Chamber Pots and Mountain Ingenuity

As I continue a series of recollections, one that comes to mind involves my grandmother and step-grandfather.  The resourcefulness of the mountaineer cannot be underestimated, and my step-grandfather, Alonzo Lipscomb, was the epitome of that.  A recollection of his memory is important to these recollections, as his memory is a fond one.

My maternal grandmother Elsie and my grandfather actually separated when my mother was quite young, and after some years both of them remarried to new spouses with whom they had happier marriages.  My grandmother Elsie married Alonzo - whom from this point we'll call by the name we knew him as, Lonnie - after she met him sometime in the mid-1960's.  Although Lonnie was not a blood relative, his family was practically family to me and I was always like a grandson to him.  Many years ago, when he worked for a lumber company up near Albright, WV, he had a tragic accident in which he lost his right hand, and for years after that he had a stub for a hand.  He did have a prosthetic hook, but only used it when he field-dressed a deer he would shoot.   Although Lonnie died in July of 2005 after suffering several years with kidney issues, he is still a part of me in my memories, as he was truly a good man - not perfect mind you, as he was known for many years for being a bit of a drinker, but he was always a decent human being even with that vice.  Being talented as he was with resourcefulness, it is that talent which inspires this story today.

For many years my grandmother Elsie and step-grandfather Lonnie lived just outside the town of Augusta, WV, in houses that often didn't have plumbing.  That necessitated usage of both an outhouse and an exterior well, which in one of their houses was on the back porch.  The well was accessed by a hole in the middle of the porch in which a long metal bucket was lowered to draw out the water.  As for the outhouse, that could be an inconvenience at night in particular, especially for my grandmother who always was fearful a snake would crawl up her housecoat if she ventured out into the black night to either pee or undertake a constitution that was more substantial.  To solve that problem, Lonnie came up with the idea of cutting a hole in an old kitchen chair, and then attaching a toilet seat to it and placing a 25-gallon lard bucket under the chair.   The nasty part of this is that the bucket had to be emptied daily, or else the contents would begin to ferment and stink.  I thought of this earlier today when I watched yet another of Susannah Lewis's videos concerning some sort of "vaginal steam" treatment that entails a chair with a hole in it and a steaming boiling pot of potpourri-scented water - these yuppie fad treatments know no limits, do they?   At any rate, that brings me to another story regarding my grandmother Elsie, since mentioning her fear of snakes came to mind.

My grandmother Elsie passed away due to complications of a stroke (she had diabetes for years) on June 21, 2004.  It was the last time I saw her actually, as she was laying in a hospital bed unable to talk or even keep her eyes opened - she was using a swab the nurse gave her to try to prop her eyes open so she could see.   Elsie was by no means a skinny woman either - she would easily top 300 pounds minimum at her lightest.  Keeping this in mind, like many West Virginia women my grandmother was deathly afraid of snakes, something my mother shares to this day with her.  That fear of snakes extended to anything even resembling a snake.   Now, as I mentioned, both my step-grandfather Lonnie and my mother back in the day enjoyed drinking beer, and one of our family pastimes in those days was to take a leisurely drive when opportunity afforded it for us.  On this one particular occasion when I was about 15 years old, we were out driving on the back roads of nearby Hardy County, WV, and twilight was coming early in the evening.  On those old back roads where traffic is sparse, wildlife comes out in abundance, and especially after a rainstorm it was common to see frogs and toads hopping on the roads at night.  I, of course, loved catching frogs and toads, and my step-grandfather indulged that by allowing me to catch a few on the road.  When a car light hits a frog's eyes, he is generally immobilized and easier to catch, so if you are diligent enough you can catch a few dozen in a night's adventure.  This night was no different, and I had a couple of small pickerel frogs I had caught.  Usually, I had something to contain them, but this night I didn't and one got loose.  Somehow, the little bugger made it to the front seat where my grandmother was sitting, and it found her leg and managed to decide climbing up it might be a good escape route.  At about the time that frog hit Elsie's leg, Mom popped a beer can and the subsequent hissing of the popping can made Mom, in a sort of mischievous mood, yell "Snake!"  This sequence of events could not have been better-timed, as the popping of the can and the frog landing inside my grandmother's dress on her leg happened simultaneously.  The reaction from my poor grandmother was immediate - she whooped and hollered like a banshee, and Lonnie had to pull over the car to let her out to shake away the offending creature, as my grandmother was afraid it was a copperhead snake wanting to make a home in her cooter or something.  On that remote back road outside of Baker, WV, somewhere, my grandmother was in the middle of that road doing a dance that would make African tribesmen bow in reverence to her.  When it was finally determined that it was not a snake but rather one of my newly-acquired frogs, we all (with the exception of my portly grandmother) were laughing so hysterically that my step-grandfather had to stay at the side of the road for a good ten minutes before everyone got their composure.  Mom still laughs about that story, although now it has been well over 30 years since it happened.

My step-grandfather Lonnie was a gentle man too, and everyone who knew him loved him.  But, when he had a drink or two in him, he could be a real character as he became one of those silly drunks - he wouldn't hurt a fly, although he did display some self-injuring examples of redneckery in action, such as the time he tried to toboggan down the slope of the hill adjacent to his house on an old refrigerator door; luckily the small old barn at the foot of the hill broke his fall.  More often than not though, if the weather permitted he would like to sit outside, and with the essence of Canadian Mist whiskey in his system he would either sing Hank Williams Sr's whole songbook to his two dozen or so dogs and contrary nanny goat, or he would attempt to play his own rendition of country singer Carl Smith's 1961 recording of "Kisses Don't Lie" on a harmonica (he didn't play well, but he tried, God bless him!), which in turn would aggravate the huge and ornery old tom turkey they had at the time, which was also fun to watch - I am shocked that the big old gobbler didn't attempt to flog him.  Lonnie loved his animals though, and as mentioned, at any given time in my childhood that I can recollect, he and my grandmother Elsie usually owned about two dozen or more dogs at any given time.  Perhaps that is why the turkey restrained itself - the crazy bird knew Lonnie loved him, so he didn't do anything except gobble and fuss angrily at being disturbed by Lonnie's whiskey-laced singing or sub-standard but passionate harmonica playing.  Whether slightly inebriated or sober though, Lonnie was an endearing guy, and he always tried to be happy, even with my grandmother kinda yelling at him (he did get in some trouble with her a lot, usually unintentionally).  Looking back on it, my grandmother's squawking at Lonnie was an endearing quality to him too - they did love each other, but had their own way of expressing it.  Only knowing them could one understand that.  That is why he barely lasted a year after she had passed on - he missed her. 

More could be said about my grandparents, but I wanted to share just a little about them here to sort of introduce people who didn't know them to who they were.  I think fondly about Lonnie even to this day, and to me he was as much family as either of my natural grandfathers were - I really loved the guy. And, he taught me a lot too - I learned how to cook deer meat in several ways, how to identify and pick poke greens, and other things from him too.  But mostly, it is good memories like these about him that make him immortalized at least in my memories.  When I watch something like Duck Dynasty or Swamp People these days (I am a big fan of both shows) I often think how much Lonnie would have loved those shows - they were right up his alley, although they didn't come on TV until about 5 years after he departed this life.  I think personally he would have appreciated Phil Robertson, as Phil is in many ways like Lonnie once was.  Lonnie was a true "mountain man" in the most literal sense, but he also possessed an intelligence about the wider world that helped him appreciate it too.  May he rest eternal, and I do believe I will see him one day in the hereafter.  So long until next visit.