THE VANISHING LANDMARKS

FADING SOCIAL STRUCTURES
OR
THE PASSING OF THE PRIVY

In the past 200 years our great nation has made astounding advancements in many areas, but, in our haste for progress has anyone really thought deeply into the reverberating social changes brought about by indoor plumbing?

Was the two-holed monument of our past placed behind the lilac bush for privacy and discretion, or was it, even then, recognized by our wise predecessors to serve a function far greater than the needs of body elimination?

The growing girl or boy did not need physical fitness programs. In their first waking moments, they engaged in the 100 yard dash. Transcendental Meditation was replaced by early morning meditation accompanied by the song of the meadowlark or the wren.

Where else could one be so alone as when the hook was latched on the backhouse door? Where could one exchange such confidence with a friend as in the quiet of the evening while perdched with legs dangling from the two-holer? Some of the more thoughtful architects even provided a "child- size"hole with no need to dangle the feet. The wild daisy plucked from the daisy lined path told the course of many a romance. The petals pulled to the tune of "he loves me, he loves me not", were on target at least half the time. Here much sage advice was dispensedfrom older cousins and aunts. Self- styled human relations courses were in constant session.

Where else could you plan your wardrobe from the "Monkey Wards" catalog in such peace. The imagination was even challenged to fill in the outfits on the half torn out pages. There was no need classes to provide increased sensory perception. One was doubly aware of the bountiful harvest, and the peach canning was over, as the peach crate offered its pink peach wrappers. This was a seasonal treat replacing their harsher sisters, the catalogue pages. The evening visits provided the challenge of avoiding the bats cavorting in the starlit sky. Or the anticipatikon that perhaps the skunk, who steals eggs from the chicken house, could have such poor taste in housing as to have settled down in the backhouse, gave one a "crash awareness course."

What better place could the older daughter take the younger neighbor girl to find out what "really is going on at the neeighbors"? Many a mother after and evening visiting the neighbors would quizher child about what their neighbor had asked while in that two-hole conference room. Children had to be well instructed not to devulge the family secrets in this quiet setting.

History is still wrestling with the qu4stion of whether one of the early residents of Burnsville reacted in aggressive or an assertive manner when her brother put the old red rooster down the back-house hole, carefully replacing the corner and awaited Burnsville's historical "first mooning". It is left to our imagination the creative artistry that could be devoloped of our youth were to "TP" with peach wrappers and catalog pages.

We leave the challencge of correcting this upheaval of our social structure to the great minds of the philosophers, scientists and socialogists of the next 200 years.

Betty Sodomka