Review of "My Folks Back to the Basics: A Treasury of Outhouse Stories," edited by Michele Webb

 Review of

My Folks Back to the Basics: A Treasury of Outhouse Stories, edited by Michele Webb ISBN 0941678415

Four out of five stars

A look back at how we used to go

 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.