The outdoor toilet was a sort of shed built to cover a deep hole filled with lime. Most were “two-seater” ones. My aunt actually got bitten by a black widow spider while sitting there, which put a fear in me that I never forgot! Instead of toilet paper, you were supplied with whatever paper was available.

I remember a Sears Roebuck catalog.

This shed or toilet was built a good ways from the house, so a chamber pot was supplied at night to avoid run-ins with snakes or some other critter that may cross your path.

The chamber pot was placed either under the bed or close by. It had a lid and was usually of a pretty design. The next morning it was emptied away from the house, washed out by the outside pump and left in the sun to make it sanitary for the next night.

It saddened me to hear of people actually fighting over toilet paper or worse, selling the paper for high prices on the side and those who paid the price [during the COVID-19 pandemic]. I imagine those people don’t even know how to light a candle when the lights go out nor how to survive without TV nor telephone. As a little girl, when we ever got a phone, it had four digits and that was a party line. For long distance you had to through the operator … but that’s another story.

Lee Frye, Cape Carteret, a member of Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative