Michael Gessel

When along came a man with a big hairy chin. He said, what's the matter? And I started to holler. I need a dime and all I've got is a dollar.

I would maybe describe myself as a creative nerd.

Pay toilets were everywhere.

Pay toilets were in the main department store. Pay toilets were in Greyhound bus stations. in restaurants. They were really everywhere.

You couldn't live life without encountering pay toilets.

My brother and I thought that pay toilets were an unfair infringement on our rights. We were offended by pay toilets.

To me, pay toilets were extortion, and I was not going to be extorted.

Well, because if you had to use a toilet, you had to use a toilet.

We weren't real party goers. We tended not to get invited to parties. So Ira and I were sitting alone trying to come up with something to do. And so Ira sat down at his typewriter and he wrote an article called End Pay Toilets. And it urged people to write to Congress to support legislation to ban pay toilets.

You know, I think I'll pass on that.

I reached my dime. I walked into the men's room one day and I went to the toilet but had to pay. I reached in my pocket and searched for a dime, but nature was calling. I hadn't much time. And then it started getting a little bit more serious.

Either we actually do something or... We just give up and move on.

Something like that.

We're good.

Oh, she was the hero. She had pulled her stunt, and she was an inspiration for the committee to end pay toilets in America.

We got hundreds of heartfelt letters. We got enormous support from people who had been feeling the same way that we felt, but really had no one to complain to.

It was like, wow, we actually did it. We actually got something done. If we are serious, we might actually be able to accomplish our mission of eliminating pay toilets from the United States. And then did you?

There'd just be a hole where a lock used to be.

No regrets. And I feel very proud of the work that we did. I think that pay toilets were offensive. And I think that to have contributed in a way that eliminated them, at least in the United States, is a good thing. And I think it's just not credible to blame a bunch of high school and college students 50 years ago for the decline of downtown and urban areas.