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Poor fish!
I served on a submarine. A boat has ‘sanitary tanks’,that holds the waste from heads and sinks.
A boat lives underwater but comes up to periscope depth to do a navigation check and standard radio traffic every six hours. That’s meal times. The ‘san tanks’ are blown to sea at that time, unfortunately the high pressure air that blows the tanks vents into the boat... at meal time.
We called it feeding the fish, but ode de outhouse was our seasoning on all our meals.
 
We do live in the here and now. You can play kittycat and make sure you ‘sign’ is hidden and will break down naturally.
Should you carry a safe for septic tank roll of paper it too will break down fast.
Did Boone carry that? No,but
I doubt he had many tin canteens or forks or emergency back up fire starters, or cell phone car keys firstaid kits folding candle lanterns ect in his kit.
 
I probably have posted this before but I think the poem is fitting for the subject. I've always enjoyed reading it.

By James Whitcomb Riley


The Passing of the Backhouse
When memory keeps me company and moves to smiles and tears,
A weather-beaten object looms through the mist of years.
Behind the house and barn it stood, a half a mile or more.
And hurrying feet a path had made straight to its swinging door.
Its architecture was a type of simple classic art.
But in the tragedy of life it played a leading part;
And oft the passing traveler drove slow and heaved a sigh
To see the modest hired girl slip out with glances shy.

We had our posy garden that the women loved so well
I loved it too, but better still I loved the stronger smell
That filled the evening breezes so full of homely cheer,
And told the night - o'ertaken tramp that human life was near,
On lazy August afternoons it made a little bower,
Delightful, where my grandsire sat and whiled away an hour.
For there the summer morning its very cares entwined.
And berry bushes reddened in the steaming soil behind.



All day fat spiders spun their web to catch the buzzing flies
That flitted to and from the house, where Ma was making pies.
And once a swarm of hornets bold had built a palace there,
And stung my unsuspecting aunt--I must not tell where;
Then father took a flaming pole--that was a happy day--
He nearly burned the building up, but the hornets left to stay.
When summer bloom began to fade and winter to carouse,
We banked the little building with a heap of hemlock boughs.



But when the crust was on the snow and sullen skies were gray,
In sooth, the building was no place where one could wish to stay.
We did our duties promptly there, one purpose swayed the mind;
We tarried not, nor lingered long, on what we left behind.
The torture of the icy seat would make a Spartan sob,
For needs must scrape the goose-flesh with a lacerating cob,
That from a frost-encrusted nail hung pendant by a string.
My father was a frugal man and wasted not a thing.



When grandpa had to "go out back" and make his morning call,
We'd bundle up the dear old man with muffler and a shawl.
I knew the hole on which he sat--'twas padded all around,
And once I dared to sit there-'twas all too wide I found;
My loins were all too little and I jack-knifed there to stay.
They had to come and get me out or I'd have passed away.
Then father said ambition was a thing boys should shun,
And I must use the children's hole 'till childhood's days were done.



But still I marvel at the craft that cut those holes so true;
The baby hole, and the slender hole that fitted Sister Sue,
That dear old country landmark; I've tramped around a bit,
And in the lap of luxury my lot has been sit;
But e'er I die I'll eat the fruit of trees I robbed of yore,
Then seek the shanty where my name is carved upon the door.
I ween the old familiar smell will soothe my jaded soul;
I'm now a man, but none the less, I'll try the children's hole.
 
Any documented references that they actually "wiped"

Seems it truly was nor mentioned much
I've noticed in old writings commonly done things are rarely mentioned.
People didn't write much about washing cloths, making beds, washing hair, milking cows or other day to day things unless something terrible happened while they were being done.
Add to that, people seemed to avoid writing anything at all about the nastier day to day things like relieving oneself and heavens forbid saying anything at all about a woman's monthly needs. (Yes, I've seen writings about how the Indians acted during these monthly times a woman has but I think that was allowed because they were writing about "savages" and not "civilized" people. Also the way Indians acted were rather extreme when compared with "civilized" people.)

I'm sure a lot of you wish as I do that people would have written more, describing in detail, how they did their daily chores. It would answer a lot of questions modern reenactors have.
 
There are no written rules for hard and seek or blind mans bluff hot potato or other games we played as kids, we learned them as children and the local rules, in the same way people learned how to care for them selfs. It didn’t need to be written.
Doing more research on cooking since Townsend started his vids, most old cook books were very vague. People were expected to know the basics.
We know rag tinder was a name for char cloth in eighteenth century, and it was used as such, but we have no written description of it being used in the frontier. Did that mean they didn’t use it, or they didn’t write home and say, ‘started a fire today just like we did at home most mornings’.
My wife and I might talk about what TP to buy but it’s not a topic I bring up at work.
Luckily they had no face book so no one was posting pictures of dinner or some other personal info back then.
 
I think that is an excellent observation Tenngun. I grew up in a rural farming community and am the great grandson of homesteading ancestors who came to America in the 1870s. A few ancestors were here before Civil War. Having noted this, I suspect many day to day activities were simply done in very much the same way for a number of generations.
 
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