Vale of Outhouses

    When we moved to Valley Falls in the mid-forties, almost every house in the village had an outhouse in the back yard.  Rural areas, even villages, back then, mostly lacked sewage systems and so relied on the primitive structures known as outdoor toilets, or outhouses.  Some of the outhouses were modest one-holers, with a single door.  A few of them boasted 2 holes, but the outhouse in our back yard was a masterpiece of outhouses of  the rich and famous variety.  Our outhouse had 2 wide doors, separate entrances with each side having 2 holes for double seating if necessary: the rare attraction of a 4-seater.   Passersby, visitors to the confectionery store attached to our house, would comment that never had they seen such an elaborate building, of its type of course.  The explanation lay in the reason for its construction;  the house once had a barroom in the section which later became home to the confectionery store.  So the outdoor toilet had a side dedicated for ladies, which was on the right facing it, and the left side was for the gentlemen.  I can only imagine the reason for the 2 holes on each side.  If the bar was open during late hours, and I assume it must have been, and the customers had to "use the facilities,"  then, as now, the ladies must have accompanied each other to the restroom, so to speak.  Going into a backyard alone could well have been considered unseemly, if not downright dangerous.  I have no theory as to the double holes on the men's side; perhaps they just liked company, or maybe in case of simultaneous urgencies. 
   Prominently located in the middle of the back yard, which was  also the  central  playground for many of the kids in our area, meant that the outhouse was featured in a great many  of our childhood activities.  Too many to elaborate on at this hour, though one time my brother convinced a neighborhood child to see how long he could remain locked inside the little building.  The boy agreed to the challenge, my brother spun the wooden block which locked the door from the outside, and he proceeded to describe how all the air was being used up inside the outhouse, and there was not enough to sustain life inside.  In just a few minutes, the little prisoner cried uncle, and came out gasping for air.  Who needed summer youth programs back then?