I know what you're talking about, Glenda...
When I was growing up, our summer cottage was built by my grandfather out of wood from billboards. It was set by a lake in what was then the deep, piney woods of southeastern Massachusetts, a couple of towns in from Plymouth. Come to think of it, even the Cape (Cape Cod, of course) was just long stretches of gravel roads and an occasional farm back then.
We would go each year in my grandfather's Model T (it was actually an antique even then, but he didn't seem to realize it) down the side roads to avoid the fast traffic. He would stop for a big block of ice for the ice box (yes, a real ice box), and tie it to the running board.
We had no indoor plumbing, and our water supply was a leaky hand pump, halfway down a hill, that took almost as much water to prime it as you could get out of it. Then the water would have to sit for a day, for the fine, clay silt to settle out. Suffice to say, swimming took the place of showers.
We had a royal outhouse, inthat it was attached to the house, and we could walk across the front porch to its door. The price we paid for that comforting closeness was that the boys took turns getting "bucket brigade duty."
First, a hole would be dug, suitably deep, in the densely tangled roots of the pine-needled forest bed. Then, the unlucky designee would gather his courage and make the bucket run. The object, of course, was to open the spiderweb-covered wooden seat assembly without really looking (impossible), remove the bucket without touching anything nasty or wet (impossible), and cakewalk its sloshing contents without spilling all the way to the freshly-dug hole (impossible). This was to be done on one, single, indrawn breath (impossible). Did I also mention the other thing about the wet, pine woods? It was one hand for the bucket, the other to swat mosquitoes, thick as sweat.
More than once, an impatient and oxygen-deprived young cousin went down while taking a turn too fast during that treacherous journey. He would slip in the slick, cushiony needles, and flail forward in a slow, horrified tumble with the seething pot that held the days-old, malodorous cess of all his vacationing relatives.
Not exactly a fond memory, but times were a little rougher then. We got a lot of good laughs out of it.
We had no electricity, so we used to kerosene lanterns at night. However, you couldn't take any light outside with you in the dark, or you would be carried away by the mosquitoes it drew. And because the pine trees absorbed so much of the moonlight, you literally couldn't see your own hand in front of your face outside the lantern's glow.
That was another hazard for the boys. Toddlers and young girls who needed the facilites at night would pull an enameled steel pot out from under the bed, use it and replace it. To this day I can conjure the sound of those white steel pans in use, and the noise they made sliding across the floor, back under the bed.
However, if a boy over five years old had to go in the middle of the night, he was expected to navigate to the door in pitch blackness, which was a series of clatters, clunks, grunts, and whispered expeltives, and then "go out and find a tree" like boys were supposed to.
We boys all understood in very real terms the problems that could be caused by too much liquid in the bucket. But that meant literally walking out into the woods until we actually ran into something we couldn't see.
When the thing we bumped into turned out to be a tree, the race was on.
Two main things distinguish a meal to a female mosquito: carbon dioxide from the potential donor's breathing, and the unavoidable heat signature produced by human existence. Mosquitoes aren't terribly fast, and the deerflies and horseflies don't come out at night, so our exposure was minimal as long as we kept moving. But when we stopped, we were wide open to the bloodthirsty biting insects, all looking for that drop of essence they needed to lay their eggs. Worse, we would then have to expose our tenderest flesh to elements and them, for an agonizing and uncontrollable length of time.
Boys peeing in the woods at night most resembled someone stranded on a desert island, frantically waving for a search plane in the distance. Swatting and slashing the air also made for poor aiming technique, and an occasional bare foot or miswaved hand became a moist casualty. We learned to curse early in life.
Sorry if this is long, but I thought I'd share, in the event it tickled any of your own memories. Glenda, I hope your sewage problems don't get too expensive, or take too long to fix. Be well. Bless you, dear.
Best wishes,
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