My Folks: Back to the Basics : A Treasury of Outhouse Stories

by Michele R. Webb

Funny Book

119 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[CindySR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of outhouse memories from an assortment of mid-westerners. Guess where I kept it while I was reading it?

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was growing up, both of my grandparents had outhouses, my paternal grandparents did not have electricity or running water in the house. Therefore, many of the experiences, particularly those of going outside in extremely cold weather are familiar to me. While some people took care to seal their outhouses against the elements, that was not the case with my grandparents. There is no experience like having to go really bad yet trying to hold it off when the temperature is south of zero. Even worse, feeling a wind of that temperature on your bare bottom as you desperately try to hurry the job along.
Therefore, in my opinion, these stories will not be as humorous to those that experienced similar events in their lives. There may have been times when hiding in the outhouse was fun as a child, but using it was smelly, chokingly hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. No one that I know of that used one on a regular basis finds those memories humorous, even in a significant retrospective. Yet, I concede that people that have flushed their way through life will find them amusing.

[Naomi Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun little light read, composed of many personal stories.

[HeavyReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be sort of a pioneer bathroom reader, a collection of cute little short stories and wacky interesting information to read in the john. Instead, this is a collection of stories about outhouses. The stories are supposed to be heartwarming and humorous, but the ones I read while skipping around through the chapters were mediocre and bland. How many tales of outhouses exploding and catching on fire can any one person want to read?

[Cws]

YA My