Well, I was pretty much a city boy. Dad moved us from the farm to the suburbs when I was 2. We still owned half the farm with my uncle. I can honestly admit I never enjoyed outhouses.
Along about 1986, early August, we were on a jeep ride in Central Colorado. We'd left and took 285 south past US 50, then west up into the mountains. About lunch time we crossed 50 going north at Monarch Pass. Then took a pretty obscure road down into the thriving community of North Star (population zero). But there on the east side of the small road was the very first two story outhouse I'd ever seen! It also had a ground level door. The theory was, when winter snows got deep, you'd just use the upstairs facility. They were offset, so the gravity flow principle didn't result in the upstairs stuff hitting the downstairs seat. There's a comic floating around with the upstairs labeled Management and the downstairs Employees.
I'm thinking that one is political. Next time I visited Chaffee County, I made a special effort to go up and over Hancock and Tomichi Passes, then down into White pine and take a left through the mine dump. Turns out some rich guy bought the town of North Star and flattened it, building himself a getaway.
When I was young and even more intractable, we used to go hunting up a creek. It was a fairly good drive from home, but our family friend owned a piece of property there. His access to the otherwise landlocked property was a lane. And right beside the lane was an old cabin where a guy lived. He was friendly. We didn't hunt together, but separated up at the top of the hill. When I got tired or managed to shoot whatever we were hunting, I'd come back down the lane and talk to the old guy. He'd been to the war, the first one. And he had some pretty good stories.
So I started bringing him some food. Sometimes things my mother had cooked just for the purpose. And of course he always had a garden and would load me up with veggies to take home. For a few years I even took our mower up and did my best job on the yard around the house. One year he was "a settin'" out in the outhouse. But when he heard my car pull into the uphill lane, he yelled for me. I was bad and disturbed the peace and quiet. He used to sit there with an ancient shotgun, loaded with a slug. He was "a deer huntin'" meaning he'd go sit out there every morning of his life. The local deer knew the routine and didn't even notice his leaving the door swung open. Then he'd pop a nice fat doe (even if back then it was buck only). Better eatin'. His way of thinkin', he owned the land that fed the deer. He wasn't greedy.
But then I went and got married and young wives aren't real happy when you leave them alone, so my visits were less frequent. Guess I hadn't been up there for a few months and when I visited, the place was a wreck. The grass overgrown, no body at home. I was pretty darn worried about the old guy. Over maybe 15 years we'd become friends, and I knew he had no family. But while I was there a neighbor came roaring down the road. He thought maybe I was a vandal, but soon recognized me. He told me the old guy had a problem and the county moved him to a nursing home down in town. So I drove there and asked. The old guy was about the same, just more frail. And like a lot of old folks with no family, he was really happy someone came to visit. And he was pretty darn worried about his farm.
So after a little conference, we checked him out for the afternoon and I drove him there. Mixed emotions for him. He hated how run down the place had become, but he was happy to see it again. And he wanted to walk out to his outhouse!
He was checkin' on his shotgun.
It needed oiling, so I got some WD out of the car and we sprayed it down as best we could. So I took him back and promised to use some real gun oil on it next chance I got. That routine continued for a couple of years. Then one day there was a sign on the house - up for county auction. So at the nursing home I learned the worst, he'd passed away. The receptionist told me I was the only visitor he'd ever had. Kind of sad. But back at the old house I went to the outhouse. The shotgun was gone. Someone else didn't value it as much as I had. It needed to stay where it had been. And it still upsets me.
Even here in the big city we still have outhouses. Anyone traveling on I-75 can see the back of one. Its a two holer, as others have mentioned. But it also has 2 doors. Its less than a mile into Kentucky from Ohio, on the west side. There's a bunch of houses, and when they seem to move away just a little, that last house parallel to the interstate has it. Probably not been used, or is just a shed. But its there if you know where to look for it.
