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| Sister Leah and brother Paul in 1956 seated in front of the only images of the wood pile. |
My mother did many great
things in her lifetime. One of those which astounded me more than
others was her dedication to the concept that each child (as far as I
know) would have a detailed photo album of family. I guess we were
similar to other families working its way through the middle of the
20th century and taking advantage of the postwar boom of
technology. The family camera seem to be everywhere in those days.
Family reunions, Fourth of July picnics, Christmas morning just
openings, family visits records of vacations etc. etc. We literally
had boxes, cardboard boxes full of images/photographs and negatives.
Where would the order of images photographs we also back envelope of
weird reverse pictures: THE NEGATIVES. For some reason I had the back
of my mind the illusion that these images would always be around. As
I stated earlier, I was profoundly impressed when possibly for
Christmas orbiting birthday my mother presented me with a photo album
in which she had painstakingly curated image upon image relevant to
me in this album. we had earlier albums which were bit more generic
showing images of family events but Mom went out of her way, cropping
and centering the subject of the photo in my case pictures of me.
Painfully, I found that
mothers passing the all those negatives and boxes of images I thought
would always be around were no longer available. It seemed decades
earlier or at least one decade earlier mom had got rid of of all the
images of my best, history in fact the family history. Painfully, I
realized as I rushed to look closer at my photo albums that when she
was focusing on the individual in the images mom had painstakingly
cut out all the surrounding images on the photo! I was distraught.
Even more so when I found out she'd gotten rid of all of the
negatives. Nobody in the family kept them. I thought surely somebody
would. That's why the other day when I was wandering through the last
album my mother made me that I noticed an image of the woodpile
behind my brother and sister of the old farm. This is the only record
I have of this monument to Chaos theory.
This morning at the weekly
coffee social I got on a tangent and telling people how as a child I
have very little unstructured time. This concept of unstructured Kid
time in my father's need to fend off the next depression brought up
this “woodpile” pile of wood basically thrown together probably
as high as 8 feet and a good 20 feet long. The woodpile was the final
resting place of wooden shipping crates from my dad 's shop. My dad
and begged the owner for all the crates the new furnaces were shipped
in. Every Saturday it seemed we brought home a pickup load of crates
which need to be disassembled and de-nailed and adjudicated which was
useful in which wood would go to the stove. If we ever run out of
things to do there is always the woodpile. Nails to be pulled and
straightened them would be cut in stacks on and on. I don't know why
but seeing this pile of work sticking out behind my brother and
sister there in 1956 just soothe my soul. I have not made it up
there was a huge pile of wood
Nowadays, I totally
appreciate my father's mindset for the pile of wood. I think my dad's
mind as long as we have the final word we could build anything, we
always had fuel to keep warm and possibly a form of currency for
civilization broke down and trade returned. I have the same thoughts
regarding my food pantry.(
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