But be careful when you must pee outside

When Rebecca and I met, we were just kids of 60.

Today, I’m 74.

All of me.

This is my problem, not hers.

County Roads

We’ve lived together for many years but have kept our houses in two Iowa communities, in the northeast and southwest, 323 miles apart and 5 hours and 30 minutes by car. I’ve traced our route, which includes many country roads with no pitstops.

I estimate we’ve made 200 cross-state trips. On a typical journey, we stop halfway at a McDonald’s in Story City for a Mocha Frappe and the indoor toilet designated by the blue arrow.

Often, we start in the early coffee-saturated morning. Whether beginning from Clarinda in the southwest or Decorah in the northeast, I’ve got two well-scouted hidden-from-the-road stops shown by the yellow arrows. One is an abandoned building, and the other is a mound of sand. I suppose I’ve used one or the other 50 times, with most times coming in the last five years.

Rebecca holds.

I fold.

Usually, in the boonies.

Two speeding tickets thus far but no citations against Public Decency for Public Defecation and Urination, as defined by Iowa law:

It shall be unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate in or upon any street, alley, sidewalk, bridge, or public place open to public view…

My doctor calls it urge incontinence.

Last week, it struck on a walking trail three blocks from our northeast Iowa home.

A city walking trail

Below is the crime scene defined by Decorah’s city statute, with that now familiar yellow arrow marking my spot.

The green arrow points to a skateboard park, and the orange to a residential neighborhood.

The pink? Around the corner, two blocks away, sits a Montessori school in a former funeral home. I’ll tell that story someday.

Fortunately, there were no kids on skates, no one on their front porch, no escaped Montessori six-year-old, no other walkers or bikers, and no patrol car.

A friend, Mike, tells the story of being on a bike trail in Missouri, finding tree cover, and finishing up just as a Girl Scout troop appeared around the trail bend.

Phew

I asked another friend, John, who has just retired from forty years of practicing law in a community like Decorah, what the police do when they come upon older guys like Mike and me who break this law. He wrote:

If a person is just urinating because there’s no bathroom in the area, the police will more than likely let him go. For the police it’s basically a good reason just to stop and make an inquiry as to what is going on. Someone our age is 99% likely to not get even an ordinance violation.

So Mike and I can exhale, knowing our age may shield us from public embarrassment. Coincidently, this might lessen our age-related malady.

Two kinds of relief.

However, while researching this story, I encountered an incident that complicated my happy ending.

To preface, Mike and I are also white.

Perhaps you remember the story of the 10-year-old black child last year who was charged with public urination in Mississippi. You can read about it here.

Iowa is not Mississippi.

But it’s still America.

If I’m a 74-year-old black man behind that tree, I’ve now got three problems that require relief, not just two.