This is the third installment in our Voices of Heritage series. This story is one of my all-time favorites. My Papa’s sense of humor and mischievous nature shines bright. Even after all those years he still laughs about it like a mischievous little boy. He was always a jokester, up for a laugh! I’ll let you hear him tell it!
Listen to Papa turns Mama Ford Over in the Outhouse
Granny: Tell me ‘bout the time you turned your mama over in the toilet.
Papa: One time we lived in an old house had a barn with a upstairs in it and had a window on the end of it and had a cotton patch at the end of the road there right dair at the house. Out back of the barn had toilet
Granny: Outdoor toilet
Papa: One man, just a one hole toilet. An I was watching that toilet. Duffy’d (Papa’s older brother) turned me over in it one time and I was watchin’ it tryin’ to get a, tryin’ to get a chance to turn him over in it.
I was up in ‘at barn ‘ere, I decided he wodn’t gonna come down ‘ere to get in it so I come down an when I got down, well the door was shut on the toilet. So I said, “That’s him, he’s done went in that toilet now while I was comin’ down out of the barn.”
I went out there an the old toilet was small, you could just rock it back and forth, and cotton was plowed, planted all up around it dair. So I got to rockin’ that thing, I pushed on it, I got to rockin’ that thing and I turned it over, and it was, Mama come getting’ up outta there, opening the door. Turned it over with the door straight up. She come up out of that toilet boy. (Papa still had that mischievous laugh) She was mad. Oh, Boy.
Granny: Did she whip ya? Did she whip ya?
Papa: Yea, did she whoop me. But I laughed ‘bout it.
Granny: What did she whip ya with?
Papa: I don’t know, cotton stalk I think.
Granny: Did you turn her over any more?
Papa: I didn’t turn ‘er over no more, but I watched Duffy ‘til I got him. Course them days, if we wodn’t workin’ in the fields all we done was get in mischief. But I didn’t turn her over no more but I watched him, I turned him over.
Granny: You did?
Papa: Yea I did.
