WATCH OUT FOR THAT '''(SPLAT)

'Watch our for that ......(splat)''.....
by Seajay

In our neighborhood everyone had an outhouse. This is necessary because we had no septic system and no indoor plumbing. Outhouses had their advantages in that no one wanted to come and wash their hands. You could build a small fire in the floor in the winter time if it was cold. You had privacy. You usually had plenty of Sears Robuck catalogs with lots of ladies undergarments in them. Handy if you are a curious young boy.
The great dis advantage of an outhouse is that you had to occasionally ''dig a new hole'' and move the outhouse over it. You were always careful to take some or all of the ''waist dirt'' and backfill the old hole to stop the stink and for safety reasons. Anyhow..... My neighbors the Misenhammers needed a new out house hole and me and Charles and Gary (their sons) decided we would ''dig the hole'' without being asked and it should make their parents real proud of them.
Back then you could buy an Army digging shovel for a dollar and it was the perfect insterment for digging an out house hole. the dimensions of the out house hole were usually four feet square and at least six feet deep and eight feet was better because it would be a long time before you would need another ''hole''........ We set to work early one morning and made good progress as the ground was pretty soft and we had three of us. We could take ''turn about'' with two of us working and one resting. We worked all day and probably had a hole four by four and maybe five or six feet deep. We took most of the fill dirt and dropped in the old outhouse hole and scattered the rest out in the yard.
It should be mentioned here that Jessie Misenhamer liked to take a ''sip'' on occasion and on occasion this ''sip'' would give him the runs. He usually abides in this ''sip'' while he was away from home and his wife Ruth because she did not approve of drinking. Sometimes he would get home and ''run to the outhouse'' because he needed relief in a hurry.....
It should be understood that there were no street lights or outdoor lighting in our neighborhood of any kind and you found your way around by the ambient light from the moon or the stars. (dont get ahead of me on this) Also, remember this ...... Back then everyone smoked. Doctors would examine you with a ''ciggie'' in their mouth.
That night Charles stole three Camel ciggies from his moms pack and we were sitting up in edge of the ''big woods'' beside of their house puffin away and gettin dizzy..... We saw the lights of Jessies car turn in the driveway and he pulled under the big oak tree and slammed the door. We choaked the ciggies and watched. He stood there for a minute and broke in a run for the outhouse.......... The poor man had no idea that we had dug a new hole in front of the outhouse door. Yep, not more than four feet from the outhouse door was a four by four hole about six feet deep.............
I figure he hit the west wall of that outhouse hole doing about twenty miles per hour. We watched him as he disappeared down and we heard the ''thump'' as he hit the wall. It must have looked like the Road Runner in one of those Wiley Coyote cartoons. We rolled on the ground laughing but we could not ''laugh out loud'' because we figured he would find us and whale the tar out of us.
He wallowed around trying to figure out where he was for a few minutes and then he started yelling for his wife.... It seems that the impact had loosened his bowels and he ''lost control'' and he was the first person to put a ''deposit'' in the new outhouse hole. Jessie wanted to tear the skin off of Charles and Gary but Ruth just told him that this is what you get for drinking and '' you aint gonna touch them boys.'' ''They was doin a good turn digging this hole and if you spank them ...... YOU WILL HAVE TO SETTLE WITH ME''...........
After he got out of the hole and put on clean pants he went in the house. Me and Charles and Gary finished the ciggies and wandered down to my house for a while and then they went home as innocent as two angels.
They are both dead now and their dad is dead also but for many years we would get to talking about ''old times'' and sit and laugh till we would cry about this incident.
So it went growing up in our neighborhood....

more later....
Seajay the sailor man