Monday Memories: The Old Shed

Although I’ve seen this photo before,  I happened upon it recently while looking through photos on my niece, Donna’s, Facebook page.

What’s odd is that she has several old family photos posted, and on some of those, it doesn’t show that I reacted at all. What’s up with that?

Here’s the photo for this week’s memory:

That’s Donna’s dad, (my sister, June’s husband),  Ed, and the toddler is me. At the time, I think June and Ed were living in New York state, and only came to visit occasionally.

Of course, I don’t remember when this photo was taken, but it does spur lots of memories of that old shed.

My nieces and nephews were just a few years younger than me. We all loved playing in that old shed when we were children.  There was a loft that was accessed by climbing wooden slats nailed to the wall just inside the center section.  I’d climb to the top and look at the loft, but was never brave enough to venture off those slats…unlike my nieces and nephews.

The center section, and the one on the right (where the lumber is in this picture) had dirt floors, but the left-hand section had a slightly elevated wooden floor. My dad was an expert carpenter, and at the back of that section was his little work area.

I remember over his work bench, there was a cubby-hole area that fascinated us.  But, we played most often with the vise that was attached to the work table.  Some of the biggest trouble we got into with our moms was the time we used that vise to crush black walnuts.  We had walnut stain all over our hands, and it was impossible to remove.  I remember Mom and my sisters trying every home remedy they could think of, and time was the only thing that did that job.

When this picture was taken, my dad had been passed away less than two years, so I would imagine that wood on the right side of the shed was his supply he used in his woodworking hobby.  Mom later stored her riding lawn mower in there.

My niece, Donna (a most talented artist) sketched this, several years ago, from a picture. Mom’s car is parked in the center section, and her riding lawn mower is to the right. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t notice it, but I can see the elevated floor on the left-hand section.  Just below the word ‘sketch’ on the watermark, there’s the window that looked out on the field behind the shed.

I love this sketch. Donna is several years younger than me, so I hope she will comment and say just  how much she remembers about the old shed.

~These Days Of Mine~