The Flying Outhouse

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THE FLYING OUTHOUSE  (A story out of my book) 

As I got a little older and bolder, I was allowed to fully use the grownup’s throne room, a medieval masterpiece. 

From the backyard, it looked like a pair of giant bird houses stuck, high up, to the outside of the building. The “flying outhouse” precariously clung to the stone walls in the corner of the Gasthaus and the stable wing. An enclosed wooden shaft extended down fifteen feet to almost ground level. The double outhouse, a two-seater wooden structure, faced north. Inside, a couple of vertical boards partitioned the two perfectly round cut-outs. That partition displayed the only decoration in the room, a wire hook. To keep this hook filled with little squares of newspaper was my assignment. 

We entered the Johnny house from our front hall. The first seat on the left, in this most private chamber, was ours to use. The second seat was used by a man who we never got to know. He lived in an apartment over the Gasthaus about fifty feet from ours. Mother advised to gently knock on the privy door, no matter the degree of urgency, before we bounded in. We never bothered him when he used his assigned throne, and he never bothered us. He never spoke, so we shied away and hid from him. This went on for over five years until we moved. 

Our half of the throne room became a subject of study to me. The shaft, being in a corner of the buildings caught every breeze, as well as raging winter gusts, and amplified them up the shaft. My derriere was not enhanced enough to cover the entire opening on that wooden box. Needless to say, in times of excessive upward drafts, I did not linger. Often, sudden gusts caused the lighter liquid to splash back up. 

The wiping became a science not taught by the elders but by the physics of the situation. Usually the first wipe would force one to make the appropriate adjustment. You knew it was no use trying to fight the wind and the laws of nature when the used paper refused to go down into the hole, but rather stick to you or float around in the room. One soon learned to collect the used paper in one hand and when finished jump off the box, pants around the ankles, and face the hole. The next move took precision. With the free hand you'd grab the knob of the large wooden lid, and with a closely timed movement, pitch the handful of used paper down the shaft while quickly closing the lid. Now, as I said, the timing had to be very precise. If you slammed the lid down too fast, you would smash your hand on the way out of the hole. Conversely, if you were too slow, with your face now straight over the opening and the draft blowing up, you might wind up doing a little dance to get away from the airborne soiled papers. 

In less turbulent moments, I lingered on that seat and watched the drama of the great spider in the little window. The glass panes were long gone, so the spider could monitor the comings and goings of every fly. The drama of life and death in that window was great entertainment for a little boy. I don’t think I have ever seen a movie that surpassed it. 

The johnny house became a sanctuary to me, as it was and always will be to every man. A place to ponder, to think things out, a headquarters for inspiration and long range planning. Now sixty years later, blessed with a family and a business of my own, it is still the only board I ever sat on; . . . the one with a hole cut in it.

The medieval masterpiece continued to contribute to life during those times. Over the years, the pit just below the shaft had gotten full and overflowed. Its collection, with rain water from the roofs, oozed along the north wall and directly below our bedroom window. It was a shaded back yard and the murky substance mostly seeped into the ground along that back wall. During the wet season, however, the seepage moved further on and caught the walls of the stables. It then turned right onto a sunny area where Mom was allowed to have a garden spot. Ah, the bureaucrats of this day and age could have hyped and regulated over such a situation, but we grew cabbage!

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