While the younger half of our bunch were in grade school, including me, we had a big, old, three-car garage (yes, it was often dusty) where our uncle’s antique car that I mentioned in my first “memory lane” blog was stored. It resided in the elusive third stall. I call it elusive as we were told not to play in the third stall. We did leave that third stall alone out of respect for our uncle, but I am sure the “warning” must have made us a little curious. (I remember peeking at it once.) It was a big garage, so one might think it would be a place rampant for either play or trouble, but as we preferred the many other awesome spaces in the yards and other buildings on the property, who needed an elusive third stall to be happy?
We used the first section (what’s behind door number one?) of the big garage to stash the basics like bicycles, and the middle stall had some random items including a cool antique toy car and truck, but it was otherwise relatively empty as I recall (but then it could have had all kinds of stuff in it that I don’t recall; I won’t say how many years it’s been). One of my brothers inherited the antique toy car and sent me a picture of it for this blog. Even with its renewing coat of paint, it brings back lots of memories and that sense of history. This was someone’s toy. Someone. A child. Someone who was born, lived, and died before my time. It creates a feeling of regret that I can never get to know them, mingled with a deep curiosity of how different or similar life was when they lived. I was quite fascinated by the history of the place. The house, garage, and back buildings were all antique and we loved the history surrounding us. It helped form our adventures in play. Though we got dirty more than dusty during those years.
The next garage we owned had been turned into an apartment. It remained empty for the first couple decades my mom lived there, before she rented it out for a while, then turned it back into a functioning garage. By the time we moved (into the very dusty house – but we took care of that dust quick enough), I was old enough to not be interested in things like attics or garages and hidden or off-limit spaces, which in a way is a shame as the attic would have given us some definite adventures. But sliding into the teenage years is hard. Giving up play and make-believe for the cold reality of peer pressure, bully personalities, lots more homework, jobs, and all the adjustments of growing up, changing hormones, and adult life looming. Some of it was fun, a lot of it was work, but we all have to go through it.
Well, that was a smooth transition from garages to teenagers. Not that the garages were all that exciting…still, these blogs are in part to get us all reminiscing, so here’s hoping I’m leaving you with fond memories of garages and back yards and not the troublesome teen years. Next week, my husband’s dusty memories.
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