Meta Janowitz wrote:
>I was talking to an older man who grew up in the Berkshire Mountains
>of Massachusetts about his life there as a child -- where they dumped their
>garbage ("down the hill behind Uncle Joe's house") and such -- and the
>subject of privies came up.  ...


When I was a kid and first becoming interested in farms and rural
architecture and archaeology and such I went around to many of the older
locals and gathered stories of what life was like, family realtionships,
where buildings were located, etc. and with few exceptions no one would
tell me anything about the outhouses and privies.  A few showed me the
little structure turned tool shed at the end of the woodshed, but in the
absence of of such standing structure I was usually told "it was out back"
or the subject was avoided entirely.  One man told me that as a young boy
it was his job to help clean the box out but he didn't want to relive those
days and went on to tell me quaint (and apparently smell-related?) horror
stories of meeting up with skunks in the barns.  I guessed that privy
activities were not something to brag about or too embarassing to remember
and thus not worth repeating or passing down.  Now that we have realized
that a huge chunk of our past is gone we are keenly interested, as always.

        Dan W.