From:
http://inspectapedia.com/septic/Outh...ne.htmOuthouse fire risks:
In the summer of 1955 at Camp Virginia, in Goshen, Virginia, there were two large outhouses, each sporting about a dozen open seats. The outhouses were named for two U.S. states. Campers would say "I'm going to Oklahoma" to mean I need to use the outhouse. That was fine. The second outhouse was named "Arizona". Also fine. Oklahoma was a bit more popular than Arizona as it was a shorter walk from the camp cabins.
We were divided into camper groups by bunks (cabins), each named after an american indian tribe. Arapahoes, Blackfeet, Mohicans, Utes. That's me (DF) 3rd from left in the photo above. But as Mrs. Ebbe Hoff later told my mother, boys will be boys, and someone had the theory that methane gas in the large outhouse pit would make a neat explosion if we dropped a match or two down the hole.
We had been studying camping and woodlore, including a class guaranteed to be popular with boys: how to build a small fire using as few matches as possible. Some of us were pretty good at fires, so we had a few wooden kitchen matches left over. Our outhouse photo at below left shows a very old wood-shingled outhouse in Cooperstown, NY. This outhouse was located more than 100 feet from any nearby pond or stream.
Photo of an antique outhouse in Cooperstown NY (C) Daniel FriedmanOne afternoon, just after our incarceration in our cabin for rest period, four of us well-rested Blackfeet crept down to Oklahoma to see what we could do with some matches. I'm not sure but I think it was my buddy Granger Ancarrow (2nd from left) who first dropped a lit match down an outhouse hole in Oklahoma.
There was a sudden woosh! as a methane gas cloud exploded. (See SEPTIC METHANE GAS.)
We thought this was wonderfully exciting. Quickly more lit matches followed the first one into the outhouse pit.
We had already exploded the immediately available methane gas, but there was quite a bit of dry toilet paper scattered in the large outhouse pit, and now it caught fire. That too, seemed exciting at first. But the fire grew, and very soon we got worried about burning down the whole outhouse structure - something that camp director Mac Pitt would not be very happy about.
Quoting from Camp Virginia's modern website about "Building Character"
Building character comes through teamwork, trying new things, patriotism, faith, sportsmanship, intergenerational friendships and great role models. All is easier in such a beautiful, inspiring and fun community.
Thinking fast, and exhibiting teamwork, we recruited more campers (the rest of the Blackfeet and some of the Mohicans) and we all took our turns peeing onto the fire in the outhouse pit below. The pee, combined with a few buckets of water tossed in by our role models, camp counselors DeWitt and Emerson, saved Oklahoma from destruction.
But that was not the end of it.
Watch out: don't throw matches into the outhouse pit, and never pee into a fire except in the most dire emergency. Methane explosions can be dangerous. And the stench of hot burned urine was unimaginable to anyone who had never peed onto a fire before. Which was all of us.
For the rest of the summer, acrid stinking Oklahoma was completely unusable. We all had to crowd into Arizona.
Considering recent Arizona stop-suspicious-looking-people legislation, it's lucky that none of us at the time looked like a genuine Blackfoot, or we'd surely have been arrested for improper peeing. - POETRY & SHORT FICTION by Daniel Friedman
Reader Comments & Photographs of Camp Virginia, and Goshen Virginia in the 1950's
With apologies to readers who don't care a hoot about Camp Virginia, we include photographs of Goshen Virginia and the Camp contributed by readers and the author. Or if you wish, skip over this stuff and continue at Outhouse Location - where to put the outhouse. Our photo, below left, by the author [DF], shows Camp Virginia's Maury River in 1955.
Re: A bathroom hangup
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