My Camp's Front Porch Toilet - by the late Eugene "Gene" Price

Eugene "Gene" Price, honored journalist, editor of the Goldsboro News-Argus,  former press secretary to US Rep. Herbert C. Bonner, member of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, sadly passed away in January 2019. Gene found Goose Creek Island many years ago and had a "camp" at The Pondersosa, Lowland. He spent many weekends here and fell in love with our little Island, the river, the creeks, the skies, and the people that make our Island beautiful. Sadly, I was unable to interview him before his passing but we had corresponded before he became ill. His daughter Sue has passed on a few stories of his time on Goose Creek Island and she remarked how much he loved to go to "the camp." I recently purchased his book Folks Around Here. It is dotted with his stories and several are of his time at Goose Creek Island. Here is one that I am sure you will enjoy. 

Gene on the porch of his camp on Goose Creek Island

Photo courtesy of Sue Price Johnson

My Camp's Front Porch Toilet

GOOSE CREEK ISLAND - Despite all it's shortcomings, perhaps my camp here on the island should be in the Guinness Book of Records. Its toilet is on the front porch.

There's a reason for that of course. When I first bought the camp some 30 years ago it had a commode located in the cement block utility room which now houses a couple of outboard motors, two barrels of nets, an array of tools, assorted waterfowl decoys, leaky waders and equally leaky boots, cans of useless paint and an assortment of gummed up and dried paint brushes (also useless), and an antique Underwood typewriter, along with several mostly empty bottles of "spirits."

It was a perfectly good commode.

But it had a problem. It would flush - but it wouldn't swallow. 

I tried numerous approaches to the problem, such as pouring all sorts of guaranteed solutions into the bowl, letting them "set" for the appointed time before flushing. All with the same lack of results. The woods around the camp had become pockmarked with little squares of white (well, slightly streaked) paper as testimonials to my plumbing failures. 

In exasperation, I appealed to my good Goose Creek Island friend John Collins to find someone who could solve the problem. 

"Oh," assured John, "it won't be a problem, Vernell (Ballance) and I can fix it right up. We just got to raise the commode."

"Whatever it takes..." I insisted.

On my next trip to the Island, I made my mandatory stop at John's house in "downtown" Lowland. (Not to stop and have a drink with John was to be subjected to a subsequent lecture on my having treated him "mighty shabby."

"Cap'n Gene!" John greeted me, "did you bring your Kodak!" (To John, all cameras were Kodaks.)

I assured John I always brought my Kodak. And he admonished that we just had to get "a picture of the toilet."

Encouraging news indeed! Until we arrived at the camp.

Pursuing their diagnosis of the problem, John and Vernell had removed the commode, poured an eight-inch high square concrete base and reinstalled the stool. Then dutifully flushed it. Disappointingly, and characteristically, the commode flushed - but failed to "swallow."

Undeterred, John and Vernell raised it another eight inches - with the same results. And a third time...

When I entered the utility room, the commode was just the right height for me to walk up to it, rest my chin on its front and "throw up." I could sit on it, but would have to lean way forward to keep my back from hitting the rafters. And it still wouldn't "swallow."

John and I spent the next morning probing for the septic tank. And found it - partially under the front porch. And considerably uphill from the utility room where the commode reigned on its new throne.

That afternoon, in keeping with Plumbing 101, John and I removed the commode from its impressive roost and installed it on the front porch. Straight downward shot to the septic tank! And its been flushing and swallowing there ever since. 

We enclosed that corner of the porch, of course. And in deference of modesty of some visitors, we even hung a previously discarded shower curtain over the toilet door.