At the age of six, I started school in the white block building at the intersection of College Line and Carter Road — Four Corners School.
Back then at recess time the boys made a dash for the little block outhouse and piled in. Hip to hip at the trough, lined up with the younger ones at the lower end, bladder emptying on a commercial scale!
But then in later years, folks woke up to the dangers of sexual harassment and abuse. There was a community-wide crackdown, (panic) to eradicate anything like that out of our midst.
So now that I was in the eighth grade the outhouse had a heavy-duty deadbolt and we could only use the outhouse one at a time. On this particular day, I was standing in line with several younger boys. They were awed by this huge deadbolt.
“Poof”, I said, “I could kick that in with one kick.”
Wide-eyed they looked up at me.
Sure I could”, I asserted, feeling big and strong and tall.
“Let’s see it” they dared.
“Ok, as soon as David is done,” I finally conceded. Then I moved over to the door, “David, as soon as you are done, let me know, I want to see if I can kick the door open in one kick.”
“Ok, I am ready to come out.”
“Alright, stand all the way back so the door doesn’t hit you,” I warned. “Are you out of the way?”
“Yep,” came his voice from inside.
I backed up and threw my weight at the door, the bolt easily burst and the door flew back against the wall. Little David darted out of the privy like a hen from a henhouse that had just been entered by a weasel, yelling “Jason kicked the door up!! Jason kicked the door up!” At the top of his voice.
We continued with our private pee sessions, now with no bolt on the door, I didn’t give a second thought, to how stupid I had been.
Shortly though the report went out. Jason broke in on a little first-grader to sexually molest him. Nobody ever bothered to ask me for my story on what actually took place.
P.S. You may wish to read the next post Cats and Retaliation.