Eight years ago we built one of those big wooden swing set with clubhouse play areas in the backyard. It was me, my mother, Quentin and Mr. Feller from across the street. He was 87 at the time and looked about 60. His job was to tell us what to do and show up tricks on how to do it. I call them tricks but really they were clever techniques that left Quentin and I smacking our foreheads with something close to awe. As if turned out, we couldn’t keep him from the saw and hammer and drill and so forth. Mother bailed by the time we got to the clubhouse because she and I and Quentin didn’t work real well together. Not that she got mad; she was a worrywart.
The money for the set was reasonable, considering its expanse and that today’s costs can be pretty good sums – but it was special money. The February before when my father passed away, my mother said, “Well, you know, your dad saved up his prescription receipts and mailed them in every now and then; we need to gather them up. She did that job and when she was done she asked me if I thought it would be a good idea to use the money to get the kids a swing set.
Before I could think, she said my father’s insurance company drug reimbursement check had come in and could we get something for the xxxx hundred plus dollars? Well, yes we could. She said he would like having that money finance something for the great-grandkids, especially the little three year old girl who had backed herself up to him repeatedly the Thanksgiving before so he could lift her up high enough to shoot a ball through a lowered hoop.
Less than three months later he was gone.
So we built this huge thing and somewhere I have a picture of Mr. Feller, Quentin and myself in front of it, in a pose reminiscent of the turn of the century – the 1900 one.
Swings and climbing platforms are quiet places now and only a stiff wind gets the swings moving. I think I am going to climb up and try to get those “super safe, super strong” swing connections undone and put up – oh, maybe a garden swing and a rope chair. Perhaps we’ll get vines climbing the stairs to the slide. Or not. Then there’s the section with the rope net . . .
The clubhouse, though, I think I’ll leave as it is for awhile. The kids get a kick out of their grandmother climbing up and settling down with a book and a glass of ice and a bottle of Lipton iced tea. I have been known to tire of reading and stretch out on the sun-warmed plank floor. The dog sleeps beneath me in what was the sandbox area.
I don’t know what I think when I am up there – my mind floats along on snippets of memories and maybe ideas for one of today’s problems.
I know in that picture I have, I was seated and wearing one of my floppy hats with the mesh between the brim and the top of the crown. Had Quentin cut his long hair by then? Yes, I think so. Mr. Feller was standing with his hand on the fire pole.
We were captured . . . in time.
