Backyard Things...

I sent out an email to my fellow classmates from St. Johns the other day, hoping to drum up some more awareness and interest in the reunion, and maybe even get a response from someone I've not heard from yet. Of the 20 St. Johns classmates that went on to Bishop O'Reilly, I have emails for 11 of you, half of which I'm sure are good. So far, there are 5 of us from St. John's planning to attend and I was hoping to increase that number.

Today I wanted to talk about a book that I used to love to read that was in St. Johns library. It was entitled 'Backyard Things that are Fun to Build'. I would pore over that book for hours, imagining how much fun it would be build the cool structures they had in the book. There was a covered wagon which I did build when I was a kid from a wooden wagon that someone had discarded. It was similar to the one on the cover of the book as shown above. I wonder if the message shown on the cover, 'Out West or Bust' influenced my decision to move here to Greeley, the town named after the guy who popularized the phrase, "Go West Young Man." :-)

But the other items were just pure fantasies. There was a ship, an old west town, a submarine, a helicopter, a plane... and many other things that would bring joy to the heart of a child. I recently bought a copy of the book that I found on the Internet. It brings back a lot of fond memories. I remember that other 'builders' in the class, like Blaise Koval and John Parulski, were also fond of that book. If either of them decide to come to the reunion, I'll bring it along for them to look over.



As you can see from this picture, there was a plane too, and now that I'm building a plane, I can't help wonder if this book planted the seed to do that too.

It's funny to think back to the things that influenced us as kids and wonder what affect they have on our lives now. I still love building and fixing things and get a lot of satisfaction out of something as simple as hanging a blind, not just because is scores me points with Terri, but because every time I look at it, I realize that in some small way, I had a part in it.