1947 Ford

     Thursday night Milo and I went over to replace the outhouse door on the school house.  I replaced four screws and threw a little lime into the holes and was finished.  I noticed that the horrible smell was not originating at the school house.

     Brian and Linda live in a single story house,  just west and behind the school house.  Late Wednesday afternoon Brian decided to take down the outdoor Christmas lights.  He put up the extension ladder and proceeded to climb up toward the eve.  Something was amiss, for he had climbed up five steps but was only three steps above the ground.  The ladder was sinking into the ground.  The ground under the ladder had turned into a subterranean bog.  Brian had discovered the source of the rather pungent smell.  His septic tank was leaking.

     Brian made arrangements with Chris, our mayor, to dig up the old septic tank so he could replace it.  Chris drove his backhoe over and started digging.  I'm sure you can imagine how pleasant that job was.....  Chris dug for a few minutes and then hit something metal.  He continued to dig, cautiously, around the septic tank until he uncovered the entire tank.  To everyone's surprise, the septic tank was a 1947 Ford sedan (at least the best we could determine) with the windows rolled up.

     Standing next to me, my father-in-law leaned over and said "That's nothing, we're using a 1967 Hornet.  We have a few more years to go on ours."   The last I saw of the 1947 Ford / septic tank, it was on the back of a flatbed trailer, heading down the road, contents occasionally falling to the ground.