The collapse of the rickety outhouse

When my mother married my stepfather, Theo Abrams, in the early 1940s, we moved to a two-room shack of a place just off the Red Hill-to-Kent dirt road and within sight of Channahatchee Creek. The outhouse for this house was located a fairly lengthy walk up the hill in front of the house.

Papa Theo got off from the first shift at Mt. Vernon Mills in Tallassee at two in the afternoon. When he got home depended on how many mill workers Fred Fomby would be hauling on his mill bus to Red Hill on any day. Mom would have a meal for him when he arrived, and afterward, about 3:30 p.m. or so, he would walk up the hill to the outhouse for the usual reason one visits an outhouse. This arrangement was another sore spot for Momma, as she didn't like the primitive nature of this particular outhouse. It was very rickety in its construction, being essentially a wooden frame in the shape of an upright rectangular box, with very little bracing having been used then covered with tin sheeting, top, sides and door.