BRICKHOUSE

I was driving to the bank recently when one of Cindy and my favorite songs came on the radio…Brickhouse, by the Commodores. 

Oh she’s a brick.....house 
She’s mighty mighty...just lettin’ it all hang out 

Oh she’s a brick.....house 

That lady’s stacked...that’s a fact...ain’t holdin' nothin' back 

Years ago one of Cindy’s friends served on a committee that held an annual benefit party and we were invited. Besides a great meal, they had a band for entertainment and the band did a great rendition of Brickhouse. I’m a terrible dancer (I got no rhythm) but even I got into the dancing and singing mood as the crowd partied to Brickhouse. 

Oh she’s a brick....house 

Well we’re together...everybody knows...this is how the story goes 

She knows she got everything...that a woman needs...to get a man 

How can she lose with the stuff she use 36-24-36 oh what a winning hand 

Cause she’s a brick....house. 

As I got closer to the bank, those words brick house kept playing in my head and I got to thinking about a term my dad occasionally used…”built like a brick shithouse”. I seem to recall him saying it when we would be in the car and pass a pretty lady walking down the sidewalk. Now don’t get me wrong, my dad was not a dirty-minded man, but he, like any man, appreciated the look of a pretty woman. As a kid, I didn’t understand what dad meant when he’d say “she’s built like a brick shithouse”, but as I got older, I figured it out. 

As I write this, I even googled the term and it’s actually listed in Wikipedia. It says those words are slang meaning either a man who is very muscular and strong or a woman who is very buxom and curvaceous. A shithouse is slang for exactly what you think it is…a toilet, or from my father’s era, an outhouse made of brick rather than wood. 

Now if I were to use the term brick shithouse in front of my grandkids, the only thing they’d pick up on was that papaw said a bad word, they would have no connection to it having to do with a well-built outhouse, just like I didn’t get it at that age either. 

I recall my granddad having an outhouse that we used out on his farm in southern Indiana…an old wooden 2-holer outhouse. (Never quite understood why you would want to sit there WITH someone). My kids know what an outhouse is, and maybe have used one but I doubt it. My grandkids probably wouldn’t know what an outhouse is if I asked them, let alone understand the term “built like a brick shithouse”. 

Dad had a number of terms he used when I was growing up and most of them would not mean a thing to kids these days...the times were just so vastly different. But for me…hearing those words brickhouse the other day brought back fond memories from times with Cindy….and times with dad.  

REMEMBER:
Know your worth. You must find the courage to leave the table if respect is no longer being served.

Be talkin' to ya.

Dan