Synchro-Potty

When I was a kid my family summered on Martha's Vineyard. Before we had our own house we rented a small farmhouse out at the end of the island, almost at the tip of Gay Head. The facilities were minimal. We actually did have indoor plumbing, though if you wanted running water you had to pump for it. There was one nod to modernity, however, a tiny bathroom with a battery-operated toilet. To flush required running a noisy generator long enough to build up a charge in the battery, and it was decreed that my mother was the only one in the family allowed to use it. My father, two brothers, and I were banished to the rickety outhouse, which had three holes jammed together side by side. My dad dubbed it "the convertible," because it was a three-seater. There were four of us, so immediately after breakfast there was a mad dash for the available spaces. I hesitate to claim that this bonding ritual brought us all closer together, psychologically anyway, or made us better people, but looking back now I realize that what now would be unthinkable was then totally natural. And somehow, whenever I hear someone saying that the world was a better place back then, I think of the times we spent together in the convertible.

I heartily recommend a visit to my friend Jean's colorful new blog at www.jeanburman.com. Jean is a terrific artist, writer, and thinker, and I'm sure you'll want to bookmark it. She lives in Australia, and I keep meaning to ask her if "down under" dogs always wrap their leashes around trees counter-clockwise, as opposed to clockwise up here.