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Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Up there with the cleanout of the fridge, the cleanout of the main shed was pretty damned unpleasant. This had been my father's work shed when I was growing up. Upstairs was a small attic play area where I spent numerous nights of fantasy of places far beyond Lake Charles.

As my father's activities kept him away from home more and more, this shed degenerated into a storage area and home for small furry animals. The garage also became a storage area for large piles of equipment for his contracting work, making it almost impassible for walking, much less parking a car. When he had his stroke, I boxed up and transferred much of this garage material into the shed - discovering the bones of a mother possum and four babies along the way. Somehow, leaves also began settling in this area building up a carpet of humus over the concrete to go with the animal droppings.

Into this scrum I descended armed with shovels and dust masks. Although I had hoped to be able to sort the hardware for potential sale later, the poor condition and intermingling with garbage made the task much too difficult and, ultimately, futile. I dragged and scooped the material into a wheelbarrow loads and hauled most of it to the curb.

With my folks somewhat closer in Kinder, I was able to stay at the house and experience a few peaceful moments of rest and Elysium.

Next: Wednesday, November 2, 2005