Bathroom Humor
The old silver maple at the edge of our property is falling apart. This winter may be it’s last. The old thing is going out in style as a vine has crept up the trunk and erupted in a blaze of color. But what I remember about the old tree is the Labor Day family reunion twelve years ago when our daughter and her cousins spent the weekend in it. We could hardly get them down for meals. For the next twelve months, they planned what to do in the tree during the next reunion.
As soon as the six girls arrived the following Labor Day, they swarmed the tree – and immediately swarmed right back down. “Ew, eeww, eeewww. Squirrel poop. Disgusting.” They were so grossed out that they never climbed that tree again. They started making
S. O. Weird Cousin TV movies instead, but that’s an entry for another day.
This entry is about our nation’s attitude toward bathrooms. Pretty much we pretend they don’t exist. When I was a kid, this cover up bugged me. Every kids’ book I read, and I read lots of them, ignored the whole bathroom thing. Even the classics like the Little House books and The Yearling, The Chronicles of Narnia, and my personal favorites, the Young American Biography series, said not one word about bathrooms.
And that is why I am so excited about going to Philadelphia tomorrow. Right in the middle of the Old City, just a few blocks from the Liberty Bell, we will see Ben and Deborah Franklin’s privy. Talk about history coming to life! I mean, how many of Ben’s inventions were conceived there? Even the founding fathers must have done their best thinking on the…well, you know.
So when Hiram and I tour the Old City, my camera will be clicking away. It’s part of my self-appointed mission to tear down bathroom barriers and bring all of our nation’s history to light. And since all that remains of Ben and Deb’s privy is the foundation, I can liberate our nation pretty quickly. So check back next week for Bathroom Humor, Part Two. It should be revealing.
