Roman toilets

[s1m0n]

I have some excellent photos of Roman toilets from Salamis in Cyprus, including my friend sitting on one, but I'm on my new laptop and haven't tranferred my photos yet. I bet you can't wait, can you. :D

His old laptop is in your new laptop?

[SteveShaw]

All may one day become clear.

[djm]

Would that be coprolite or coprodark?

djm

[cowtime]

How about: Toiletry - poems about toilets.

ah...another chance to post this- one of my favorites, it still makes me laugh-

The Passing of the Backhouse

When memory keeps me company and moves to smile or tears,
A weather-beaten object looms through the mist of years,
Behind the house and barn it stood, a half a mile or more,
And hurrying feet a path had made, straight to its swinging door.
Its architecture was a type of simple classic art,
But in the tragedy of life it played a leading part.
And oft the passing traveler drove slow and heaved a sigh,
To see the modest hired girl slip out with glances shy.

We had our posey garden that the women loved so well;
I loved it too, but better still I loved the stronger smell
That filled the evening breezes so full of homely cheer,
And told the night-o'ertaken tramp that human life was near.
On lazy August afternoons it made a little bower
Delightful, where my grandsirer sat and whiled away an hour.
For there the summer mornings, its very cares entwined,
And berry bushes reddened in the streaming soil behind.

All day fat spiders spun their webs to catch the buzzing flies
That flitted to and from the house, where Ma was baking pies;
And once a swarm of hornets bold had built their palace there,
And stung my unsuspecting Aunt -- I must not tell you where.
My father took a flaming pole -- that was a happy day --
He nearly burned the building up, but the hornets left to stay.
When summer bloom began to fade and winter to carouse,
We banked the little building with a heap of hemlock boughs.

But when the crust is on the snow and sullen skies were gray,
Inside the building was no place where one could wish to stay.
We did our duties promptly, there one purpose swayed the mind;
We tarried not, nor lingered long, on what we left behind.
The torture of the icy seat would make a Spartan sob,
For needs must scrape the flesh with a lacerating cob,
That from a frost-encrusted nail suspended from a string --
My father was a frugal man and wasted not a thing.

When Grandpa had to "go out back" and make his morning call,
We'd bundle up the dear old man with a muffler and a shawl.
I knew the hole on which he sat -- 'twas padded all around,
And once I tried to sit there -- 'twas all too wide I found,
My loins were all too little, and I jack-knifed there to stay,
They had to come and get me out, or I'd have passed away,
My father said ambition was a thing that boys should shun,
And I just used the children's hole 'til childhood days were done.

And still I marvel at the craft that cut those holes so true,
The baby's hole, and the slender hole that fitted Sister Sue,
That dear old country landmark; I tramped around a bit,
And in the lap of luxury my lot has been to sit,
But ere I die I'll eat the fruits of trees I robbed of yore,
Then seek the shanty where my name is carved upon the door.
I ween that old familiar smell will soothe my jaded soul,
I'm now a man, but none the less I'll try the children's hole.

by James Whitcomb Riley

There's more to be found here- but I don't know if one can truly appreciate these bits of poetry unless one has also had to make the trek to a real outhouse....

http://opossumsal.homestead.com/outpoetry.html

[djm]

Yes, I remember the treks out through the bugs and smell in the summer, the winds whistling through the cracks in the winter, and the flies always buzzing like a thousand bagpipes in the distance. My father was so very proud of himself for adding the little crescent moon cutout in the door. This seemed to somehow authenticate, even legitimize, the structure to him somehow.

Here's one story that comes to mind: There was an Englishwoman, schoolteacher, who had some sort of ailment that drove her to find a rural setting to live in to relieve her symptoms - can't remember her name, now. She settled in the Hebrides somewhere and wrote a series of humourous books about life there and the characters she came to meet.

One of the stories was about the small house she took up residence in. She wanted to give her new home a quaint Gaelic name, and asked the locals what name the house had had before with the previous tenants. They gave her an unpronoucable name, but when she asked what it meant, they would all look sideways and make excuses.

The house had formerly been occupied by a family in which the father was known near and far for his great energy and feats of strength. His sons, however, had no desire to follow in his footsteps. Whenever there was work to be done, the sons had taken up the trick of disappearing into the backhouse for hours on end. When the father finally figured out where they were hiding, he altered the seat to make it less comfortable. In fact, he cut it out the finely crafted, hand-hewn seat so that there was nothing but a large, jagged square hole left; not something you would want to linger on a second longer than required.

And that explained the meaning of the old Gaelic name that the locals had for the house, and that was finally translated for the Englishwoman: House of the Square Arses.

djm

[Flyingcursor]

Vomitorium is my new favorite word.

I like to feel I've made someone's life richer.


Cowtime - that was a great poem.