The Back Deck

I am sorry I have not posted for a while. Things have been busy for everyone over Thanksgiving. I do hope all of you Lighthousers are continuing to apply those things you have leaned in the Revival services to your life.

I want to continue my Childhood Home Blogging until I say all that I want to say. You can refer to the previous blogs for pictures of the back of our house and specifically the view of the "Deck".

My earliest memories of the deck off the back of our house was when there was no deck. The deck extends out of our family room and can be accesses through double glass sliding doors and a door off the kitchen. Before my parents built the deck, the doors off the second floor family room simply exited to thin air. My parents only opened them when the screen was closed and safe for my toddling around.

I suppose some skeptic among you would argue that I could not remember falling through that door at such a young age, but the vivid fear of falling through that open sliding door still haunts me. Someone had forgotten to close the screen and I fell to the ground some 8 feet below.

This was not nearly my only fall. I suffered a serious concussion when I fell down the stairs of a friend's farmhouse as a young toddler. I also have been struck in the head by sharp and heavy objects propelled by my older brother on several occasions. All of this explains much of my erratic behavior.

Some time after I had fallen from the sliding door my father added what we called "the redwood deck". I really don't know why it was called that because it was simply pine lumber painted a rusty red color. I don't believe my father used pressure treated lumber at the beginning because it seemed we rebuilt the deck every few years. It always had rotten boards that needed to be replaced.

In my younger teen years, my brother and I made a sport of jumping off of the deck to the ground. This was a 12 foot leap from the top rail. As I got older and braver, I found I could hurdle the top rail while running and leap off the deck touching only one hand to the wood. Even then, my mother warned us of knee problems when we got old.

From that deck we used to throw corn cobs and spent watermelon rinds to the creek. It took a serious arm to get one over the bank and into the water.

My sister Tonia had a joke going with a fellow in the church. She would joke about his shoe size, and he her weight. One day he visited our home and we all went out to the back deck. Once more, the rotting lumber showed its integrity and my sister's foot went straight through the floor. The joke of course was that this guy had proved that Tonia's weight had caused her to break through the deck.

Under the deck, on the far side toward our neighbors the Grahams, my mother grew mint tea. Mint tea is wild and requires an acquired taste. Once or twice a summer, my mother would pick the leaves and make the tea. It tasted VERY minty and I guess I might even like it if I had some today.

My mother had a green hammock on its own legs on the deck most of my childhood years. It was made of canvass and had a little pillow. You can still purchase these types of hammocks now-a-days. I used to lay on that hammock and dream it was my boat and the deck was the water. I had to be very careful lest I capsize and fall into the shark-infested ocean.

Now, our "redwood deck" has been replaced by a beautiful two tiered pressure treated stained deck. The lower level is a circle that extends out into the yard. No one as far as I know has fallen through it yet.