Bear Paw Meanderings
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This is a tale about two outhouses. Why, you may ask am I writing about two outhouses when I should be writing about three at least!
One I am not writing about was on a very famous ranch on Clear Creek where the owners built the outhouse right over Clear Creek so it had a permanent flush to it! Great but, not for the neighbors down the creek.
My favorite of all outhouses was at the old school house cabin on Clear Creek where Henderson Creek runs into Clear Creek. It wasn’t such a great outhouse in the winter because it only had three sides. The open side framed a beautiful vista of mountains that separated Henderson Creek from Hungry Hollow. Not only was the view spectacular but the outhouse listed backward greatly, so when sitting on the throne so to speak, it was like being in a very comfortable recliner chair. Readers may remember that outhouse was caught in a Clear Creek tornado.
But that is not a story for today. The big thing about that outhouse was that after lunch, it was a perfect place to do ones duty and take a nap too so that if another person wanted in, that person had to pelt the building with rocks to wake up the happy napper and get him or her moving so to speak.
Truly, that was a wonderful outhouse!
The other is an outhouse story. One of the three little chickadees that I took care of in various cabins when they were young, look back and ask me questions from their young days in my company. The youngest boy a year ago wondered why I was afraid of snakes. He was always mad that he could not have a snake because his parents knew I could not go into a house with a snake in it. I told him it was a natural fear, I thought, but I do remember as a boy going in a car with friends and their parents. The boys in the back seat had a garter snake in a jar and let him out to scare me. Scare me it did and I often wondered if that was what started my fear of snakes. I asked the youngest boy if he ever had a fear of anything. He said that he didn’t know why but he was always afraid of outhouses. I told him I knew exactly why he was afraid of outhouses. When he was about 6 he was a tiny boy. One day at the Little Gray Chalet he had to go to the bathroom. I asked his older brother to take him to the outhouse. The older brother said it was time that the young six year old learned how to go to the outhouse himself. So, off he went. It didn’t take long before we heard screams and shrieks coming from the outhouse. We ran out and there was the six year old, with his whole rump down the outhouse hole, just holding on by his elbows on the seat and his knees and slipping a little more.
He was quickly rescued and even though he didn’t remember the incident at all, he knew from then on that he was afraid of outhouses!
