The Marsh Lake Outhouse Poem by Kim Barney

Marsh Lake is in the Uintah Mountains of northeastern Utah, but to get there, you have to drive into Wyoming for a few miles and then back into Utah.
Many years ago, we had a family get-together at Marsh Lake. My wife and I were there with our children, and her parents were there, as well as four or five of her sisters and their families. We stayed about a week, as I recall.
The fishing was very good. There were rainbow trout, some cutthroats, and some special 'golden rainbows' that had been stocked there by the Utah Wildlife Services.
The outhouse that summer was very bad-smelling, and everybody hated to go in there, but it had to be done from time to time.
My brother-in-law, Rulon, had to go to the outhouse one day, but he thought he had a solution to the horrible smell. He took some matches with him, and thinking to burn off some of the odorous fumes, dropped a burning match into the toilet.
He did not expect the huge explosion that followed, which singed all the hair off of his arms and also removed his eyebrows and eyelashes. He was otherwise unharmed.
He also did not consider that the men's and ladies' sides of the outhouse were connected by only one large tank underneath, so when the explosion happened on the men's side, it occurred on the other side as well.
We all still laugh heartily at the recollection of one of my wife's sisters running out of the outhouse with her pants down around her ankles. She had been sitting you-know-where at the time of the blast.