A little trip out west--xv

"When times were good, everybody got indoor toilets."

And thus begins a tale by my old friend, Jim Heynen, whose parents, I'm guessing were among the newly rich. The thing is, one rich farmer holds out to what's all the rage, the man "Who Didn't Want an Indoor Toilet." 

"Homes are holy places," he maintained. "You put a place to s___ in them and call it improvement?"

Oddly enough, it makes some sense to me. What seems clear is that we sometimes can't let 'em go. This one, just a good, solid single away from an country school, long deserted, is hardly archetypal. Took the pic a half dozen years ago. With any luck, Mother Nature finally knocked it over.  

On this little trip out west, three of them appeared around my camera, all of them "institutional," you might say, two churches and one school. 

This one's no beauty either. It peaceably resides behind a old church that hasn't been used in decades. In all likelihood, entering--should anyone entertain such a motion--could be accomplished with but limited olfactory offense. Officially, this one is the privy of St. Stephenie Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church, a place that's still standing in the wilds of Nebraska, a house of worship little more than a memory. But there it is, the church privy, almost worshipful.

There's nothing else around the place, absolutely nothing. You can't help asking why does anyone keep the privy? This one is leaning, although not as badly as the one belonging at the South Dakota schoolhouse. No one's painted it in years. It may finally go (sorry).

And then this barely visible church john, bottom left hand corner, same sort of concern. This old church is slowly being unpeeled by Great Plains' seasons. Somebody's put some work into the bell tower, armored it against the trajectory of its own slow death; but the front door needs some work and the windows are there no longer. But there the privy, out back, still standing and seemingly ready for business (yours).

Let me bring this one up a bit. It could use a paint job. That black speck in the sky may well be meadowlark. That'd be a blessing, wouldn't it? Keep you there all day.

The church is still of some use, holding down a place on the country tour of Willa Cather's childhood haunts. No one has worshiped there for years--I mean in the church--but not the privy either. For the record, should you care to research, it's the New Virginia Church privy.

And then there was this one, too--Ash Hollow State Park's old stone schoolhouse. I suppose a state park doesn't believe in destroying old things that witness to the past, but still, why keep the old privy around? It's padlocked anyway, should park visitors suddenly feel the need. It's useless.

But it's worth a smile, I guess, isn't it?

I'm a long ways from gallery show, but I do have some royal thrones. This Presidential privy satisfied the vital needs of Lynden Baines Johnson as a boy--and his family. I'm not kidding.

Somewhere I know I've got a Will Rogers outdoor john too. The guy had to have a joke or two about privies--I'll look it up.

It's not the same thing, but when it's really cold, there's always the white owl. This one is famous too--a century ago it belonged to Carrie Nation, the social activist  from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, who broke up taverns with ax on her way to national prohibition. 

And I'm not about to get all Freudian on you know, but I did want to 'fess up because for almost thirty years the Schaaps had one in our backyard too, camouflaged because it was simply the back corner of the barn. I'm serious--a two-holer too. And it would be there today if some pyromaniac hadn't decided to torch the old barn that stood out back of the house. 

So it's gone. Maybe that's why I'm spending all this time on stools. Pure nostalgia. I miss our privy. 

Not true. I'm just as human as the rest of us--and I prove it every day.

Too stinking often, in fact, these days of my dotage especially.