouses

Barbie says:

My brother, Ron reminded me about the history of our outhouse.  First my dad made a "double seater" outhouse on the small hill behind our cottage.  I don't remember that...but I do remember the one seater plus storage shed that Dad converted it into.

When my grandparents sold their cottage, we inherited their old outhouse because it was in better condition than ours.  Our (former 2-seater/shed) was moved way up the hill and Grandpa's outhouse was put in it's place. Linda and I used the old shed as a playhouse for a while until my brothers took it over as a fort. Years later my dad tore it down because the state started taxing us for it.

A phrase that I had forgotten was "I need to go up the hill," which meant "I had to go to the bathroom." (As I mentioned, our outhouse was located on a small hill behind the cottage.) Everyone knew what you meant when you said that you were going "up-the-hill")

By the way, my Grandparents outhouse made the move with us when we moved to Little Pelican Lake.  It's on our property and only used in emergencies.  Yes, we currently have in-door plumbing.

3 comments:

  1. Linda says:

    "Up the hill" was what I said too. I spent the night at Grover's half the time. There was a tree (all the trees were very tall) that swayed in the wind and made a creepy shadow over the hill. I was always tempted to wake up Barbie to go with me, but she was impossible to wake up, so I ran up the hill and back really fast. Of course the thought of spiders helped that along too. One little ditty that I think of now and then is a sign in the outhouse that read:
    "If y'all don't stop being paper hogs, we'll have to go back to usin' catalogs". Sears catalogs I suppose. (Russ worked @ Sears forever).

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  2. Oh wow! I forgot about that creepy tree. Linda and I used to sleep out in porch (we called it the patio)and at night we could see the creepy tree in the shadows. It resembled a scary man looking in on us. I think we enjoyed freaking ourselves out. ha ha.

    One early morning I remember running "up the hill" in my bare feet ... crunching all the way. On the way back down the hill I realized that the ground was covered with dragon flies. Yuck.

    As for the spiders in the outhouse... I think that it was my job to sweep out the outhouse every day. I kind of failed at that. Sorry 'bout that.

    And as for my dad and Sears..... oh yah, My dad was a loyal company man. Everything we owned was from Sears. My parents met at Sears. When I came of age I worked at Sears. (for 7 yr) We were a Sears family, for sure.... So the sign in the outhouse was very appropriate (and cute).

    I had forgotten about that sign in the outhouse. Linda do you remember the sign that hung in the patio? "Man who gives no peace during the day gets no piece at night." Looking back, I can't believe that my dad put that sign up! I'm sure that he didn't figure that us kids knew what the sign was talking about.

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  3. I honestly do not remember that sign, but am surprised too that he put it up!

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