No one writes about this, although it is just as important and useful as planting, harvest, and all the other everyday occurrences that happen on every farm. The existence of Convention multi-hole outhouses and their maintenance usually fell to the most vulnerable of our brothers. Call it the doodie duties”, or whatever name was popular in your area, but it had to be done, and you may as well get it over with.
When the pit under the outhouse was full, then it was time to renew the area, clean it out, or dig a new hole and move the outhouse. Now the one-holers were easy to maintain, just dig a new hole and drag or lever the outhouse to the new area and cover the old hole with the dirt from the new. Multi-hole conveniences were another matter. One or two-holers were easy but, say an eight-holer, that was another story to tell. The women’s 8-holer toilet was by the machine shed, and the men’s 8-holer-and-a-trough-toilet was way out by the sheep barn.
At our Church Convention grounds, where we had anywhere from five to seven hundred people, this was an item you didn’t discuss, but couldn’t ignore its’ existence. The maintenance chore fell to the person least able to resist the need to keep it clean and ready for use. My job on many occasions had been to repaint the building as needed, since I owned the paint rig and could usually find enough free paint to do the job.
Now when you are a teen-ager and your job falls to this type of chore, you don’t want any of the girls to even suspect what you do in the way of Convention preparation. As a result, you try to pick a day before a lot of people are there, or do this during the off-season. Anything, so no one knows your job, you do with the least observation.
“Guess what Greene does during Convention preps?” Oh, the humiliation heaped upon the lesser talented in our midst!
Now, the pit on these eight-holers was one that had to be cleaned out every so often and the only way in this day and time was with a shovel, rubber boots, gloves, and dogged determination.
The one man who didn’t shirk this chore was Coy Owenby, a much loved individual who lived in Amarillo. I guess Coy had what they called at that time, Saint Vitus’s Dance. He kind of shook and moved around a lot like he was real nervous and walked and talked funny and you really had to listen when he talked in order to understand him. I think that’s why a lot of us liked him. He and Barbara May (my brother, David’s foster sister) had the same affliction.
My Ma knew what kind of chore this was, and that very few, if any, would ever volunteer for this duty. She saw to it that Coy had some help for this task, and guess which helper was the likely candidate? I was instructed on many occasions to give him all the needed assistance to complete the chore. I just wished it could have been during the spring or fall—any time except the two weeks before the convention dates when all the kids were there and knew what our job was. Some of the kids from other towns, we didn’t see except at Convention time, and this wasn’t what you wanted as remembrance from them when you might be in their thoughts.
Well, Coy shoveled and I hauled, and we got the job done. He would shovel into a container, which I would take out in the field maybe a mile from the grounds to a previously tractor-dug pit, empty it and return for another load. After these were cleaned out, then the refuse would be buried and no one would ever know where it was. Mind you, this was in the ’40’s and early ’50’s and this was the best convenience that we had.
The men’s toilet had four holes back to back and a trough along one wall made from a length of metal rain gutter. This gutter was high on one end and sloped down—so the big men could use the high end and little guys like me could pick the spot that was our height. There was just a long bench with a short wall down the middle separating the two rows of four holes each. Each hole had a hinged cover that you closed when it wasn’t being used.
The ladies’ toilet was likewise, except there was no trough on the wall and there was a divider between each seat—for privacy, I guess. When I was three and four years old, my real mom made me go to the ladies’ toilet with her and I wanted so much to be older and go out to where the men were. Just to see a row of ladies sitting there, with their skirts up and their bloomers at their ankles and their stockings pulled up and knotted over their knees, was something no man should ever have to witness. Why make a kid go blind at age three? It didn’t bother me with the men, because they could just carry on a normal conversation either standing at the trough, or sitting on the bench, as though nothing else mattered at that particular time.
“How did your wheat crop turn out this spring?”
“Well, the dry land didn’t make much, but the irrigated made close to 65 bushels.”
“Man, we sure could use some rain on the maize right about now”.
“Say, I understand Adrian Oldham was captured by the Japs over in the Philippine Islands”.
“Yeah, I just wish this War was over and they could all come back home safely. Bill Williams is a Medic in the Army. I think he was at Camp Hood for awhile.”
“Alfred Waterfield is over there too, somewhere in Europe.
“Say, Junior, I understand your brother was wounded over there somewhere? Is he back home yet? Will he be OK? Where was he, over in New Guinea?
“Well, Mom said “Aiche” lost his eyes and his leg is broke, his hands are messed up, and he has shrapnel all over in him from a land mine, but he’s in El Paso right now in the hospital, and Mom and his girlfriend, Viola, went on the train to see him. Mr. Tucker is letting me and David and Kat stay with him and his family until Mom gets back, and his boy, Junior Tucker, is over in Africa or somewhere where the Germans are”.
See, when you’re 9 years old, you can get into “man talk” and not be embarrassed like when you are 3 or 4 and in the ladies’ toilet and you don’t want to say nothing to nobody or sit next to them. And you sure don’t want any of the girls or other boys to see you in there. They never make little girls go into the men’s toilet, so why do boys have to go where the women are? Guys can talk and make plans wherever they are. And the women’s toilet just ain’t the place for a regular man to discuss nothing or say anything.
“Man, this outhouse could sure use some paint and fixing up some day”.
Well, that’s what it’s like, and when you’re seventeen and break for lunch, you have paint all over your face and hands and the girls look at you and say, “Eeeuwe.” It doesn’t do much for your self-esteem. No credit!
Now it’s years later and your own kids are grown and you meet someone you knew back during the War years and they say;
“Yeah, sure, I remember you, you used to help old Coy a lot during preps. Yeah, I told my kids all about you.”
“Oh, excuse me, my hands are so full I can’t shake hands right now and I see someone I need to go say ‘Hidey’ to. Good to see you again though. Catch you later.”
You just wonder what they told their kids about you, and what they know! Now days, it’s the flush-a-matics and gigantic septic tanks and leach lines along a row of lush green trees and not the faintest hint of something that had to be done by hand a long time ago.
By Neil Greene
The Bagertots, pages 21-26
See also: Six-Holer Toilet