Nowadays those of us who live in an urban environment where sewage just goes down the pipe and out of the house, not to be given any more thought until we get our sewer bills, have very little real idea of what sewage disposal was like years ago before central sewer systems. Each house, or several houses together, would have an outhouse, sometimes called a privy, in the yard, usually far away from the occupied dwelling, with a pit under it for the collection of human waste. If you think this sounds like a smelly arrangement, you are right! My first and only usage of a real outhouse was at my Aunt Mary’s in Akron Ohio, and it was not for the squeamish. This one didn’t even have pit under it, because the water table was high in that area and you couldn’t put a cesspool anywhere in it.
If you had running water in the house, sometimes the drain would take it to a drain field and sometimes to the cesspool. Newer homes were outfitted with septic tanks and sometimes a drain field to serve the same purpose as the cesspool. Septic tanks or cesspools would occasionally have to be pumped out, if the drain field was backing up or getting plugged. This is where Cy Hunter came in. He was one of those rare individuals who made their living as a cesspool pumper, sometimes euphemistically called a honey dipper. Dad knew him from the time they used to run together as young men and he always said that Cy’s feeling was that it might be shit to everyone else, but it was bread and butter to him.
I don’t know where he got rid of it when his tank got full, but I doubt he just dumped it over the bank somewhere. Cy was the kind of fellow who would charge a fair price for his service and if you couldn’t pay him, he would do it anyway, reasoning that folks would remember who had helped them out, at a time when they were better off.
Everyone who grew up in South Easton in my generation surely either knew Cy Hunter or knew of him. I consider it a high honor and privelege to have known him. His granddaughter Josephine graduated from high school with me.