A big part of who I am.

The Barn. Marker and Pencil. 

I didn't wake up with an epiphany this morning or an urge to write.. I was looking out the window and trying to think.... and I just kept thinking... I need a vacation. When I start to feel a little frazzled I have a place that I go in my head... Its always the same place. The water hole in Keene Valley New York. The Adirondacks. Its my only safe place in my head to go. If I meditate, I go there, if it's raining outside at night I go there, if I hear the wind blowing I go there, If I hear birds, I go there, if I hear crickets I go there, if I smell sweet grass I go there, if I get a mosquito bite that swells to the size of an orange I go there.

This place was magic for so many people... and.... here come the goosebumps and my eyes are starting to tear up... I think I may cry talking about this subject. My heart swells for the mountains.

I guess I will talk about a few memories. The place we stayed was owned by my great aunt Kate. She was this very wealthy woman that owned a bunch of houses and land in Keene and Keene Valley. She loved the Adirondacks. Out of maybe about 5 homes that she owned one of them was this place that my cousins from England named "Toad Hall" from Wind in the Willows.

If your not familiar with Wind in the Willows it is about these animals that are aristocrats that live in little homes and hang out with one another. "Toad" lived in Toad Hall the nicest mansion out of all the animals. It was ironic really because our cabin up on the hill was nothing like "Toads" mansion. It was very rustic and charming and everyone came to visit.

This was a time before cell phones and internet. If you wanted to stay a week you just showed up and my mom would have a room ready for you. The cabin was located up on a rock that overlooked a field and a barn and the mountains. The barn was especially cool. My great uncle once had huge parties in it. It had a stove in the middle, and the ceiling was lined with old beer cans and the walls had vintage skies, beer signs and licence plates. There was a trap door in the floor that you could just sweep the trash in when the party was over. There was an old piano that was terribly out of tune, yet I still played on it. I can still hear the large wooden sliding door rolling open at the start of every summer. I can still see the dust particles floating around in the sunlight as it came through the windows, I can still smell the very old wood. I can still feel the happiness it gave me to climb up the ladder to the second floor to look for mice nests in the old trunks.

It was a mecca for young youth to go and explore.
I always dreamed that I would own it one day and have my horses grazing in the field. I used to draw thousands of pictures of how I was going to convert the barn into a place for my horses to live.

Anyway, my aunt died and gave it to her grand daughter. She hasn't been to the place in over ten years. The barn was literally stolen. Who steals a barn?!  All that remains is a brick in it's place. It had some valuable things in it... that are now most likely sitting in a TGI Fridays. What was really valuable though were the memories and the good times had by all the people that loved it.

So anyway, you go up this long crazy dirt driveway and pull up to this cabin. The front porch was screened in and that's where most people would hang out. There was a hammock that I loved to swing on and there was almost always someone sitting on a bench reading, or having an intellectual conversation, or playing an instrument.

It was so dark in the cabin... until you got to the back porch which was also screened in. There was a large king size bed that overlooked the forrest. My mom and dad slept out there with a heated blanket. I most likely would end up out there too especially if it rained. It would be pitch black and all you could hear were the rain drops hitting the leaves, a frog, the scurry of an animal... the smell of wet soil, the occasional damp breeze. It was absolutely amazing to be able to sleep comfortably in the forest.

What was not amazing was when our dog Travis went under the cabin and decided to harass a family of skunks at 8 am. Bark Bark Bark... sound of pain... as the skunk sprayed him in the face. I kid you not when I say you could see the smell coming up through the floors. We tried everything to get that stupid dog out... but he was a terrier... and nothing was going to get him to leave his stinky post. We evacuated... it was noxious.
We came back a few hours and there was a very happy dog running around rolling in the grass.... it took a month to get the smell out. To this day when I go to visit the now falling down cabin the one room still smells of skunk.

My Aunt Kate was a strange lady. She would come to visit a few times during the summer. This one time she came and sat on the rock and swung her arm out and said "I want all of those trees trimmed down" so that she could see the mountains better. It was a crazy request. Those trees were enormous. It didn't stop my crazy english relatives from climbing those trees to chop the tops down for her though. Now when I go sit on that abandoned rock the trees have grown back and you can no longer get a perfect view of the mountains.... I can still see my uncles swinging in the trees though.

The view from the cabin. Those trees were all  trimmed down by my uncles so my aunt could enjoy the view for a few hours.

This is the back porch as of a few years ago. Large screens overlooking the forest.  Abandoned. 

This is a picture of me when I was young with my mom in the background and  Travis  fishing on a lake in the "Avon" boat.

This was the front porch where I once would swing on the hammock. It was all screened in. Now it is all falling down.

Thats me as a baby sleeping in an inner tube basking on my rock. You can see the roof of the barn in the background right above my forehead. 

Found this picture of the barn after I had drawn it. It was a double sliding door, that allowed you to have part of it open with screen. If you look through the screen part you can see the piano. The door at the top would open and you could play "fort", and throw stuff at people as they tried to get into the barn. Really fun. 

Everyone on the rock overlooking the field. I'm the youngest looking at My two brothers a  best friend of theirs and my cousin. I think the dog was "Mini"

"Toad Hall" painted on a giant rock at the beginning of the driveway. It's still there... a ghost of what was once amazing.

The top drawing is of the barn in the feild and what I remember it looking like. The bottom drawing if of the inside of the barn as you enter through the huge barn door. This is what the back of the barn looked like complete with little stove that you could cook on and built in benches for people to sit on. Vintage Beer cans hung from the ceiling and made a nice tin like rattle as you opened the barn door. 

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This is the inside of the barn looking from the Back to the front barn door. There was an old Piano that was out of tune and a ladder going up the wall that went up to the loft. There were old wooden ski's, old skiing posters, a street sign and old electric beer/bar signs. It was really dark in there... but had a fun vibe.

It's very painful to watch my true love rot. The rock will always be there though and the town still looks the same. The mountains will never change either. I intend to start a new memory. I want my boys to grow up there in the summers. I want them to be little mountain lions like I was. You can't take my memories. The people may have changed, but I will find new people to love it. Toad Hall is a mansion of memories to me. Update: My mom has just informed me that Toad Hall was already named this before she ever got there.