Bedroom #1

 

 

Aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994.

 

 

 

Maren:

My first memories in this bedroom were when there was the very...busy...wallpaper of the mushroom village and woodland creatures.  It was fun wallpaper to study while lying in bed.  That is when I shared a room with Cary.  We all know the story of how after Dad would put us to bed and Cary would scare me by saying in a spooky voice, "Maren, I'm going to eat you."  I was not a fan.  We also had a brown record player in that room.  Marné tells me that I used to sing along while listening to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," although I have no memory of this.  I just remember listening to a record of a Strawberry Shortcake read-along book.

 

At some point, the mushroom village wallpaper came down and up went a navy blue wallpaper with a duck border running along the top of the wall, along with dark blue carpet.  It became Curtis and Corey's room when they were teens and even into college days or when Curtis returned from his mission before returning to BYU.  They shared the wooden bunk beds.  I have memories of laying on the top bunk while watching a sibling or two play Spy vs. Spy on Curtis' computer.  Cary eventually inherited that room while he was in high school. 

 

Finally, when I was a junior in high school I got the room.  I suppose it was the most coveted room, if for nothing else, it was the largest, so I was pretty happy to move in there.  I remember taking down the duck wallpaper and painting the room white, even the inside of the closet.  It was a fun project.  I had room for the sewing table, my new Ikea desk, and everything.  I was a happy camper.

Also of note, in the farthest corner of the room was the door to the attic, which wasn't really a door, but just a big painted board of plywood.  Way in the back of the attic were stored really old things like a crib, perhaps an old stroller, some old toys, while closer to the door were stored more recently used items like a taped up box of Corey's CDs while he was on his mission.  It was always a little dicey crawling in there as it was dark, dusty, there were nails sticking out of the beams, and there was always the fear of spiders or other creatures that tend to hang out in dark places.  When the wind blew, the plywood door would move back and forth, making a soft thudding noise that became natural background noise for whoever slept in there at the time.

Dad:
Bedroom #1 was known for the 'duck' wallpaper and was the boys bedroom most of the time as I recall. It always seemed to be cluttered with stuff strewn about the floor and on the beds, It had a small desk that was used for homework and studying. In later years, there was a keyboard and a couple of guitars, in the room, that were used by Cary. Then when Maren moved in as the boys went away to college and missions, it always seemed to be neat and tidy. I wonder if that had anything to do with the occupant at that time... Whenever it rained to any extent, water would leak in around the window. Whenever this happened, I would put towels on the window sills to soak up the water. l put caulking around the windows 3 or 4 times, but they still leaked just as bad. Nothing seemed to help, so we finally had new windows installed which fixed the problem. We had the same problems with the window in bedroom #2. The 1994 earthquake seemed to hit that room harder than the other bedrooms. I remember a big pile of stuff that fell out of the closet and also about everything else in the room except the bunk beds were in that pile. Writing this brings back many good (and some not so good) memories of the past.

Mom:

I think everyone  slept in this room at one time or another.  Marné was the first to decorate it.  Since she knew that I was not a fan of yellow, she decided to choose the color to see if I would let her have her choice.  Yellow walls and carpet and a yellow gingham quilt I made to finish the room.  Also bought white curtains,  this helped to cut the yellow!

 

Corey and Curtis shared the room when had dark blue wallpaper and a stripe of ducks.  Then there was the mushrooms and animals when Maren and Cary shared.  When most of you left Maren was back in the room and pulled down the wall paper and painted and made the room her own.  By this time we had the burber carpeting throughout the house.

Cary:
I remember the room that was originally Marné's for its yellow carpet. Maren and I shared it for a time. There was an odd bed I slept in. It was elevated so I had to get a running start to get on it. It was situated close enough to Maren's bed that I could jump from one to the other.

I also remember peeing on the yellow carpet once when I'd just gotten out of the tub. For some reason I couldn't hold it and reasoned in my 5 or 6 year old brain that it wouldn't matter being that it was yellow, kind of musty smelling and older than me. 

Corey:
My earliest memory of this bedroom is the "yellow" version of Marné's childhood. She had a bed with a brown headboard, a light pinkish nightstand, and a brown book case. I vaguely remember a record player in her room. She had a bunch of toys, including a Holly Hobbie playset that was a general store that I always wanted to play with. Then Maren and Cary shared the room and the mushroom critters wallpaper was put up. I remember their room was always a mess. I remember the room best as the blue room with the dark blue patterned wall paper and duck trim. We inherited some chunky wood furniture from the Staleys (I think). This included the bunk bed and dressers. Curtis had a big, old desk that may have been Grandpa Woolley's and I had the drafting table. Curtis had the Commodore64 and the TV he still has to this day. We would climb through the window to get on the patio cover. It seemed like our screen was always torn. I also recall Mom pulling Curtis off the top bunk several times at 5:30 in the morning when he wouldn't get up for seminary. I'm also pretty sure Cary shared the room with me for a while when Curtis left for college.

The Stairs

 

 

 

 

Maren:
When I was in high school, if I stretched out my arms, I could almost touch the walls on each side of the stairs, so they must have been a little over 6 feet wide.  I can't believe I don't remember exactly how many stairs there were, because I'm sure I often counted them as I came up and down them each day.  I'd guess somewhere around 14 or 15.  As I got older, I think I was able to leap up or down the stairs, 3 at a time.

They were, of course, covered in the infamous Red Shag carpet for most of the time, but then they got a makeover and got the white carpet.  The black railing that was on the right side was also painted white, along with the railing at the top of the stairs, that was often used to hang towels to dry (or to tie a rope to with the other end tied to the door knob of one of the bedroom doors to torture and trap a younger sibling).

The staircase was the place to store our belongings when we were too lazy to carry them upstairs.  Piles of freshly cleaned laundry that Mom had folded for us would await us there, as well as any backpacks, books, or general junk that needed to be put away.  If we had to vacuum the stairs, we had to eventually carry all the stuff up and dump it into whatever room it belonged in.

Vacuuming the stairs was a serious chore since it was done with that bulky Electolux vacuum.  I'm sure I developed some muscle hauling that thing up and down the stairs.

One of my earliest memories as a child was after Dad had put me to bed.  I would sneak out of my bedroom, pose my stuffed animals and dolls on the top stair or two, and pretend to be taking a group photo of them.  I had to keep quiet, as Mom and Dad were usually downstairs watching TV.

The top of the stairs was a perfect place to do homework, play a game with another person, or assemble Lego structures - the possibilities were limitless.  It was just a relatively comfortable place to sit and do something as a kid.  Although it was a little tricky if someone was doing something there and you had to climb over them to go up or down the stairs. 

The bottom of the stairs was also a very convenient place to pose for pictures (see photos above), as well as to fold newspapers with Dad on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Because of it's width and straightness, it was a perfect staircase to slide down.  Wearing a sleeping bag was the best and fastest way to go.

Corey:

The social center of the house was the open family room and kitchen. The geographic center, however, was the wide staircase. I remember Mom saying how much she liked how wide the stairs were. I’m not sure if this was because she liked the space while walking up and down them—you could have one person walking up and one person walking down at the same time—or because you could put lots of stuff on them and still have room to walk up and down. The stairs were the spot you picked up your clean, folded clothes. It was where stray papers and toys were put to be taken up to our bedrooms later. It was also a play area. The top of the stairs were a great place to play Lego. When Jason lived with us we built the yellow Lego castle and invented a simple role playing game where we had one person attack the castle and another defend, complete with mounted knights and a catapult. During sleepovers we also found ways to slide down them in our sleeping bags. I even remember a recurrent dream when I was really young where I would fall down the stairs in slow motion in the dark, only to wake up before I hit the bottom. There was the iron railing on one side that was loose most of the time from someone pulling on it and dislodging the screws that were only in drywall. Dad fixed it several times but I’m not sure it was ever truly stable. Amazingly, the iron railing at the top by the kids’ bedrooms and bathrooms was always sturdy and never broke. That railing saw a lot of use as a towel and laundry holder. I remember running my matchbox cars across that railing, top and bottom. 

The Backyard

The Apricot Tree

Corey and Curtis

Corey

 Corey and Curtis

 

Corey

Curtis

Mom:
The backyard was a blank slate.  We had a patio and patio cover put in soon after moving into the house.  There was also a small patio outside the sliding door from the living room and a path at the side of the house where we stored the trash cans (The small patio would later be removed when the sewing room was added in 1978). Dad put in the sprinklers in the backyard and then he and Vic Staley rolled sod out.  Grandpa and Grandma Judd came to visit one Fall and Grandpa built the brick wall and bought fill dirt for the vegetable garden area, put in a water spicket, compost and planted a winter vegetable garden.  They also planted the roses and  the olive tree in the front yard.

The people behind us decided to build a pool and insisted on raise the height of the back fence to 6 feet. Well, it was 7 feet so Dad and Grandpa measured the fence and cut off 12 inches so it would be 6 feet.  We lost our "view", we had also painted the lower fence and Dad insisted that the new fence should also be painted.  The neighbor was not very nice and came one afternoon with two gallons of paint and dropped them at our front door.  He also didn't build the new fence properly so the "crossbar" was too low.  This is why Oscar was always able to climb over the fence into their yard and escape for a walk around the neighborhood.  

 

Dad also planted one cherry tree that never had one piece of fruit on it and very few leaves.  Finally it was simply a stick and after much prodding he finally removed it.  We also tried to grow a lemon tree, but it also died.  Our greatest success was the apricot tree by the sewing room window.  We had lots of fresh apricots and frozen apricot jam over the years.  In fact when we sold the house in June, Dad wanted to have frozen apricot jam to take to the new house.  Since I was busy working and packing up the house to move I taught him how to make the jam so I could continue packing and working.

 

The houses in the neighborhood were so close together that you could hear everything in your neighbors yard.  One of the most annoying things was hearing the Johnsons' older dog bark every time I was in the kitchen.  One day I read that you could train a dog not to bark by spraying him with water, so I went onto the patio and with the hose reached over the fence and sprayed him with water.  He would shut up for a while, but still continued to bark until he died.

Maren:
The memories that I have of the backyard are from when it was already very mature.  It is shocking to see the photos of when the house was first bought and to see how tiny the apricot tree and the Ash tree near the Johnson’s backyard were in the beginning.

The patio was shady thanks to the slatted patio cover. I think at one time it got a new coat of paint by Corey or Curtis one summer, when it was starting to look a little trashy due to peeling paint and a broken slat or two.  The cats would often take refuge from us by climbing up there, or to simply sunbathe.  There was easy access to the top for them by way of the apricot tree or the fence on the opposite side.  There was a long skinny counter outside of the kitchen window where we would put the cats’ food dishes so Oscar wouldn’t eat their food.  This counter eventually got warped and ruined, as well.  I don’t remember if it was ever repaired or replaced before the move to Venus St.  When I was really young, there was a small plastic yellow play kitchen out there, too.  I’m wondering if it had originally been Marné’s because I only remember it being really old, dusty, and partially broken.  There were maybe a few plates and a piece or two of play food, so it wasn’t much fun to play with.  There was also a wooden picnic table and benches that may have bought near the time of first moving into the house, but my only memories are of a wobbly, rickety, sun bleached table that would give you splinters if you weren’t careful.  A large plant pot was out there, too.  I remember planting morning glories in there one year (possibly for Young Women Personal Progress.  You know, to understand that faith is like a seed…) and being pretty proud of my accomplishment in getting something to grow fairly well.

The sliding glass door from the kitchen out to the patio was often dirty with Oscar’s drool or nose marks, likely from when he would whine to come inside.  The screen door was pretty gnarled up and at one point had been “repaired” with a thicker metal gate attached to the bottom.  I’m pretty sure Oscar deformed even that.

Dad had one of those spherical black charcoal barbeques out there as well.  We’d barbeque on the 4^th of July (the one day of the year that we also bought soda – more specifically A&W Root Beer).

The back fence had 3 bushes lining it, as well as the stick that was supposedly a cherry tree. The fence wasn’t very high, so the cats would often scale that fence to go roam the neighborhood (Oscar made the leap over that fence a time or two, as well). Once one of the animals left a half dead mouse near the fence and I was pretty distraught about it.  Yuck.   In the back corner near the garden was the area designated for Oscar to use as a bathroom.  Picking up his dried poop was a never-ending chore.

The garden wall was made of tan bricks maybe 2 feet high, with a few little brick steps in one spot.  Tomatoes, green beans, and corn were the things I remember most growing in there.  I loved to pick the green beans, eating several here and there while picking.  In the garden area closer to the fence that led to the front yard, it was a little less kempt.  There was a Concord grape plant that did actually produce grapes, despite being sort of forgotten.  I don’t remember actually doing much with the grapes, though.  There were a couple more cypress trees as well as a little shed that was filled with who-knows-what. 

Along the side of the house near the chimney was a woodpile.  I don’t remember Dad or anyone else going to fetch and chop wood, and I only remember ever having a fire in the living room fireplace once or twice ever, so those wood scraps must have been very old and a great breeding spot for bugs of all sorts.  I’m sure someone told me that there were black widow spiders living in there, so I was always a little wary of walking around back near the woodpile.

The apricot tree bore lots of fruit in the summer, but we had to try and pick it before the birds started pecking out little bits in every piece of fruit. The cats probably helped to scare away the birds occasionally, which helped, but didn’t completely solve the problem.  Eating a warm, perfectly ripe apricot off of that tree is another sweet (no pun intended) memory.   We would just throw the stones from the fruit on the ground under the tree.  If we were lucky to pick a surplus of apricots, jam would be made. 

The grass was quite weedy.  Several times I attempted to keep those weeds at bay, but it was too overwhelming.  Perhaps it was after my morning glory success that I set to work to create a flowerbed along the fence right outside the back door.  In the picture of Friskie above that may have been the area right there behind that rock border.  However, I never finished that project.

At one time, I remember Cary, Matt Johnson, and some other friends creating some sort of club house in Matt’s yard right up next to our yard. 

Dad:

The back yard started out with nothing but the Ash tree in the southwest corner which was planted by the development company. I installed the sprinkler system myself after carefully planning it out so it provided full coverage. The reason for the photos of the work in progress, though, was to determine where all the underground pipes were in case they broke and needed to be repaired. I never had to worry about that because they always seemed to work OK. I also installed the sod, which looked good for the first 2 or 3 years. Then it seemed to go down hill and weeds kind of took over. I didn't take very good care of it in later years, except for watering and mowing it. In fact I dug up some the grass (the area directly back from the kitchen) and replanted it. It too, looked good for awhile until more weeds took over. 
 

Over the years the apricot and cherry trees were planted along with grape vines and other miscellaneous plants and shrubs. We always had a pretty good garden although weeds would threaten to take over and sometimes did. One year, I planted a "winter garden" that included broccoli, cabbages, and brussels sprouts, etc. They produced quite well, but were taken over and partly eaten by various kinds of bugs. We usually had good crops of beans, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers and zucchini squash. The grapes never did very well probably because of a lack of water.

 

The patio cover was a  big improvement in regard to providing a nice shady area rather than the direct sun through the back windows and sliding door. Grandpa Judd built the back wall and brought in some good topsoil, which made a nice garden spot. The back yard didn't get the care and maintenance that it should have, or it would have looked better. About the only things that did real well was the apricot tree and the garden.   

 

Corey:

The most used part of the backyard was the patio outside the sliding glass door from the kitchen.  The “picnic table” was out there as long as I can remember. I don’t know where or when we got it, but over the years the stain chipped off and it got more and more rickety. There was also a shelf outside the kitchen window, opposite the kitchen sink.  It had several pots on it and wasn’t used for much else. Oscar’s food and water sat beneath it along with his dog carrier/dog house.  I made a macrame pot holder in 1st grade that hung near the shelf for several years. I can barely remember the patio before the patio cover was put in, mainly because there were plastic pots covering the metal brackets for the posts that stuck out of the concrete.  The patio cover provided nice shade. I remember Curtis and I, and later Cary, using the ladder to climb up on the patio cover. Someone put a piece of plywood over in the corner where we would climb on. It was tricky to get up there with the thin wood slats—you had to be careful to walk on the support beams and not on the wood slats alone as they could break. I think I had a telescope up there at one time, looking at the moon.

 

The backyard lawn was never very good. The tree in the corner of the yard grew quite large and by the time we moved, covered much of the lawn in shade.  Along the back fence there were some shrubs that we occasionally pruned, and the cherry tree, which was essentially a stick that had a few leaves but never produced a single cherry. At one time, Curtis and I built a clubhouse along the back fence, complete with a hinged door and two separate rooms. I remember trying to lift a piece of plywood into place for the roof. There was a nail sticking out of the plywood and when I shifted under the weight of the wood, the nail found my ear, puncturing the back of it.  It bled a bit but was surprisingly painless. I can also recall when we built the back fence, for some reason the Hurleys had a problem with it—I guess it was too tall. I remember them being back there cutting a good foot from the top of the fence.  And when we were building the club house, their one son heard the hammering and for some reason got a hammer and started banging on the other side of the fence.  

 

I also recall when Grandpa Judd came to visit and helped Dad build the block wall for the garden. The garden was great to have. It seems like Dad always had something planted and was always watering it with the hose.  I took tomatoes and carrots from time to time to snack on.  We discovered the grape vine later and ate quite a few grapes though they required a bit of work as they had seeds and tougher skin. I also remember that for a while there was an electric wire along the wall to protect the garden, I think from the cats but maybe from something else. After Cary grabbed it a few times I think Dad packed it in and figured it wasn’t worth it. I vaguely remember a joke about Cary having curly hair because he grabbed the wire and couldn’t let go.

 

At the end of the garden by the fence and gate to the front yard, there was a rickety wooden shed. I think there was fertilizer and a few other odds and ends in there. I remember climbing on top of it a few times, which was easy to do with the fence right there. There was also a wood pile along the wall outside the sewing room which was essentially scraps from the addition to the house and the patio cover. It never seemed to get smaller and was a good source for materials when we had different projects. There were a lot of spiders in there.

 

The apricot tree was one of the best things about the back yard. The blossoms were always pretty in the spring and we got a surprisingly large number of apricots every year. Apricot jam from the home grown apricots was one of my favorites.

 

The Garage

 

Damage done by the Northridge Earthquake, January 17, 1994.

 

 

Mom:

The garage was an embarrassment and a frustration to me for many years.  This "2 Car Garage" was really a car and one half garage.  When we first moved to Rosewood Court we could fit the VW and my car (can't remember the name, which was small) into the garage, but everything went down from there. The large springs on the door had to be replaced a couple of times.  I finally insisted on a new roll up garage door with a remote control so that I wouldn't have to get out of the car to lift open or pull down the door to close it.  This was particularly annoying and difficult when I had to do it in the rain with babies and small children.  We eventually didn't really have a garage, but a storage room for furniture and just regular junk.  We also had shelves for food storage since the house lacked storage, especially in the kitchen.  It was also the laundry room and when not cluttered with furniture I used it as a quilting room where I quilted each of you a quilted bedspread for your beds.  This was perfect during the summer since the garage was probably the coolest place in the whole house.  The neighbors (especially Barbara Kelsch) would come and visit me while I quilted.  When we moved we left all the mismatched shelves for the new owners because Corey had made shelves for my sewing room and we placed those in the garage on Venus Street. Having a three car garage on Venus Street was wonderful, we were always able to park our cars in the garage.  Cary and I were so excited to do this that we cleared the garage of all the moving boxes and parked our cars in the garage within 2 days of moving to Venus Street.

 

Maren:

The house was built well before the days of motorized garage door openers, so we got to open it by hand.  As a young girl, it made me feel pretty grown up and strong to be able to move such a large object and hoist that door up.

 Closest to the door going out onto the driveway, the trashcans were off to the right side, close to where they had to be dragged down to the curb on garbage collection days.  We had a few plastic ones and then one smaller metal one.  Behind those I think there were a few large (50 gallon?) water barrels for emergency use.  Luckily, I don’t think we ever had to use the water in them.  For all I know they may have been empty the whole time.

Off to the left were some white shelves where canned fruit was stored.  While I remember Mom making jam, I don’t recall her canning fruit. When I was younger, I do remember a few jars of spoiled fruit on those shelves that were eventually thrown out, but otherwise, the shelves housed empty dusty jars along with a haphazard collection of other trinkets and junk.  Our bags of rubber bands for paper routes could be placed there so they weren’t in the way of the bikes that were also parked on that side of the garage.  A few bikes that were in need of repair or a new tire were closest to the shelves, while those in working order (like my nifty purple 10-speed Marin bike that I thought was hot stuff), were more easily accessible and closer to the middle of the garage.

A small pathway led back into the depths of the garage.  Behind the bikes was Dad’s workbench with a few tools hanging up on a pegboard on the wall.  The table was littered with his green metal toolbox, pieces of sandpaper, and who-knows-what else.  Was there a metal filing cabinet next to the workbench?

As you continued on the path, off to the right contained…stuff.  I just have a vague picture in my mind of just piles of stuff, but no clear remembrance of what it actually was.  Black garbage bags of old clothes?  A roll of fur fabric wrapped in plastic?  A table to stack more stuff onto?  As time went by, this side of the garage’s junk would slowly seep into the pathway, making it narrower and narrower.  When it became near impassable, a clean-up session would occur and the pathway would widen once again. 

Beyond Dad’s workbench were more shelves that stored the Fisher-Price toys, many of which Mom and Dad still have today.  Next to that, in the corner, was the outside freezer.  Loaves of bread, homemade jam, Girl Scout cookies, Push-up pops, Fudgesicles, and Big Sticks were the things I remember seeing the most when I opened the freezer.  More often than not I remember the shelves of the freezer being frosted over between the occasional defrosting sessions. 

The washing machine and dryer were right next to the door going into the house.  The dryer was up higher on a cement block so we didn’t have to bend over to use it.  Mom’s fabric laundry basket on its rusty turquoise wheels was always parked in front of the dryer for easy unloading.  There was a simple wooden shelf on the wall up above for clean rags and old towels for cleaning or for Oscar’s bed, as well as laundry cleaners and such. 

Off to the side where the massive conglomeration of stuff started nearest the washing machine and dryer was a tall white cabinet.  Memory is fuzzy, but I do recall piles of old National Geographic magazines on the bottom shelf of this.  It tipped over in the Northridge earthquake (See above photo).

One year I got the Barbie Dream House for my birthday.  Mom hid it in the garage under a table in amongst all the stuff, but I accidentally discovered it before my birthday.

Oscar slept in the garage just about every night.  His carrying case/bed was in amongst all the stuff, too, but generally close to the door that led into the house. Loopin and Friskie sometimes slept in there, too, if they weren’t off wandering around the neighborhood or sleeping in one of our bedrooms. Dog and cat food bags were also kept in the garage and sometimes the pets would gnaw and scratch holes in the bottom of the bags if they got hungry.  This often caused a big mess that had to be cleaned up.

Dad:

The garage was kind of a "catch all" for anything that wouldn't fit anywhere else in the house. There was a short period of time when we put two cars in the garage, but as time went by, it went to only room for one car and eventually, no room for cars at all. I think that the last car to fit in the garage was the green Volkswagen, only because it was so much smaller than the other cars.

 

 The ping pong table that sat in the garage served well as a place to put stuff under  and on top of. It was like a big shelf and I don't remember it ever being used to play ping pong on. My work bench was rarely used to do "work" on , but was used mostly to hold things that needed to be fixed. Whenever something was broke, it was placed on my workbench in hope that I would "fix" it. I'll have to admit that not all things placed on my workbench got fixed but most of them eventually did. 

 

I remember going into the garage after the big earthquake, to turn off the gas, in case of fire, and found what looked like someone had picked the garage up, turned it upside down and put it back down. Shelf units fell over and stuff was scattered all over. I couldn't even  get to the gas valve without moving things around to create a path to it.  It later took several hours to go through it and put everything back together. 

 

The garage served us well over the years being used as a place to hold cars, bicycles, wheat storage, tools, fabrics, and all kinds of miscellaneous things that eventually got used, thrown away or sold in a garage sale.  

Corey:
The garage was kind of like the sewing room part 2. Filled with boxes and bins, bicycles, tools, and junk, it only served as a garage for the cars a short time. I think there is an old photo of Dad's green VW bug in there, and maybe that old blue station wagon.

Dad had his workbench along one wall. I don't know if it was because I was little, but the work bench always seemed so high. The green metal toolbox held most of the useful tools and the bigger black one had less useful odds and ends.  The red vice bolted to the table top also came in handy. I recall building a pinewood derby car for Cub Scouts, using the workbench as a work area. We put fishing weights in holes in the bottom, covered with wood putty. We used some fishing weights as head lights as well. It was my job to sand the car which seemed to take forever, until my arm was dead tired and my hand was cramped up. And unfortunately, after all that work, I lost miserably at the derby.

The white shelves to the left of the work bench held all the home canned fruit and vegetables. My favorite was always the pears, but the peaches were good too. One year there were pickles and onions which I didn't try. To the right of the workbench there was a spot for the old red lawnmower and some lower shelves that held old toys. Then there was the freezer. I vaguely remember the older freezer we had in there, with the pull latch to open it. The newer freezer had the wood furring strips used for shipping left on for some reason. Once I discovered frozen chocolate chip cookies in there, they never lasted long.

There was the gas furnace, the washer and dryer, and the metal poles/bollards that served to hop dirty laundry. There were black garbage bags hanging from the ceiling, filled with decorations for different holidays. There was a big jug of water and some boxes of crackers that predated me. If the apocalypse didn't kill us, then I bet those crackers would.

There were several bikes that made their way through the garage over time. Mom and Dad had the matching light and dark blue bikes with kid seats on the back. I have a vague memory of riding on the back and being really scared. Then there were the black BMX bikes with the yellow mag wheels that Curtis and I had. And then Marne's early white mountain bike that I sort of took over later.

We also put Curtis' big black Weider weight bench near the front of the garage and would occasionally lift weights with Pete and Pat. I can remember a few sore days after a sporadic lifting workout.

The garbage cans were also kept near the front, including the beat up little metal one. I can't really remember what else made up the bulk of the boxes that filled up the garage. I think there were boxes of material, some old chests, and for a while those old school desks that we restored that Curtis and I used.