Poetry Sunday

I think I may be a representative of one of the last generations that used "outdoor plumbing" - the traditional outhouse. No, I didn't grow up having to use one, but there were many times when I did - but those are tales for another day. 

Today's poem by Marie Harris brings back memories of using primitive facilities on a cold morning in Colorado, looking up at a sea of stars to take my mind of more pressing business ...

Standard Plumbing 

by Marie Harris 

Plumbing supply places, like auto parts stores, have long

counters with bar stools for the customers. When I came in, the

man behind the counter was telling a story about the time he

and his friends had decided to celebrate getting home from

Vietnam and had bought a lot of Scotch and given one bottle to

a wino who drank half of it all at once and dropped dead.

Then the man, with Walter stitched on his shirt, asked what he

could do for me and I told him I had come to buy a toilet, the

cheapest, most basic toilet they had. He wanted to know if I

was putting it in one of my apartments or something and I said

no, it was for my own house and I was, oddly enough, buying

a toilet for the first time because we were installing indoor

plumbing. The other houses I’d lived in had always come with

toilets and I’d never given much thought to choosing one,

though today I’d kind of decided I wanted bone, not white. So,

in the process of getting the bowl and the tank and the seat and

some pipes and gaskets from the warehouse, we got to talking

about our outhouses and he allowed as how the one he had in

Florida when he was kid in the fifties hadn’t been all that

bad, except for the bugs and sometimes a snake, and we both

agreed that there are times out there when you see things from

an unusual vantage, for instance: that view of the night sky in

winter is unparalleled.

I remember a night in the remote mountains of Colorado when I trudged to an outhouse in the middle of the night, marveling at a night sky so glorious with stars that having to use an unheated outhouse on a cold night didn't seem so bad.

Have a good day, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and be thankful that you can enjoy the luxury of indoor plumbing. 

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo