There's a history behind this old house. It was built around the turn of the century... about 1903. My great-uncle Elick built the house and lived in it in the early years. It was originally only two rooms... a living room and a kitchen. A double stone fireplace separated the two rooms, providing the only heat in the house during the winter. Uncle Elick chopped his own wood, carried water to the house from a spring-fed well several hundred yards from the house, and was basically self-sufficient. During the coldest days of winter Uncle Elick would bring wood in from the woodpile and split it on a chopping block set-up right there in the kitchen.
In the early '20s, my father would pass this house every day as he walked to and from school, and he had developed a habit of stopping by to say hello [and warm by the fire] every morning. One particularly cold week, my father rushed on by the house, not stopping as usual. Normally Uncle Elick would watch for my father and wave to him if he didn't have time to stop. He didn't wave that week... the entire week. On Friday my father stopped by on his way home from school. He knocked on the door... both doors... and when there was no answer he peered in through the kitchen window and saw Uncle Elick slumped over the chopping block... dead... murdered with his own axe.
Move ahead thirty years or so to the '50s. Several rooms were added to the house but the original two were still part of it. My family lived in the house. I grew up in that house. My family and I have stories to tell about living there. Here's just one of them. One night as we were watching one of the two channels available on our big, floor-model, heavy, cathode ray tube, black and white television we heard a huge noise in the kitchen that sounded like perhaps a cat had jumped from the table, hitting a shelf, knocking it down and sending jars, cans, dishes flying all over the room... wooden matches rolling off the shelf... silverware bouncing on the table and the floor. We all ran to the kitchen and there was not one thing out of place... just as clean as my mother had left it after dinner [or supper as we called it back then]. My father always thought that that incident and many more like it were signs from Uncle Elick that the one day he needed him to drop by for a visit, he didn't come.
The old house is still standing. No one lives there. Growing up there was an experience. I was always a bit frightened to go into the house by myself after dark. I always slept with my head under the covers. There was always an eerie feeling around that old house... and there still is. But for some reason... I loved it. I have stories that are quite unique.
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Song 565:
SallyArtist: Grand Funk
Album: Born To Die
Year: 1976
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Oh little Sally, you know I love you baby.
Sally, I said I love you baby.
Sally ... it's alright, it's alright.
Remember girl when we both was younger.
It was the days we had so much fun girl.
Rememberin' all of our childhood days, yeah.
We had our fun in so many ways.
You know I would have loved you anyway.
It ain't just something I just had to say.
Don't let them tell you that you're not my kind.
Sally, Sally, Sally tell them
you're mine, mine, mine.
Reflections in the courtyard at work were just great today. People often stop beside me when I'm taking reflection pictures and ask me what I'm doing. It's days like today that make me wish our courtyard was a hotspot so I could take my notebook computer and work from a courtyard bench. The water is flowing along all the man-made streambeds, cascading over the falls, a breeze is blowing through the azaleas and the trees and the sky is bright blue. But alas... it's back to work in an inside office. Check out more courtyard reflections in the ArgonOne Photostream.
