| Show I THE OLD OUTHOUSE Vonda Merriam Senior Honorable Mention Short Story Whengrew up people hadlittle building in their backyards They called it by several names such as outhouse privy or simply the toilet The bees and flies swarmed around it on hot summer days and in the winter it was freezing cold We didnmind because it was suchnecessity The pages of the Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues were used for toilet paper These hard pages werefar cry from the soft tissue we use today but somehowmiss the entertainmentgot from looking at the catalogues My girl friends andspent many hours enjoying the pictures of these books Here our dreams and wishes came alive as we chose things we hoped someday to have Now look at this Whatdarling outfit Thathow the man will look thatm going to marry This ispicture of me in my wedding dress Such conversation went on and on When it was my turn to wash the dishes would make an excuse to go to the outhouse Therestayed forlong time hoping that someone would wash the dishes but that never happened The dishes waited The only bad thing about the old outhouse was keeping it clean and that was my job This had to be done every Saturday scrubbed the wood with homemade soap and rinsed it with clean water filled the holes with ashes from our old kitchen stove to keep the insects away and dispel the smell 33 |
