Indoor Plumbing

     My friend is remodeling her upstairs bathroom.  She joked she should get a chamber pot after a couple of middle of the night trips downstairs to the working toilet.  That reminded me of a chamber pot experience in my youth.  The chamber pot memory brought back a few outhouse memories. My parents liked to remind me that I was a lucky one, only having used an outdoor toilet on a rare occasion.  It was a way of life when they were growing up in Hainesport.  Now that the wheels were turning, I wondered about outhouses in general and if they are illegal in these modern times.
     An outdoor privy is a small enclosure (usually made of wood) that sits atop a hole in the ground.  It is located far enough away from the house to keep smells away from the back porch and far enough away from the well to keep germs from getting into the water supply.  Most people picture the shack out back with a half moon cutout on the door.  One popular belief is that long ago public toilet doors were marked with a star cutout for men's rooms and a moon cutout for women's rooms, so the mostly illiterate populace would know where to go.  Since most houses had only one unisex outhouse, that cutout moon must have indicated that the woman cleaned it.  More than likely a hole in the door provided ventilation and light.  Once past the door, the interior usually has a bench seat in Western society.  In Eastern societies, there is normally only a hole in the floor over which one squats to get the job done.
     Depending on usage, the pit under an outhouse eventually fills up.  When that happens, the owner must dig a new pit, and move the outhouse to its new position over the freshly dig hole.  So a quality outdoor loo has to be light enough to be movable and strong enough to withstand the journey.  Thomas Jefferson had two matching octagonal brick outhouses at his Lynchburg, Virginia home.  They looked nice, but they weren't practical.  Some say these structures gave rise to the expression "built like a brick shithouse" - meaning overbuilt, showy, and impractical.
     So are permanent outside comfort stations illegal?  You can't put one in the backyard of today's sub-divisions, but they are still in use.  Some homes built in remote areas use composting toilets.  The Clivus Multrum brand toilet was invented in 1939 by a Swede named Rikard Lindstrom. Lindstrom built his toilet over a concrete tank that had a sloped bottom and a chimney for venting. The toilet functioned for decades, and it was patented in 1962.  This type of toilet is supposedly odor free, and after 30 years it will be only 6% full of solid waste.  When the toilet is cleaned, whatever is removed is germ free and suitable for use as fertilizer.  Not to be outdone, the Norwegians invented an incinerating toilet.  It uses propane and 12 volt direct current to reduce solid waste to ash.  Hikers who use the part of the Appalachian Trail that runs through New Jersey have a new type of outhouse on the route.  The old pit toilets have been replaced by mouldering toilets.  The enclosures are elevated.  Waste falls to the ground under the structures.  Users of the facility are instructed to throw saw dust or leaves (usually provided in buckets) down the hole after their deposit.  What accumulates underneath decomposes at a rapid rate due to exposure to the air.  Just keep your dog on a short leash when you hike the trail.
     I think the outhouse has enriched our culture, our language, for example.  If you never heard the expression windier than a shack full of farts or crazier than a shithouse rat, you must be familiar with an ailment called the back door trots.  And it's not just language.  Listen to this piece of music written to celebrate the alfresco john.