Touring certainly agrees with me. And I am reminded of this with every turn of the tires on blacktop, bridge I cross or go under, every telephone pole I see reflected in the shiny curves of the Airstream behind me.

But touring means stepping into a very different way of living; embracing new freedoms– exchanging in many instances, some extremely familiar creature comforts. You shift from the hidden individual to a public congregation of people on the move. One’s self assurance, and self comfort become immediately viewable. Your bravery can be measured– by strangers.

One of the first things you learn about touring is the utter loss of your bathroom. Now most of my bathrooms experiences are outside the trailer and are Public Bathrooms. I am assaulted by the sickening scent of Urinal Cakes much too frequently. None of these are places you would want your tooth brush to become too familiar with.

There are no towels with embroidery depicting happy seasonal greetings like at your Parents at Thanksgiving. Just paper towels, buff colored or bleached white, in which trees are rendered into pulp, just for my extremely transitory pleasure of drying my hands.

Then there are the hand driers, which I thought were more sanitary, until a friend told me that they blow germs from the dreaded Public Bathroom air, all over your hands coating them with disease more properly suited for a toilet seat. Maybe another fir tree should die so that I could escape a handful of living filth from some horrible arse from God know where.

In Virginia all the Rest Areas along the Interstate Highways have been replaced with Super hand driers. They blow at an alarming velocity evidently intended to kill these Germs by sheer thrust power. The high-pitched whine is so ridiculously loud that hearing protection should be required in order to safely use these toilet facilities.
Truck stops and rest areas of course or one thing, but fairgrounds are an entirely different experience.

A vainglorious attempt at Public Sanitation which bewilders me is the Rise of the Porta-Pottie. Every modern fairground has plenty.

You know these polyethylene outhouses-on-skids as porta-potties Others call them Port-o-lets, Port-a-johns and the like. Re-enactors call them Hooters, which I always thought was rather unfortunate for the Restaurant of the same name. I like the name that circus and carnival folk has given the transportable restroom whatever its construction for the better part of a century. To Wit: The Donniker.

There when you want them– gone when you’re through with them–today’s portable Donniker is a wonder of modern subcontractor proffered sanitation. In the East they are mostly constructed of Fiberglass, but in the west and south, polyvinylchloride plastic and pop-rivets are to be found. There are trade associations and even collectors of vintage versions of the porta-pottie. On a construction site there needs to be a Donniker for every 8 workers. And such a load requires service once every five days. Its good to know there are standards for such things.

In urban areas the toilet paper rolls are padlocked to deter theft. In the county, a simple “R” pin is employed. This is an implicit and profound statement of trust. After all who would know as no one is likely to witness the crime. The porta-pottie maybe the last place where we can truly be sure that no camera is watching and waiting to put us up on U-Tube.

When I was a child Public Restrooms at a county fairground would be segregated not only by gender, but be completely different buildings. Always white clapboard, with hunter green trim. The door was shielded from view by a fence which the Men or Women would walk around and into dark, wet, dank shed with the concrete floor.

I am now going to reveal to all of women kind how men used to urinate in Public. The secret will now be known. Lining the wall of the Urinal section of the Public restroom, was a trough. In poorer counties it might be a rain gutter exactly the type you would have on your house. A metal back splash would protect the wall on which the gutter would hang. In very nice bathrooms it might be a porcelain fixture 6 to 8 feet long with a drain. Over it all would be a horizontal pipe from which water would weep from small holes thus rinsing the trough from end to end to a drain in the middle. The water rained all the time. I remember be faintly hypnotizes by these gentle drips. Some restrooms were rather conservative and just barely dripped at all while Liberal ones jetted water down the drain most wastefully.

Old men from a generation now long gone would walk up, drop their fly and hoist themselves out, giving a performance that wee children were much too afraid or modest to emulate. Then they would stand arms akimbo, lean back, pelvis thrust forward and begin to piss. It was a grand gesture. Old men used to pee like generals or captains of submarines. Everybody saw everything. There was no shame nor anything like modestly or fear of discovery. That is a generation entirely gone from America today. Men who peed like that could dig the Panama Canal, found the American Legion, or build an Atomic bomb.

Today, men huddle silently, with averted gaze, at individual urinals operated by infrared sensors and batteries. We don’t even flush for ourselves anymore. Dividers maintain not so much modesty as much as to prevent perverts from over-stimualtion. And urinal cakes and automated scent sprayers waft hopefully pleasing chemicals and making our Public Voiding a wonderful experience so we’ll come back for more.

I can’t say I miss Peeing into a trough, and the romance of Syphilitic toilet seats is best left in the past. But I do miss the Grand Old Men, who showed us how to piss without fear or shame– Two things I am looking forward to leaving behind. And maybe I can re-learn my self assurance, self comfort, and welcome the return of my bravery, even in front of strangers.

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