The fishing shack

[vaneramos]

Brenna had seen the fishing shack on a previous visit to my parents' and wanted to explore further. Approaching across the adjoining field I saw an empty space beside the pond and exclaimed, "They tore it down!"

Three of its walls had collapsed and the roof sank, so the familiar sway-backed profile was gone, but the ruin remained. It was already abandoned and ramshackle in my earliest memories, the late 1960s. It was full of treasures then. What kind of treasures? Brenna wanted to know. Heaps of rope. I can't remember what else. Mattresses apparently: only their springs remain.

One summer somebody stored bales of hay inside. I was only six or seven. My neighbour Andy and some other teenagers had made tunnels and stairways leading to a clubhouse near the top window. Mom let Andy take me there. It's the only memory I have of playing with those older boys. Their pubescent masculinity titillated me, as did sharing their secret hideaway.

Sometimes we skated on the pond when the lake ice wasn't suitable. On the nearby beach lies the rusting hull of a fishing boat where we also played. It, too, has been abandoned for more than 35 years.

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Two more photos are posted in rural_ruin, six more behind the cut. The photo of the boat was taken March 15, the rest on March 26.