There is something different about using a privy out behind the house. Among a lot of unpleasant things, you can freeze your backside off during the winter. During all that time, I longed for the creature comfort of inside plumbing.
The stories you have heard about the Sears, Roebuck catalog are true. We, however, subscribed to Montgomery Ward. Over the years I had many hours of pleasure just looking and dreaming of the wonderful treasures pictured in that book. I hated to tear out some of those pages, but necessity ruled.
One day my father came home with some real honest-to-goodness toilet paper. Such luxuries were hard to come by in those Depression days, and we really couldn't afford it. Therefore, my father held a family meeting and very seriously gave graphic instructions to us on how to use it and how to avoid wasting this precious commodity.
I remember word once spreading all over Spunky Flat about a black widow spider biting a man as he used his privy. I never heard for sure where it bit him, but I have a pretty good idea. He survived, but he was awfully sick for a while. After hearing that, we would make a torch out of rolled-up paper and burn out whatever was lurking beneath before utilizing the outhouse.
As modern society advanced, my grandmother rejoiced when a new bathroom was installed inside the house. My grandfather, however, would have no part of it. He refused to give up his old-fashioned ways and continued to use the facility out back. One day he asked my grandmother if she would cook cabbage for dinner. She turned down his request because it would stink up the house. He pointed to the bathroom and asked why it was all right to take a shit in the house, but cooking cabbage was out of the question.
In my early teens, I would go to the privy to sneak a smoke. I got away with it until my elder sister came to visit. I guess I must have been puffing up a storm because I heard her yelling to my dad that the outhouse was on fire. I never tried that trick again.
After what seemed like a lifetime without modern conveniences, Dad decided it was time to join the twentieth century. We had to dig trenches for the water and sewer lines, which was no easy task. At that time we lived in Gladewater, Texas, atop a hill with big boulders beneath the surface. We slaved away for days, chipping through tons of rock, before the excavation was ready for the pipes.
When it was all done, I could hardly contain the anticipation of using this wondrous new innovation. I went into the bathroom, flushed the commode, and then ran down the hill to listen for the sound of the water spilling into the septic tank.
Somewhere in the land there was probably a symphony orchestra playing Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor; but to me, that splash was the most beautiful music in the world.