Mount Zion Church Day 3

Judging from the color and style of the carpeting inside this double-door outhouse, it appears the 1970s was the last time the congregation spruced up its relief station behind the now-closed Mount Zion Church in Nottingham Township, Pa.

It also looked today with the outhouse doors wide open as if many years have passed since anyone has needed to use its facilities.

As someone who grew up in an area when people in certain places still relied on outdoor plumbing, this is the first outhouse I've seen with indoor commode seats.

Stop back tomorrow as this 30-day photography project continues at this church dating to the mid-1800s.

The outhouse stays put

Outhouse, originally uploaded by Scott Beveridge.

The following qualifies as being the most-unusual e-mail that has ever landed in my in box.


Scott,

A friend of mine asked if your outhouse was for sale. You
interested in parting with it??

(name withheld by me)

Outhouse mania

People keep calling me to report outhouse sightings more than a week after I wrote a quirky story about the rise in popularity of these little buildings as their numbers have nearly weathered themselves to extinction.

One call came from an activities director at an old folk's home where residents made miniature versions of the outdoor toilets just for fun. Someone made a clever little outhouse with a rubber snake beside the pooper, while another crafty person included a likeness of a man scaring a woman of the pot with a firecracker.

An older lady who lives on her own drove from the country to the newspaper where I work in Washington, Pa., to show me a tiny replica of an outhouse she owns that someone from West Virginia molded in real chocolate. That one had a candy bunny and some edible flowers around its base. Yum.

The real one shown in the above photo can be found along Route 19 in tiny Amity, Pa. It's not immediately known if that can is in working order.