Flashback Friday

This is an odd little picture of Dad and the kids interacting.  Out of the picture, Mackenzie is looking at something, Brendan is showing me one of his Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I am clutching...anyway, it's not like I felt threatened at the moment, unless it was the picture taker.  

A couple things of note.  Firstly, the dresser in the background belonged to my grandparents in Seaton, Herb's folks.  It was in their garage and painted white.  This was refinished and is a nice looking piece.  It is about 8 feet away from me as I type this.  As an antique it is virtually worthless since there were handkerchief drawers on top and on either side,  that were gone when I acquired it.  But, sentimentally, it is something that links me to the past.  And stuff like that is usually priceless.  

Secondly, the couch we are sitting on was a thing of beauty.  It belonged to our Seaton neighbor, Arminta McKelvey, who lived just west of us.  Great neighbor, who never minded when we would break one of her windows playing ball in the giant field that straddled out houses.  We took a plate of food over every Christmas.  She was long widowed - her husband died of a heart attack in the back yard.  I can still hear his truck shift gears and back fire everytime he went to work.  Isn't that funny?  I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7.  I asked the Wombie if he remembered that truck and he said he did, too.  Funny, don't remember him but I remember that backfire.  Wonder if that gave me PTSD?  Arminta was a classy old girl who found love again late in life.  She married a guy named Archie Sheets from Aledo and because he couldn't see very well she would read him the newspaper.  He also couldn't hear so she would shout.  We could have stopped our subscription, she yelled the news all over the block.   

She called over to Marj one day and said she didn't have use of the couch anymore and would one of us like it.  This was when I was in G-Burg on Grove Street, a huge Victorian with no furniture budget and I said I would.  The absolute heaviest thing I'd ever try to wrestle into the house.  It was custom built and was a sleeper to boot.  There was enough iron in that thing to build a battleship.  Lasted forever; the cloth gave out before the mechanics.  Don't remember now who took it, but someone did.  Good luck, sucker.  

Anyway, that's enough of this picture.  I suppose the moral of the story is "Always watch your flank, and whatever else is important."