Sixty One Years of Accumulated Treasure

The waking days of the past couple weeks have been predominantly consumed by the difficult job of sorting and disposing of Wendy’s parents' stuff over at their riverfront home of over 60 years. Wendy has gone the extra mile, cleaning, doing laundry, sorting, boxing, and coordinating this whole exercise. What a girl!

Wendy arrives for dirty work.

To compound the challenge and augment the effort required, there’s a very unsightly shed located right beside the house. I remember years ago my friend David teased Howard, chiding him about the imposing structure. “What is this Howard? The packing crate your boat came in?” Not only has this shed, and another one beside it that we tore down two years ago totally blocked the gorgeous view of the river for around 50 years; it has I’m sure, also been the brunt of the neighbors’ comments for just as many years. Needless to say they would not miss its prominent place in their backyard views of the river panorama.

A view from the neighbor's yard.

Wendy’s brother Brad and his son Colton came down to stay at the house over the weekend with building demolition on their minds. “The neighbors should be buying the beer!” Brad exclaimed as we began carrying the loot out of the “depression era styled” structure piling it in the driveway. Radial arm, table and band saws aged by rust more quickly than normal because of the dirt floors, leaking roof and lack of winter heat were dragged in procession to the looming pile. The building contained thousands of items including a gasoline engine from a “Dispro" boat, two antique outboard motors, several sailboat masts and exotic hardwoods hidden for many, many years.

Stripping the shed.

The building; emptied of its museum vintage collection of things “too good to throw away” and “could come in handy some day” now stood precariously. Since it was stripped of its cladding and braces it had no integrity left to support the ton or so of joists, plywood, tar paper and corrugated tin that was its roof. There it stood impossibly, defiantly. The roof suspended twelve feet in thin air, the structure swayed slightly like a boxer sways right after the knock-out punch, just before the fall. Colton stood at a safe distance, and as we all stood by with our cameras ready he tugged the rope as lightly as you’d pull a rowboat to shore. In two short seconds we now had a new heap of rubble to sort through.
Click the arrow to see the movie


Goodbye old shack! Tearing down is certainly quicker than building.

In a new pile, beside the “treasures”, we placed old, rotting building materials including tar paper, corrugated steel and fiberglass panels, two by fours and sixes and chewed plywood full of bugs and mice pellets. Moldy tarpaulins and cans of paint and lubricants of all types complemented the heap. Nails and screws both from the inventory within and also extracted from the building itself littered the ground.

Neat stuff and garbage share the driveway.

Throughout the day Sunday a community spirit evolved as Wendy's other brother Doug and son Dougie came by to assist. Wendy displayed racks of Howard's extensive quantity of clothing and was thrilled to see that most of the garments found new owners within the family. My son Tim and Colton removed nails from many good timbers and sorted them into a separate stack of recyclable lumber. Howard would be happy to know that some of his old shack will likely end up at Brad’s cottage on Crow Lake in the form of a dock or shed.


Trying on clothes.

All this week, Wendy has been up before six, heading over with son Tim to work at the task of packaging up the rest of the items in the house. I usually go over later to help with the carrying but its not really my place to make the decisions and Wendy really does work well alone.