The theme of the April 1981 Colorado Old Times was Out Back in the Outhouse. I worked on Dad's handwritten article, typed it up, submitted it, but I didn't think that it would make it into the paper. Here's what Dad wrote:

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The Honey Carts

I remember in the early 1900 the old outhouses. The first one I remember was up the hill from the house that we owned. It was the regular run of the mill kind. I've seen the ones that was his, hers, and the kids which was built lower than his and hers. We were in the poorer class so we just had a two seater. When they were full of waste matter they would be cleaned out. They had a big wagon made of metal and with two large lids. We kids used to call them honey carts. When one was in the neighborhood you knew it. You could smell them for about three blocks and they didn't smell like honey. I don't know whether in early 1900 they had the clip clothes pin but you sure could of used one on your nose. When I was still small I remember one kid would ask the other the difference between the rich and the poor. The answer was the rich had a canopy over their beds. The poor had a canopy under their beds.

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I was pleasantly surprised when the paper came out and someone had retitled the story, removed the first three quarters of it, and printed it in the April edition as a short-short.

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Difference Between Rich & Poor

When I was still small, I remember one kid would ask the other the difference between the rich and the poor. The answer was the rich had a canopy over their beds. The poor had a can-o-py under their beds.

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Dad was getting sicker by this time, and had to give up his writing class. So, for the only time during this period, I decided to write a story in his style based on a joke I had heard some years before and submit it under his name (which was, after all, my name also) along with his Honey Cart story. It was a tough job trying to get an article into the shape and style of an old time story, especially since I was in my early 40's, just over half Dad's age. The only thing I could think of to call it was the lame title An Untitled Outhouse Story. The story appeared at the bottom left hand corner of page 14 under Dad's name giving him two stories in the same April edition. The new and vastly improved name was added by the Colorado Old Times.

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Fishing The Old Two-Holer

A short time before I moved west from Cincinnati, I had a job working as a foreman in a machine shop. I never liked to boss people around, but their foreman quit one afternoon, and they wanted me to try the job out to see how I'd like it.

The place was a little way out of Cincinnati. They didn't bother to install an inside restroom, so the buys working there had to make do with an old outhouse located up on the hill behind the shop. It was an old two seater, and it looked like a strong wind would blow it over.

One morning the youngest guy at the shop came up to me and told me he had to take a break to go to the outhouse. I didn't think anymore about it, but a half hour or so later I noticed he still wasn't back at his machine. I decided I'd better check the outhouse to see what happened to the kid.

When I got up the hill to the outhouse, the door was open. I looked in and there was the kid with a long stick poking it up and down in one of the holes.

"What are you trying to do?" I asked him. He pointed to a nail and said he'd hung his coat up there and when he went to get the coat down it slipped off the nail and fell down the hold in the seat.

I told him he might as well give it up, because if he did manage to get the coat out of there, he wouldn't ever be able to wear it again anyway.

He stopped his fishing around and turned and looked at me with a straight face and said, "I wasn't figuring I could wear the coat again. I'm just trying to get it so I can get my sandwich out of the pocket."

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But that wasn't the end of Fishing The Old Two-Holer. Even though Dad was no longer around to see it, it was reprinted in A Senior Edition Special Issue called The Best Of Colorado Old Times published January 15, 1984. And it continued on for a third printing when it was reprinted by an insurance company who bought it from Colorado Old Times for their newsletter. I've looked for that newsletter but I'm not sure that Mom and I ever got a copy of it but Mom got a small check to deposit in the bank for the reprint of the outhouse hoax.

Between our stories, Out Back in the Outhouse wasn't such a bad place to be.