A Song Challenge

Subject: A Song Challenge
From: bigchuck
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 08:50 AM

I found this on line and felt that it was tailor made for the 'cat composers. Have fun.

Outhouse Collapse Plunged Va. Man Into 'Hell' > > By Graeme Zielinski > Washington Post Staff Writer > Friday , August 18, 2000 > > Coolidge Winesett, 75, said there's only one way to describe what it was > like being trapped for almost three days at the bottom of his Southwest Virginia > outhouse after its floor gave way. > > "I compare it to the Bible's hell," said Winesett, a World War II > veteran and retired janitor. > > It had hellish elements; the smell, maggots, snakes, spiders, rats. Plus there was > the persistent notion that he'd done something wrong to deserve it, recalled Winesett, > speaking by phone from his bed at Wythe County Community Hospital, where he is > recovering from dehydration and injuries he suffered when the > 50-year-old outhouse floor collapsed from dry rot Saturday afternoon. > > "I suffered awful down there," Winesett said. "I kept trying to figure > out what I'd done wrong . . . I said, 'God, don't let me die like this.'," > > Turns out, God had other plans, Winesett said, in the form of mail > carrier Jimmy Jackson, who on Tuesday noticed Winesett's mail accumulating > at his farmhouse and went to investigate. Jackson said he called out and found > Winesett, who is partially paralyzed from a stroke, doubled over and hallucinating in the pit. > > "It wasn't pretty," Jackson said yesterday. > > Winesett's ordeal began about 4 p.m. Saturday after he returned from > getting a new battery for his 1978 Chevrolet Impala. Winesett said he was getting > ready to pick the banjo on his back porch when he decided to make a pit stop. > > Retired from his janitor's job at the local high school, Winesett has lived alone for > decades in the frame home where he was raised, in Ivanhoe, on the border between > rural Wythe and Carroll counties about 60 miles southwest of Roanoke. Since 1984, > shortly after he suffered a stroke, he's had only partial use of one arm and > has lost part of a leg. > > Winesett said he built the outhouse, a modest wooden affair of oak > planks over a dirt pit, in 1950. > > "I don't use it much, though," he said, adding that he usually depends > on restrooms elsewhere. "I eat out most of the time." > > He used it last Saturday though, hobbling out back with the aid of crutches and a broomstick. > After the floor fell in, he struggled to get out, and he called for help, all to no avail. > > "I screamed 'til I run out of voice," he said. > > After he fell, Winesett said, he was suspended over the "bad stuff" by a sub-floor > and the cracked floor boards. Eight-penny nails from the planks dug into > his flesh, and his body was contorted and immobilized. But that, he said, was nothing > compared to the horrors of the next 69 hours, which he spent dealing with creepy, > crawly things. > > Creatures slithered over him. At some point, he saw a rat, which he admonished. > "I said, 'Get the hell away from me, rat.' He left. Then I laughed about talking to a rat." > > Two days into his entrapment, he began hallucinating about food. "I was > imagining scrambled eggs and toast and a glass of cold milk," he said. "I had mirages. > Somebody was handing me food, cheeseburgers. I said, 'Thank you,' but there was nobody there." > > Alone in the hole, he also recalled the arc of his life that took him > from his rural Virginia home to the South Pacific during World War II, and back home again. > A locally known banjo and fiddle player, he also remembered and > hummed old tunes he'd played over the years with a succession of > bluegrass bands. Then, when he was at his weakest, he said he heard the footfalls of Jimmy Jackson. > > "I got up the strength to holler, just a little bit," Winesett said. > > Jackson said he heard a weak noise, then found Winesett and began the > rescue. While neighbors and volunteer fire department personnel arrived to help, Jackson > got the parched Winesett a Coke. > > Yesterday Jackson, a 17-year veteran of the Postal Service, was being > hailed as a local hero. Messages of congratulation were piling up at the small Ivanhoe > Post Office where he begins his 62-mile mail route. One woman even wrote a poem, > "God Sent an Angel," in tribute. > > Part of it reads: > God sent an angel > just in time > when Mr. Winesett, > someone needed to find. > > Winesett said his ordeal had tempted him to think about moving into an > assisted-living facility, but he soon realized he could not afford it. Instead, he said, > "I'm going to have me a bathroom put in." > > © 2000 The Washington Post Company

Subject: RE: A Song Challenge
From: Áine
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 09:07 AM

I hate to tell you this, bigchuck, but we recently did one like this in SONG CHALLENGE! Part 31 - Port-a-Potty Peril. So if anyone needs some more inspiration, check this ditties out. What is it with men and falling down the crapper? ;-)

-- Áine