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[Willow Oak]

We had an outhouse when I was about 7. It got real cold in the upper Michigan winters and smelly in the summer, so we didn't spend much time out there.

I caught the tail end of the outhouse era. I've often wondered how folks in the upper regions got along during that time -- especially in the dead of winter.

I know that when I was very young there was not even an outhouse in some cases. We would go to a country church. There was a pump in front of the church if you needed a drink of water; and a path behind the church if you needed to ...

Dad had a shop where he fiddled with electronics. We had an oscilloscope to watch before there was a TV station in our area. Later, he repaired other people's TVs and finally got one of our own. All of the programs looked like they were being done in snowstorms.

I recall the man coming over and changing out the tubes in the TV. Then later on you could go to 7-11 and test your tubes there or buy new ones.