The First and the Last

by Donna Poole

The first time was at Grandma’s. Hers was a two-seater, something my sister Mary and I found hysterical when we were little girls taking turns using it, talking to each other through the wooden door.

“Do you think two people ever use this at the same time?”

“Who would ever?”

We giggled just thinking about it.

The next time I was many years older, twenty-five years old to be exact. My husband, John, drove down what they called a gravel road in Michigan to a church on a corner. The gravel road looked like dirt to us; I suppose it did have a few small stones flung here and there. The church, though tiny, wasn’t the smallest we’d seen.

During John’s last year of Bible college in Iowa he had preached every Sunday at a different small church needing a speaker, and that had given us a heart for rural ministry. When the people of this country church in Michigan had written asking John to come preach, we’d been happy to oblige; they were looking for a pastor, and John was hoping to become one.

So, early in May 1974, we drove from Indiana where we were living to Michigan. I didn’t mind the dirt road though John might have. We pulled into the parking lot, and I looked around at the beautiful farm fields. I felt at home. Even before I set foot inside the building, I hoped the congregation would like John and ask him to come back and preach again. John was too nervous to feel one way or another. And our twenty-one-month-old Angie didn’t have an opinion either; she was sleeping in the backseat.

Partway through John’s first sermon in that little church Angie whispered, “Potty.”

I looked around the building. There were no doors, just the auditorium. I tapped the woman ahead of me on the shoulder. “Where’s the bathroom?”

I wasn’t hard of hearing back in those years like I am now, but I was sure I couldn’t have heard correctly, so I just sat there.

Angie said, louder this time, “Potty!”

“Can’t you wait?”

She shook her head no.

I asked the same woman the same question and got the same answer, so outside and around back I went. And I laughed. It wasn’t a two-seater like Grandma’s. I held Angie so she wouldn’t fall in. I thought she’d be afraid, but she was more intrigued than anything else. I kept telling her to hurry so neither of us would get stung by the bees buzzing inside.

A few months later that congregation did call John to come as their pastor. One of his first official jobs was to meet a deacon up at church, turn the outhouse over, and get rid of the bee’s nest. Eventually the church got indoor plumbing, just one bathroom, you know, like the Three Stooges motto, “All for one and one for all.” But it was a big deal for all of us back in those days, a real big deal.

I wanted to celebrate. I thought we should have a church party, burn the outhouse in a gigantic bonfire, and toast marshmallows. John vetoed my idea. It wasn’t the first or the last time he’s vetoed my ministry ideas, which is probably why we’re still in the same church all these years later. If he’d listened to me more often. we’d probably have lasted a year, maybe five at the most, before the sweet congregation may have politely suggested we move on.

The little house the church rented as a parsonage for us had an outhouse in the backyard. “Old John” who lived in a tiny trailer, also in our backyard, used it. When Old John died, young John got rid of the outhouse that was mostly falling down by itself.

Many other outhouses were part of our life’s journey too, most of them found at isolated campgrounds in Michigan’s state forests. Those were wonderful days, camping when the kids were smal, and the campground echoed with laughter of our family and friends who camped with us.

Years passed and through the goodness of God and a neighbor with a heart the size of the world we moved from the little house to the big house next door. It too had an outhouse in the backyard. That one hadn’t been used in years, had no distinctive outhouse smell—if you know you know—and was in remarkably good condition. I had immediate and enthusiastic plans for it.

I dragged John out back. “Look, honey. We’ll plant our garden right here, okay?” He agreed. “And we’ll turn that outhouse into an adorable little garden shed. We can put in a window, slap some cute shutters on it; can’t you just see it?”

He couldn’t just see it, and sadly, the outhouse became a pile of ashes. I was sad. Come to think of it, I believe John said he’d build me a little garden shed that looked like an outhouse. I think I’ll be talking to him about that one of these days when he finishes his honey do list.

That poor cremated outhouse wasn’t the last one in my life. We continued camping where there were outhouses. We were at a state forest near Grayling, Michigan when our son, Dan, who usually loved camping, seemed uncharacteristically depressed.

I asked him if something was wrong. “I miss Mindy,” he said.

“Let’s call her and see if she wants to come up and camp with us,” I suggested.

Mindy did. She bought a little one-person tent and joined us. Primitive camping and outhouses may not have been her thing, but she loved Dan, and she loved us, and we made a wonderful memory that week. By the next summer Dan and Mindy were married.

Strange, but I can’t remember if that summer Mindy joined us was our last outhouse camping trip or if we camped in other primitive campgrounds after that. It’s probably stranger still that I have such happy outhouse memories! I guess it isn’t really the outhouses I remember so fondly it’s the events surrounding them; my sister’s laugh, a young pastor’s first hopeful sermon, a little girl not afraid of bees buzzing around her bare bottom, my early experiences with country life, happy memories of camping with family and friends, and the addition of the first of four in-laws to our family.

In the almost three decades since that camping trip, I’ve learned Mindy will do anything we need done and do it with love. She’s a huge treasure wrapped in a tiny package. I bet she’d even go camping again with us where she had to use an outhouse. But just in case I’m wrong, I don’t think I’ll ask her.

The End
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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume 1: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume 2: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume 3: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume 4: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

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