Get Your Kicks On Brute 66
The guy who introduced me to privy digging had been bothering me about some lady friend’s house and how it needed digging. John ‘Doc’ Colteaux aka ‘66′ suffers with severe pain and is therefore unable to dig anymore, he talks about his one good arm and how he can probe for 10 minutes, but when it comes to digging a 5ft deep hole he is about as much use a chocolate tea pot… in fact he’ll sit and watch, talk about all the pits he’s dug and curse like a sailor!.
Doc’s friend had attempted to start the hole and told me she had run into roots and had to stop, I expect the real reason is that she had heard too much swearing and had to lie down for 2 days due to over exposure.
When we started to dig there were indeed roots but nothing that would cause even the weakest of privy diggers to squint. Before we knew it we were 3 feet down and hitting glass, the shards were 1890’s and the ground was hard (really hard actually). Most of the bottles were slicks although we did get a couple of local druggies in the mix . The pit took a decidedly difficult angle about 5 feet down… and then came the crying glass, first up was a broken Warner’s Kidney and Liver Safe Cure and then a Dr Varena’s Japan Bitters. Man!.
It was hot, the ground was like rock, we had exhausted all corners… it was time to go. The split went 3 ways the first going to lady friend, Tricky and I got a few keepers… it wasn’t a record breaker that’s for sure.
Now when I called Doc 66 he said ” I ain’t 66 I’m 56!”, to which I replied, “I didn’t call you 66 because of your age, it’s because you smoke so much, you probably have enough tar in your lungs to cover route 66″.
He laughed.
The strong arm of ‘66′ (’don’t tread on me’ is considered the first American flag which is taken from… read it yourself ) … maybe Doc put it on this arm because that’s the only good one he’s got left!
The funny find of the pit was a tea cup with a mustache protector (stopped your mustache getting wet while drinking tea) and a pepper bottle with peppers still in it… 120 yr old pepper sauce!!!!
The keepers before the 3 way split
Hoyt’s cologne
Dr Kennedy’s
Sosidone for the teeth and breath
Jno wyeth…something or other drink
A bunch of other non descript stuff…although the vaseline had a nice whittle to it.
Considering we dug for about 5 hours it was a pretty shameful take. We have about another 6 weeks left before it starts getting cold… better go and line up some more digs.