ODE TO A COMMODE

By Wally Winston

It stood proud and pretty on the immaculate lawn in the front yard mof our modern ranch home in the elite suburb of Greendale, one of Milwaukee's finer and yuppiest of villages.

Winston, what in heaven's name are you doing now?" asked a neighbor as he scratched his head in amazement.

"Wife wanted another bathroom, but couldn't afford the plumbing," was my twinkle-in-the-eye reply.

When my wife, Shirley, gave our son and me notice that she wasn't going with us to our hunting shack up north until we built an outhouse, we thought about Shirley's wonderful cooking during our weekend hunting trips. Then we immediately began to wonder how we could build an outhouse without interfering with our grouse, woodcock and pheasant hunting. We also had to have mornings and evenings available to bow hunt the elusive whitetail deer in the area. But I understood Shirley's concern. None of us enjoyed doing our business in the primitive honey bucket at the foot of the bunk beds in the hunting shack.

The solution came in a blinding flash, typical of die-hard hunters. Why not build the outhouse on the front lawn of our "real" home back in the Milwaukee suburb, where tools and electricity were right inside the garage? We could build it after supper on weekdays, then trailer it northward to the hunting shack, thus saving the weekends for the great hunt.

Work on the comfort johnny went well and what emerged a few weeks later was, indeed a splendid specimen of an outhouse. The sloped roof gave it a graceful look. Shirley happened to be at the city dump one day-- not one of her usual hangouts, mind you -- where she found a perfectly good French door with fifteen small window panes on the top half. Naturally, she hauled it home for the privy. When she realized that those fifteen windows detracted somewhat from one's privacy factor, she quickly located equally superb venetian blinds at the local Goodwill store. After painting our pristine privy a reddish brown simulated redwood color, the outhouse was complete, except, of course, for the interior details.

I added a hook on the inside wall to hang one's coat or bathrobe and then built a shelf for magazines. Next, I nailed the bottom side of a two-pound coffee can to the wall to hold the toilet paper and foil-wrapped wet towelettes. The plastic lid on the end of the can kept the mice out of the toilet paper. A bucket of lime in the corner helped eliminate odors. And finally, the crowning glory of my privy accessories was "ye olde cozy." I found a square gray corduroy lawn chair cushion somewhere and cut a big circle out of the center of itlarge enough for the most ample bottom. Then I stitched around the edges of the exposed foam rubber to give it a finished look. The cozy hung on a hook on the inside wall just to the left of the seat, and believe me, on many a frosty morning my backside was mighty glad to land on the cozy instead of the ice-crystaled bare wood.

During those weeks of outhouse production in suburban Milwaukee, many a neighbor admiringly asked just how long my work of art was going to remain standing on our front lawn. We even had a visit from the village building inspector one day, a gentleman I recognized as I peeked around the picture window curtain, and then quickly decided I wasn't home when he rang the bell.

We also had a neighbor ask to rent the outhouse for his annual family reunion picnic but I declined because of legal problems it could cause. (Over the years I have abided by the law on numerous occasions.)

Some of the neighbors, however, actually wanted that outhouse out of there, if you can believe it. When several of the more humorous types hinted that they might begin to use it, I decided it was time to move it to its final destinationhunter's paradise in the north woods.

We were delighted when our close neighbors practically jumped at the chance to help us load the thing onto the matching utility trailer for its journey to Jackson county. The man across the street even launched our porta-potty with a bottle of beer and wished us "bon voyage."

You can imagine my sense of accomplishment and pride as our four-hour northbound journey on Wisconsin's busy interstate highways caused quite a few heads to turn as our perky little privy stood upright in the small trailer. I felt as if I was transporting a monument of sorts that proclaimed for all the world my sense of creativity and woodworking genius.

I'm also quite sure that when this magnificent structure was put into place in the woods near our tar-paper hunting shack, our property value skyrocketed. That outhouse is still standing, some thirty years later, proudly performing its most basic of human functions.

Since our hunting shack didn't have running water, we decided, a few seasons later, to add an outdoor shower right behind the outhouse, thus making our grand privy a one-and-a-half bath facility. A simple rubber mat on the ground to stand on and a five-gallon container painted black, then hoisted onto the outhouse roof, completed the addition. It worked great, providing the sun was shining to warm the water in the black bucket above.

Over the years I've done a lot of thinking, meditation and problem solving inside that outhouse. However, the most memorable moment occurred one early morning in November a few months after we added the shower stall.

While sleeping in one of the bunks in the hunting shack mother nature sent a gripping message to my alimentary canal, forcing me to raise my consciousness out of many levels of deep slumber, caused mostly by the previous night's successful hunt and the celebration thereafter.

I lumbered out of my sleeping bag and headed for the simulated redwood commode in the woods with my faithful hunting dog, Blaze, who joined me for a similar reason. The rising sun, shining right into the outhouse door, was warm and welcoming, causing me to leave the door wide open. We were, after all, a mile from the nearest neighbor.

My hunting companion solved her needs and wandered around to check things out. In the meantime, I began to slip back a couple of levels into comforting sleep. That warm morning sun felt good on my bare buck legs as I sat on the smooth redwood seat underneath the cozy that circled my buck naked fanny.

Suddenly Blaze began to chase a red squirrel back and forth in front of the outhouse. When the frightened creature couldn't reach a tree in time to make his escape, it dove down the drainage hole formed by the continual flow of shower water in the back of the country commode.

At this point I have to try to understand the dilemma of the poor, hysterical red squirrel and only guess at his frustration. Envision him racing along that drainage hole which flowed directly into that terrible smelly black pit directly under the seat of the outhouse.

Once he slipped into the terrible pit, the only light and hope of escape for Mr. Squirrel was to jump up toward the shaft of light emanating between the front of my body and the toilet seat. Escape was only a few feet away if he could just hurl himself toward the light.

Well, he hurled himself, all right, but he missed the edge of the seat by inches. In order to keep from falling back down into what was certainly no bed of roses he clung to parts of my manhood I'd rather not remember, thank you. Suffice it to say, my sleep level indicator shot into the red zone like a rocket. One minute I was dozing in the warm sunlight letting it all hang out and the next moment a furry creature had his claws firmly embedded in and was passionately clinging to the family jewels. I let out a bass bellow that vibrated and trembled into a soprano shriek that not only woke my wife in our shack across the woods, but also woke the neighbor in his shack a mile down the road. As I shot off the seat like a missile I probably knocked that squirrel senseless as his body hit the front edge of the commode and he slipped back into the dark hole below.

I continued to scream and jump up and down in my all together only calming down when I finally figured out what had happened.

The morning wasn't a total waste, however, since my blessed wife volunteered to apply medication to my wounds. Trouble is, as I knelt on the bed on all fours, squirming in obvious pain and discomfort, she alternated between her Florence Nightingale duties and falling off her chair in uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Sometimes I don't understand my wife one bit, however, I do have to give her credit for her unusual "point of view" if you get my drift.

All I can say is that most times "getting close to nature" is a pleasant experience for a hunter like me, but I think that particular early morning constitutional adventure in the old outhouse is one outdoor experience I could have done without quite well. But in spite of that single event, the old outhouse and I have shared many special moments over the years and will continue to do so as long as there's hunting to be done and land on which to do it.