​The Old Outhouse

The old outhouse is gone. It used to be right over there resting under that timeworn cypress. I don’t know why its absence struck me so. It isn’t as if I enjoyed using the old outhouse. Use was born of necessity, not desire. Yes, going in there was an adventure in many ways, but I can’t say I was fond of it. I contend that on any given day in mid-July the vapors, were they to be properly concentrated, could be weaponized to good effect. Not to mention the winged inhabitants of the place and the fear of being carried off to who knows where that drifted into a young boy’s mind while he was in there. Lord have mercy, the bees and the yellow jackets and the blow flies and the nameless creatures that lived in that place.

It’s strange that there’s pain in its passing, but there it is. I do have a lot of old memories and old stories with that outhouse in the background; perhaps that explains this inward aching. A precious privy; go figure. Well, honestly I never really have had any philosophical fondness for that particular outhouse, any port in a storm you know; but Lord, I do love the memories in which that rickety old place now resides.

The hogs have moved on as well. I’ve mentioned them before. They weren’t regular hogs. They were boat landing hogs and they were bred for the purpose.  This particular brand of hog, the Willis Landing hog, had a hankering for anything nasty and slightly rotted. They were forever chewing on something that you didn’t want to know about. They were panhandlers and general nuisances as well, with breath like Satan and little beady eyes like a demon from Hell.

As a young boy, I quickly learned that boat landing hogs weren’t good company and were best avoided, if you knew what was good for you; and no, I didn’t always know what was good for me. One of these days, I’ll tell you about it.

Yeah, those old hogs would spend the heat of the day up underneath the porch over there. They would grunt and squeal and make all sorts of racket. If you got too close they invited you to dinner, but not in a good way. More as a side dish than as a visitor, but they were part of the scene, so you didn’t mind all that much. As long as you watched where you stepped, there was no real harm done.

Well goodness gracious, the porch is gone, so is the old store for that matter. I mean there’s nothing left, not even a foundation. There’s just a patch of grass, some tidbits of the past scattered about and one old glass bottle with just the shadow of Old Milwaukee clinging to it.  It was way off in the woods. I figure some teenage boy must’ve tossed it over there when mama got too close. Things could get hopping on a Saturday night, or so they said.

I wonder how time missed that old bottle; it must’ve gotten distracted somehow looking for some other old man’s memories to mess with.

That old store was where I had my first taste of Tupelo Honey. Man, that was some good stuff.

With the flood of memories rushing my way my eyes moistened up a bit, but about that time my mind brought back that Tupelo taste to my lips, and I had to smile. It was then that I turned to look at the old river, and it was like coming home.

The sorrow of loss and the longing for the way things once were succumbed to the joy of the untouched. Yes, the store has vanished, the outhouse and its kind are all but extinct, the hogs have long since become side meat and sausage; but the river, the river remains the same.

Just around that bend to the right, right past that little seductive curve is where Whiskey Slough can be found. Somehow simply knowing that place of my childhood, with its coffee colored water and ever present shade was right over there like always lifted my heart from the doldrums into the morning light of years gone by. What a gift that was. What a blessing.
 
We live in a time that is ever-changing, it seems. As things change around us, as the things of the past are cast aside, as new realities raise their heads, it can be very frightening. As the age old institutions upon which our stability rests are shaken by new generations with new ideas and new beliefs, fear and sorrow can overtake us.

As this world changes around us, many have a sense of loss and longing for the way things once were. I number myself with those people; but as a child of God, I must allow my sense of loss and longing to succumb to the joy of knowing the untouched, the unchanged and the unchangeable.

Let the world change around me, if it wishes; I will rely upon the steadfast sameness of my God and of His Word, and in so doing, I will find true peace, stability and joy. I pray that you do the same.

Rev 1:8
8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."    NIV

Love,
Pastor Tony

(This story was hatched during a short visit Mary and I made to my childhood haunt of Willis Landing. Willis Landing was half way in between Wewahitchka and Port St. Joe on the Panhandle of Florida. The landing has gone, but the memories are faithful.)  Tony
 
 
 
 

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