JIM'S LITTLE BLOG

(B.1) "Dark"   This is a photo of the International Date Line taken from the back window of our plane, heading to the U.S. from Australia.  Since it was night and Dark out there, you will have to imagine what it looked like.

(B.2) "Dark":    Nearing Dark, twilight. 

(B.3) "Dark":   My previous Dark story, Dark opposite of Light (my dfn.).

My Dark Story:  When I was growing up on the farm, we did not have electricity until 1938. That was the year my younger sister, Lois, was born.

Lois was trouble as soon as she was too old to be sleeping in Mom and Dad's bedroom. Our house only had two bedrooms, upstairs. At first there was one for my parents and one for me.

After Lois came she needed the bedroom that I had and so I was relegated to the front porch which was to be used as my sleeping room. Just a sleeping room. In the daytime my bed was put back as a studio couch and with the rockers and the other chairs our front porch was a place to hang out in the evenings. It was screened to keep the bugs out and also had storm windows for the winter to keep the winds out. But it still got cold out there, even so Nebraska cold that frost developed on my outer blanket

Yes, we had electricity, REA, Rural Electricity Association, from the year Lois was born on.  There were two lights hanging on the back side of the porch attached to the house wall. So I had a pull chain light that I could reach by standing on the bed, i.e. the unfolded couch. 

We also installed an inside bathroom that year. It had a tub, a toilet, and a sink. And a closet for my clothes with a hole from kitchen wall for a refrigerator.  We still took showers out on the back porch though. Now instead of a bucket of warmed water to bath with we had a real shower hose attached to the faucet used also to fill the washing machine. We shared that part of the back porch with Mom's old Maytag machine.

Dad did not like us using the toilet in the bathroom because it meant cleaning out the cesspool more often (the sink, toilet, and tub drained into the cesspool). 

Helping the cesspool, the porch shower water ran outside into the back yard through a hole in the wall at floor level. When we weren't showering we put a big round wooden plug into the hole to keep snakes out. But we couldn't run any toilet water out into the back yard.

The 'light' story part: 

So we were supposed to use the outhouse (outside toilet in a little house) that we had used before.  It was out behind the chicken house in the grove. If only company were to use the inside toilet and our family always used the outhouse we would probably never have to clean the cesspool out again. I don't think we did either.

The problem at night was that it was dark going out to the outhouse. I can't remember if I was afraid of the dark or just pretended to be. But at any rate I can remember convincing Lois always to walk with me at night, in the dark, out to the outhouse.

We may have had flashlights but not one to use going out there. They were saved for working in the dark or fixing things at night. I suppose that Lois also used the outhouse while we were out there. I don't remember that part..

Our Outhouse

Too bad the tree fell on it. Of course no one was inside, just a whole lot of memories left there waiting.

(D) Street/Reflections:   bright Sky and shades of green Foliage side and backyard Reflecting in the water  (a friend's home, not ours).

(E) A Lagniappe:  Mrs. Jim inspecting the lake on the end of our friend's lot.  It has really nice Reflections also. 

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Here in the back again you can see the back yard. And the other back porch. Out there was Mom's washing machine, a wringer type Maytag. At first it had a gasoline engine, but in 1938 we got electricity and Dad changed it to electric.

Also out there was the shower. Until we got electricity, we hung a bucket of warm water with a hose on the bottom. After there was running water, we hooked the hose up to the faucet Mom used for washing when we showered.

There were curtains to pull when we were showering. I doubt if there was ever anyone out there to peek in (except us kids). There was a crawl in door beside the shower to go down to service the water pump. The water was pumped from a cistern in front of the house.

On top of the water system was a fairly large bathroom with a sink, tub, and lavatory. They were light blue, from Sears. We didn't look out there to see if the buggers had taken those fixtures. A closet for my clothes was also in the bathroom.

The roof on both these porches is metal, we called it tin. The porch with the shower was the emergency exit, out an upstairs window, then onto the roof. Dad had to use that when the snow was over the downstairs doors and windows. Then he would shovel us a path out the back door.

A cherry tree everyone called Jim's was beside the porch in the yard. Behind the porch is an old washhouse we used for storage. It was cute. Behind that are the chicken houses, then behind them is the outhouse. Family Birthplace Life Photos Nebraska Country 1940s

Even after we had plumbing we were encouraged to use the outhouse and the porch shower to help not overrun the cesspool. Dad didn't like to clean that out, but it had to be done too often. I never helped with that.

Lois doesn't want to burn the house down, she was born there too. Dr. Luckens came out, I remember vividly. I was five. Then Grandpa came to take me for a ride. We took his stud horse for a conjugal visit or visits. We were in his pickup truck with his valuable stud horse in the back.

I always did like to go riding with Grandpa. He called me Little Jim. More about our relationship some other day.
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