I dug out my old journal from basement purgatory. 23 years ago I wrote it, in an old spiral notebook. It has rudimentary algebra scribbled on the back, and the cover–a racoon in a hollowed log–has long since vanished. So as an ironic nod to this blog’s title, and in parody of a book my dad read to me long ago (A Sand County Almanac), I concluded that I would preserve the troubles of an adolescent by digitizing them.
True to this title, it chronicles approximately one year, from the fall of 1994 to 1995, with some sporadic entries thereafter. To preserve its meanings, whatever they might have been, I intend to not edit it for grammar, although I will add asides for context.
My daughter, like any reasonably well-balanced child, holds a general concern for other living creatures. She does not capture and flay squirrels a la Peter Wiggin, which is good, but she also takes issue with her dad threatening to shoot them. The same goes for bunnies.
The she started her own garden. After the bunnies worked their way through two of her plants, her sympathies quickly evaporated. Now, she’s actively asking me to shoot them to save her plants. Maybe I’ll get to teach her hunting after all.
Nah, not really. I don’t find the differing tastes of tomatoes to be all that unique. Some are sweeter, and some are more acidic. There’s a much greater variation in how they look.
But of course they’re all awesome. And in following a tradition, I always take a photo of the year’s first tomato.
Lemon Boy
Granted this was from one of my purchased plants, so it’s still kind of cheating, but the sweetness of the victory is compensated for by the sweetness of this variety.
No, this isn’t an existential post. Well, maybe a little. So Liz wanted a tiered strawberry bed. That wasn’t a priority project, but something she had been keeping in mind. Recently, we had a kid-free day, and she suggested a couple options to fill that opportunity: Dayton’s 2nd Street Market, and Mendelsons liquidation outlet. The former didn’t sound very interesting to me as I had envisioned food and hippies peddling art (we went there later anyway, and my prediction wasn’t far off). But Mendelsons sounded just odd enough that I became intrigued. And so, off to Mendelsons we went.
“Liquidation outlet” didn’t do this place justice. It was somewhere between hoarder’s opus and nerd’s paradise, if that means anything. It occupied 3 stories of a downtown Dayton manufacturing compound, and was filled with surplus/deprecated products, ranging from plastic restaurant containers to decommissioned business electronics. One day I’ll have a server rack, and I now know where to acquire one to refurbish.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Liz found some nice wooden boxes on the ground floor, which we would go back to. A sign, however, informed us of electronics being on the 3rd floor (the 2nd was off-limits for an unknown reason). Following these signs, we were led down a hallway to a choice: elevator or stairs.
Context often gives words more meaning than the words themselves–looking at this elevator, the notice that it could hurt me was taken VERY seriously
A service elevator with a dubious last-maintenance date? We took the stairs.
It was on floor 3 that I realized there is so much in this world I just don’t know anything about. There were piles of circuits and various mechanical components. Alarm systems, telecommunication systems, closed-circuit surveillance systems, row upon row of capacitors and resistors. There was a section filled with ball-bearing rotation devices. There were things I was afraid to even touch–what appeared to be high-pressure sodium light bulbs. How is this place allowed to exist? I don’t know, but I’m glad it does.
A room dedicated to the era predating transistors
There were many, many ideas for future projects. But, back to the strawberries. Downstairs, we picked up the two boxes we had set aside earlier. They were labeled as NCR boxes–a company I had to research as I am a non-native to these parts. Once I did, however, I remembered the logo. Sadly, it was another big company that had abandoned Dayton with the recession. The meaning behind those numbers, written upon the wood, will be forever lost to time as the sun physically erases them from existence.
But the wood is solid and looks nice. One placed inside the other, raised on bricks, created the tiered strawberry garden Liz wanted.
I dug out my old journal from basement purgatory. 23 years ago I wrote it, in an old spiral notebook. It has rudimentary algebra scribbled on the back, and the cover–a racoon in a hollowed log–has long since vanished. So as an ironic nod to this blog’s title, and in parody of a book my dad read to me long ago (A Sand County Almanac), I concluded that I would preserve the troubles of an adolescent by digitizing them.
