APRIL 1998
Recently a good friend, Fran, loaned me a book, Henry and
the Great Society by H.L. Roush, Sr., copyright 1969. We often
share books but this one really surprised me. My friend is only
the most nominal of believers, flirting with atheism herself.
She is fully aware that I am an avowed, confirmed, card-carrying
atheist. So I began reading Henry with no idea where it
was going. And I disagreed with every single word in it, which
is why I was so surprised that Fran thought I might like it. The
book ends with an outright religious morality lesson, Father,
Son and Holy Ghost all present and accounted for. When I later
asked how she could possibly think I'd enjoy such a book, Fran
said she thought I'd enjoy the nostalgic look at the past. Wrong
again.
Henry opens with the most idyllic, pastoral,
bucolic scenes of rural life imaginable. The descriptions of this
healthy, loving, contented, self-sufficient farm family surpassed
the most saccharin of Norman Rockwell paintings. These people,
Dad, Mom, two sons and one daughter, are literally bursting with
happiness. Dad ploughed the fields and milked the cows, Mom baked
those mouth-watering apple pies, sewed the clothes and baked their
daily bread, while the children chased frogs and climbed mulberry
trees. The outhouse was more than sufficient, and in fact received
much high praise. We are informed that the catalog in the outhouse
was appreciated by all concerned. I'm sure it was. Northern's
quilted, two-ply toilet tissue undoubtedly couldn't hold a candle
to page 283 of a Sears' catalog.
At night, seated around a cozy fire, Dad would entertain his
adoring children with pirate and ghost stories. On their jolly,
weekly trips into town in their horse-drawn wagon, the happy farmers
would sing songs and count groundhog holes. Yes. They counted
groundhog holes. Is this bliss or what?
But this Paradise on Earth was soon invaded by that demonic
entity known as Society. Civilization, armed with electricity
and indoor plumbing, destroyed this haven of purity, with predictable
results: ulcers, insomnia, tranquilizers and worry over mortgages.
Worse still, Mom recklessly and selfishly bolted from her beloved
kitchen and headed out for charity work and a Canasta Club. Poor
Dad was left with frozen TV-dinners. (This is when my red flags
started flapping furiously.) No more hot biscuits baked from scratch,
glistening with home-churned butter. Oh yes—and Old Brown, winsome,
adorable family dog, got run over by a car speeding along the
newly paved county road. This, my friends, was progress. Surely
this was a Paradise Lost. Blink back the tears and have your handkerchiefs
ready.
After plowing through this pap, I finally reached The Message.
The reason Farmer Jones and family came to such a sorry end was
because they had forsaken God's Plan for His children. Yes, folks,
God, and his Son, Jesus Christ, had the simple life in mind for
humans. Humans were meant to be self-sufficient and no "material
possessions" should be required for happiness. Apparently
God intended for us to use outhouses.
The rest of this book is the usual Jesus-died-for-our-sins
sermonizing, but with an emphasis on barnyard animals. It's just
a variation on the Noble Savage theme, with some chicken feed
and fertilizer thrown in. Lots of fertilizer.
The remarkable thing about this back-to-the-sod scenario is
the number of people who really believe it. The Amish come to
mind. But what were those good old days really like? Take the
plough. This is not one of "God's" creations.
The Noble Savage had to evolve a bit before he thought of it.
And it most definitely is a "material possession." Same
with shovels, hoes, discs, wagons, pot-bellied stoves and kerosene
lamps. And outhouses.
The parallels between the Farmer Jones story and the Adam and
Eve story were amateurishly unmistakable. But trying to lure readers
into your Jesus speech by pretending to tell a simple tale of
a simple farm family is not only corny; it is a gross distortion
of history.
We all tend to magnify and embellish our youthful memories.
With every passing year those slumber parties get more and more
fun, don't they? The way the decade of the 1950s has been glorified
you'd think it was a veritable utopia. But does anyone remember
the Korean War and the McCarthy hearings? The same can be said
for those good old days down on the farm. Let's look at the way
things really were back in those golden fields of yesteryear.
My mother was a surprise baby, surprising her 42-year-old mother.
Her seven siblings were mostly old enough to be a different generation.
So her mother, Ida, lived at the turn of the century, in those
good old days in those good old ways. Ida baked all their bread,
sewed, washed and ironed the clothes, scrubbed the floors, made
the quilts, crocheted the sweaters and baby blankets, raised the
chickens, canned her own vegetables and gave birth to ten children,
two of whom died in infancy. When she died at 72 the doctor said
that physically she was 82. Those good old days had literally
beaten her to death.
I never knew my grandmother since she died before I was born.
But my mother told me about Ida's poignant philosophy about child-rearing:
"You can't expect to raise them all." That alone says
a great deal about those good old days. Infant mortality was so
common it was just accepted as natural. Diphtheria, scarlet fever,
smallpox and so many other now-rare diseases carried off babies
with a ruthless efficiency. Women often died in childbirth (as
any turn-of-the-century cemetery will bear out) while such deaths
are most rare in this country today. People died of appendicitis,
influenza, gangrene, snakebite and a host of other maladies that
are mostly treatable today.
In the good old days before refrigeration, people ate tainted
food in the summer months, resigned to what was delicately referred
to as "Summer Complaint." Which meant vomiting and diarrhea
from simple food poisoning. Which meant many unpleasant visits
to those much lauded outhouses.
Those fondly remembered outhouses were a nightmare during winter
weather and an unsanitary nightmare for menstruating women at
any time of year. They harbored wasps and spiders and snakes seeking
shade. There is no hygienic way to tidy up with a sheet from a
catalog or a stripped corn cob. And those under-the-bed chamber
pots, for overnight needs, make you cringe at the thought of accidental
spillage.
While Farmer Jones was thrilling his adoring children with
nightly ghost stories at the family hearth, Mom was darning underwear
because there weren't enough hours in the day to do all that was
expected of her. And that darning was difficult because her hands
were chapped and raw from all the scrubbing of those same underwear
in lye soap.
Henry was obviously written by a man. I doubt
there was ever one hardworking farm wife (read: kitchen slave)
at the turn of the century who would have penned paeans to the
glories of scrubbing Dad's long johns and denim trousers. Or burying
infants. Or sewing all the clothes. Or hand washing the endless
diapers. Or baking everything from scratch, daily. Or churning
butter. Or plucking chickens. Or scrubbing floors on hands and
knees. Or constantly being pregnant.
Or using outhouses.
The Farmer Jones story also pulled a bit of a fast one by portraying
a farm family with only three children. In the days before electricity,
birth control was nowhere near as common as it is today. Look
at your old family albums. When my own father was born, it was
illegal to send contraceptive information through the US
mails. How quickly we forget! Most women had far more children
than their hearts and minds could handle. Not to mention their
bodies and their pocketbooks.
So when people start preaching about what "God intended"
for humans, you can confidently add your own offerings, tongue
in or out of cheek as the mood strikes you. God intended for humans
to:
Humans have made great strides in their attempts to mitigate
somewhat "God's" intentions. And life is better for
so many of us because of it. For all the drawbacks of modern civilization,
and there are plenty of them, how many of us really want to go
back to the days when "You can't expect to raise them all?"
When summer meant summer complaint? When a simple toothache could
suddenly change into an abscess which in turn could lead to death?
Or when a call of nature during a snow storm left you with only
two choices—a chamber pot or . . . that damn outhouse.
© 1998 Judith Hayes
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