Git on th' wagon

Did you ever take a dump in an outhouse?

Did you ever use a page out of an old Sears and Roebuck catalog to wipe your butt?

Did you ever go into that outhouse on a summer day and have the heat inside start sweat running down your back like you'd just finished a marathon and the smell be almost enough to gag a maggot?

I'm old enough to remember the old privy, or as we called it, the 'outhouse' at my grandfathers house.

It wasn't there too long. I think they started building their house just a hundred yards up from the dairy barn in the year I was born. They'd been living in an older house down the road from the dairy for quite a while.

The outhouse may have been there before they started building the house, because I can't remember the house not having a bathroom in my first memories, but I can remember using the outhouse there as well as at other old homeplaces and our little country church which has a two sided double holer. One side was for the men and boys and the other for the women and girls. Not a lot of privacy as far as the sounds of bowel movements were concerned, there not being a separate pit for either side.....in fact the one at the church didn't have a pit. It just had an opening in the back so the by-products of church 'homecomings' and 'dinners on the ground' could slide slowly down the hill in the back.

Grandpa's out house was eventually removed...lingering only in memory and thankfulness that we've got indoor plumbing now.

All that long in the past except for trips to the woods, where we just have to squat behind a bush, or a port-a-potty at the fairgrounds now and then.

I can remember the old mule drawn wagon stored down in the shed beside the corn crib also....although by the time I came along it had been retired to a slow death from dust, cobwebs and neglect in favor of more efficient methods of hauling crops in rubber-tired wagons pulled by McCormick Farmall and Ford 8N tractors. So I never got to ride behind a pair of mules plodding steadily between the fields and the barns, dust puffing from under each huge iron shod hoof at each step, the only noise the clopping of the hoofs and the creaking of the wooden wagon and the occasional passing of gas from under their course tails.

But, I know what it means when somebody says "Git on th' wagon".

It means that if you don't hurry and get in the back of the truck and hang on, your daddy was gonna grab an ear and apply the side of his brogan to your scrawny backside in an effort to make you see the light.

I've not posted for almost a week. Mostly because I've watched in amazement as the media for the most part tried to marginalize, minimize and ridicule the TEA Party activities of tax day. Their words quite at odds with the impression I came away with that day.
And partly because I've been busy seeking, finding and moving the small treasures I fool with. Also partly because we spent Sunday traveling in the NE Georgia mountains visiting some gold mining sites and taking in the still full stream beds of the Etowah and Tesnatee rivers and Yahoola Creek.

There were a few rain clouds around washing the pollen from the air and causing the flowers on the dogwoods to shine as white as freshly starched shirts from the laundry. Azaleas bloomed in pink, red and white profusion, making a delightful colored salad for the eyes. It filled our hearts with gladness.....a restful respite from the cares of these days, which, depending on who is reporting, is either the worst of times, or the beginning of the end times.

Git on th' wagon is a phrase that we could well heed I think. I invite you to click Here and watch the two short videos. The Ol’ Guy doing the talking may sound a little country preacherish, but don't be fooled.....you don't become the CEO of Godfathers' Pizza and turn it from an almost failure in to a most successful company by being stupid. It takes a pretty intelligent thinker to accomplish that. It could be that we'll need more intelligent thinkers to keep this county from becoming just another foot note in the future history books.