Over a period of time, things, people, words, places, and expressions change dramatically. But as a little boy growing up in the woods of rural southeastern Baylor County, Texas, time moved slowly and things rarely changed.
My life on the farm revolved around four basic structures. The house, barn, wood shed/ root cellar, and the outhouse were those buildings that occupied my landscape.
The house consisted of four rooms, with only three being used during the winter months because the main room facing north was simply too cold to live in during the winter. The roof was made of tin with rain barrels on each corner and a cistern near the front porch. Tow sacks helped to fill the absent windowpanes that always seemed to be broken or in disrepair. The floor was wood that anchored large splinters. The temperature of the floor could tell the daily weather forecast, and the large cracks between the boards were a good barometer.
The big room was center stage for a large pot-bellied stove. All activity gravitated around it, and the battery-powered radio that dominated the west wall. The family slept in this room during the cold nights. My folks had the bed, and my little sister and I slept on cots located around the stove. The furnishings consisted of a large wood box, two chairs, clothes bureau, two coal oil lamps, and a large rocker that would be relocated to the front porch as the weather permitted.
The kitchen had a small cook stove, and a small kindling box. Mother made bread every meal. There were two small washtubs on a cabinet used as sinks. The large washtub for washing clothes {and us on special occasions} leaned against a wall near the cabinet. There was an icebox that held a mammoth 25-pound block of ice that lasted from its purchase date on Saturday afternoon to well into the evening on Tuesday. The water bucket gave rest to a single dipper and sat near the corner of the cabinet. A small table provided comfort and security to the four worn, handmade cane bottom chairs.
The other small north room was a storage area and held a sewing machine and a frame for quilting. The butter churn and a large kindling box stood in the corner. There was another clothing bureau, assembled clothesline, assorted tools, and wooden storage boxes that proclaimed their residence there.
Of all the structures, the barn was the most adventuresome. The milk cow and calf, cats, chickens, the neighbor’s dog, and a misguided opossum resided there among the stalls, bales of hay, cakes of feed, and farming implements. The loft became my haven for reading and dreaming. Spiders and mice were my audience, as I read aloud and imagined exploring the faraway places and meeting the famous people that I read about. But it was behind the barn where I learned to smoke. I was not a very discriminating smoker. I tried grapevines, cotton hulls and leaves, driftwood, and an occasional pilfered or misplaced cigarette or cigar butt. Smoking brings me to the next structure, the wood shed.
The wood shed was the place where Mother took me once, when she caught me smoking a Prince Albert rolled cigarette. My main jobs consisted of keeping the house supplied with the two most essential elements for living. So I carried water several times a day to the house, and gathered enough wood at a time for several days. I hated that wood shed. For a kid that lived 20 miles from nowhere, I made many a visit there accompanied by Mom, and it wasn’t always to fetch wood.
While the wood shed was the most painful place to visit, the outhouse was the most perilous. It was located about a hundred feet in back of the house, west of the barn and some distance from the well.
The terrain around the farm was heavily wooded, and rattlesnakes were frequent visitors to the yard, porch, and cellar. A suspected snake den was located under the house. Sometimes at night, we could hear them quarreling and rattling their displeasure at one another. Now, snakes didn’t bother me under the house, but my greatest fear was that some cold, dark night one might decide to take up residence in the outhouse, and just as I sat down to take care of some personal business, he would introduce himself to my posterior.
Nighttime was the worst time to have to harken to the call of nature. Most often, we used the infamous “slop jar.” But I disliked this convenience, because I had to empty them in the morning. So I usually made the pilgrimage alone, accompanied only by a poorly lighted kerosene lantern.
One night about three o’clock in the morning, the need of urgency crossed my mind. I lit the lantern, gathered my nightshirt, and started the journey toward the outhouse. The moon was companion friendly, and the vocal crickets provided me with an accompaniment of music. The walk to the outhouse was uneventful. As I entered the inner sanctum of marvelous comfort, I left the door open, hopefully to encourage a helpful breeze to elevate the odor that often arose because of my presence.
Things were going quite nicely when I first noticed a small black nose peek around the frame of the door. A long black and white snout, followed by two attentive eyes situated between low-lying ears quickly followed the nose. Then a head with a black and white-striped body gave development to a long, bushy white-streaked tail.
Now I knew what it was. I prayed for a snake to bite me on the butt to relieve me of my misery. But that didn’t happen, and in walked a skunk. There was nowhere to run, because the skunk was positioned between freedom and me. He walked in boldly; appearing to ignore me. He sniffed around the floor, and then jumped up next to me. Stupid skunk, he didn’t realize that this outhouse was a one ‘holer.’ Looking bored, he hopped down and disappeared through the door into the darkness.
With nightshirt flaring, underwear at the knees and in a siege of panic, I headed for the house. From then on, I used another location to take care of my personal problems.
Even today, I am ever vigil, and always make sure the bathroom door is firmly secure before I make a commitment to relaxation.

Durhl Caussey is a syndicated columnist who writes for papers across America. He may be reached at this paper or dcaussey@sbcglobal.net.