Wood Sheds
There are wood sheds that have stood for generations. An early memory: couch graveyard stinking of muddy rust and molding fabric – overwhelmed
by pick-up trucks and all of our neighbors quietly depositing wood shed secrets. My dad took me in the truck and we drove to the defunct quarry.
The big empty space was the perfect landfill and today an amnesty had been declared – don’t ask, don’t tell¬. Big Ray’s up the street had diesel
and lead paint and scrap wood - Big Ray, shirtless, sweating noxious fumes as he filled his ten gallon drum with trash and sent it skyward with
the diesel. It burned all day and by nightfall a layer of ash had coated our family car. Sometimes groundhogs or sparrows would find ways into
these sheds and drink up their contents. They’d be found face-up only feet away and were removed with little ceremony. There was that day with
the borrowed truck when we opened our wood shed. It had become a vault, entombed my grandfather. The first item, like any good wood shed, was
the lead paint – we know better now. By the time we reached the GreenGlo – for that healthy fresh green look, guaranteed to breathe new life
back into your lawn! - my brothers were laughing, but mom looked worried, said she had no idea we had kept these sorts of things around with
us for so long, too close to the children. The last item to be loaded into the truck for disposal was not Agent Orange exactly, but we all
understood defoliants. What was grandpa thinking? Every year I have almost forgotten this day, but every year I am reminded when I go composting
in the lazy fog, throwing out yesterday’s eggshells and coffee grounds, because once in a while I see the splintered hand of a plastic soldier
splayed up through the topsoil - and I know that the grass around him is too green.
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