More Outhouse Mischief

Every Thursday is Senior's Day at the casino, so I tend to see the same faces every week. They even take the same seats and tell the same jokes. Like the one about the newlyweds who didn't know the difference between vaseline and window putty. (Their windows fell out.)

Last Thursday I mentioned the previous week's outhouse story and Don let me know that he had his own outhouse prank to tell about. It seems that he was on the high school basketball team at St Mary's and the coach would always give some other guys and him a ride home after practice.

One Halloween Coach said "Boys, I've got a job for you to do." They drove up to Northport, where the barber still had the last remaining outhouse in the village. They intended to knock the outhouse over, but when they got there someone else had beat them to it. So they lifted the outhouse and carried it to the front of the barber's shop. The storefront had large display windows that slanted back to make a sheltered entryway. They placed the outhouse in the entryway completely blocking the front door, with the door of the outhouse seeming to replace the door of the barbershop. There was a "City Service" sign hung above the gas station across the street; one of the guys shinnyed up the pole and took the sign to hang it on the outhouse.

Finally they found a chamber pot to fit inside the hole of the outhouse and some ring bologna to put inside of the chamberpot. They left the door of the outhouse ajar, so anyone walking by could check out their "street art."

Don doesn't seem like a very old guy, and he was chuckling about that trick as if it just happened last week. One of the non-locals didn't seem to believe the story and asked him when it happened. Don reckoned it was about 1951, and recalled how the village had been trying to make the barber get rid of his outhouse for years. He thought maybe that Halloween prank finally did it.

Outhouse Mischief

I was relieving the Three Card Poker dealer a few nights ago. The table was filled with locals. The players at first and third base had grown up together many years ago; everyone else was younger. The talk was rambling, about nothing, really, until someone mentioned the old question, "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?"

First base had been unusually quiet up to now, just drinking his beer. "Joe Miller!" he blurted out.

The young people were startled. "Joe Miller was buried in Grant's Tomb?"

But third base was started up. "Joe Miller? I thought you said Hugh Miller. Joe Miller was mean."

"Yeah, he was mean." The younger people can't figure out how this conversation started, let alone where it might be going.

"Mean Joe Miller used to poison all the dogs. I'll tell you how mean he was. He used to live across the street from OJ's family. He poisoned their dog, and then he hung a big sign on his front fence, right where they could see it from their front window:

The reason I lie,
beneath this pillar,
Is I was poisoned
By Old Man Miller"

"I remember that. Boy, he was mean"

"Well, he might have had reason to be mean. The neighborhood kids did tease him without end. Every Halloween they would go out and knock over his outhouse."

"Hell, we all did that"

"One Halloween at dusk, OJ's boys saw him sneaking into his outhouse with a shotgun. Well, that was pretty serious, compared to tipping over an outhouse. He could have killed somebody. One of them quietly snuck up, tripped the latch from the outside, and locked him in there. Then they all got together and ever-so-gently lifted that outhouse and moved it four feet back. What used to be under the outhouse was now just in front of the door, and Miller was hollering and pounding for someone to let him out."

"One of the boys ran up, tripped the latch, and then ran like hell. Mean Joe Miller came running out, then down, shotgun and all.

A relief dealers stays at a table for 15 or 20 minutes, then moves on. I would have liked to have listened to their stories all night. When I left, they were discussing outhouse construction, the nicest outhouses they had owned, and even how they had sold disused outhouses to antique hunters.

The image at the top is from a resume posted online. It is, of course a modern outhouse, and the guys in the picture are just moving it to a new location. There are many images online of old, leaning outhouses, but not many that illustrate the workmanship and care that typically went into this important household feature.

When you tip over a modern port-a-john, it makes a real mess. A well-built outhouse could just be set up again, as they were built to be relocated frequently. I suspect the humor came from seeing your neighbor running out in the early morning to relieve himself, and finding the facilities unavailable.