The Steer head in the toilet

Down the Hill and Across the Road

The Steer Head and the outdoor Toilet

Some people call them outhouses, some privies, and other names. Growing-up we called ours the toilet. So, that’s how we will refer to it in this story. Toilets are made by digging a deep hole in the ground and sitting a building over the hole. The deeper the hole is dug the less often the toilet has to be moved. Many toilets sit on the same location for years.

Our toilet was a little different than some. The seating arrangement was two holes for adults and two holes for children. The adult holes were across the back facing the door. The children’s was across the right side. Compared to most toilets I’ve seen, ours was pretty neat. However, there is nothing pleasant about outdoor toilets. Outdoor toilets stink. They stink in the summertime and they stink in the wintertime. Yet, they serve a purpose. They were a stinking necessity. You don’t choose exactly when to use the toilet, your body does that for you. That could be in the cold winter time. Toilets were not heated or air conditioned. So, no matter how hot or how cold, when you had to go you had to go.

Our family didn’t have a lot of money we made do with what we had.  If one of us was constipated this could be a bad experience. The remedy to relieve the constipation was to sit one on the toilet seat and tell real scary stories hopeful of scaring the sh** out of us. Because they didn’t want to pay for laxatives. If that didn’t work, they gave us castor oil. So, back to the toilet we went. The only thing we had to listen to then was the rumbling of our body as it emptied itself of its contents out the back side.

One year when I was about twelve years-old we had butchered a steer. Some people refer to all cattle as cows. With cattle there are cows (adult female), heifers (young females) steers (castrated males), and bulls (adult males). Steers are bulls that have been castrated when they are a few weeks old. They gain weight faster and easier than do bulls and heifers. The meat of a steer is tender and better flavored than bulls. It was in the fall of the year. We never butchered in the hot summertime. Usually, it was after frost. Well, we had butchered a steer and all that was left after the butchering process was the head.  My Mom said, Jim get rid of that steer head! I don’t want the dogs dragging it around, so bury it or something so they can’t get a hold of it!

Okay, if you want to get rid of this steer head for good what better place than to drop it through the hole in the toilet? I could barely get it through the hole. The horns kept getting hung-up; it had to be turned just right to fit through the hole.  I got it, the stupid thing landed facing straight up, eyes open, laying there as though looking for a way out. I thought, I need to show this to Braxton my younger brother. I took him in the toilet and said, look down there! It really scared him. He left there running as fast as he could go. After that he wouldn’t go near the toilet. Braxton says that was the only time until he was fifteen that he weighted more than one hundred pounds.

A few days later Mom said, Jim did you put that steer head down the toilet? I said. Yes. She said well, you are going to get it out of there and clean up any mess you make doing it! I said Mom, that’s the best place for it. She said, I told you to get it out of there and I mean it! Well, getting a steer head out of a toilet is no easy task. I knew I wasn’t going to climb down in there and carry it out. I had to figure some way that was not too much trouble and not too messy to get a hold of it and pull it up out of there. I looked down at that steer head there it was just as I had left it, looking straight up. When I saw the horns I knew I could get it out. If I could just get a rope around the horns I could pull it up out of there. I got me a rope, tied a loop in the end like a lasso and began my quest. It wasn’t quite as easy to loop the rope around the horns as I had thought, but after some work I had it.  The task of pulling it out of the toilet was difficult, very heavy and messy. When I got it up to the point of getting it out through hole it had to be turned just right before it would fit through hole. I didn’t want to touch it with my hands and I didn’t want to let go of the rope, so I tied the rope around my waist. Gagging I got a hold of it with my hands.  I twisted and turned until it was out and fell on the floor which caused it to shed the crap that had settled on it. Taking the rope I dragged it out on the grass. Now to clean up the mess! After many buckets of water and a lot of scrubbing everything was clean and useable.

Oh yeah, I buried the steer head over by the fence.

Jim Gray
Peculiar MO