And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. ~ Deuteronomy 23:13
The editors of Travels With Foxfire tracked down and interviewed Georgia’s resident expert on all things privy, Mary Frazier Long. She started orating on outhouses after being asked to raise money for a scholarship fund. “Not a lot of people are going around giving lectures on privies, and I thought I’d try it,” she told them. She spoke in churches and elsewhere on the history and usefulness of outhouses and earned both money for the scholarships and a reputation as an outhouse scholar.
An avid historian, Long has authored five books on local history and acts as a tour guide on trolley rides in the town of Lawrenceville.
“Long is versatile in her presentations. When talking to a bank group, she cracked jokes about making deposits, and for an event for public-housing employees, she referred frequently to the relief office… ‘If you don’t have a sense of humor,’ she’s been known to say, ‘you don’t have any sense at all.’”
