The Barn
Growing Up on Westervelt Place - Part 9
We were all gathered on Johnny Rannou’s front steps discussing a possible adventure, one that didn’t involve frogs. It was decided by all that we head up to the dirt road, destination the “Farnham Avenue mountains”. We hadn’t been up there since we were looking for my dog during a snowstorm. Actually this wasn’t a mountain, rather a series of hills and gullies that rose westward to the top of Harrison Avenue and were spotted with dense thickets of trees and bushes. While traveling northward along the dirt road, we stopped to take a look at the old barn perched high atop the hill overlooking the rapidly changing landscape that was Lodi. Years earlier, that same barn housed a family of dairy cows, which were a major source of milk and butter, not only for our town but for neighboring communities as well. Now that barn had been reduced to a weather-beaten shack, whose days on the hill were numbered as were ours.
As I looked up at the barn I couldn’t help but to feel a bit melancholy. The barn looked so darn lonely up there. It appeared not quite dead, rather in a state of dying, as was everything else on that sacred hill. I could not take my eyes off of that dilapidated barn. I was hanging onto it with a death grip and wouldn’t let go.
“Let’s go up there.” Suggested my Cousin Anthony
“That barn has been deserted for years!” exclaimed Rocco “What if it collapses on us?”
“Not only that.” Added Rannou “ There’s probably snakes in it, poisonous snakes.”
“There aint no snakes in there!” said Bruce “ Are we gonna stay here and pick daisies or what?”
Picking daisies wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but compared to be bitten by a deadly snake, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Fearless adventurers that we were, we picked up our gear and marched up the hill toward the barn. I turned around to find Rannou searching the ground where he stood.
“Hey Rannou!”: I shouted “ What are you looking for?”
“Daisies” he replied “I’m looking for daisies.”
We gave a halfhearted laugh and moved on.
Between us and the barn, was that thicket of trees I told you about. Once in there, we managed to become separated. That’s when we heard someone yell “I’m lost, get me the hell out of here.”
Next was heard “We’ll never get out of here!” which to me and my cousin Anthony was funny since we were no more than 100 feet from the dirt road. In fact from where we were standing we could see the clearing. Then from deeper into the brush, we heard the sound of Bruce’s fear-stricken voice yelling for help. It was quite by accident since we really weren’t looking for him. We stumbled across our friend, who was sitting at the bottom of a shallow gully. As we pulled him out, a squirrel jumped from a tree and landed on Bruce’s head. Me and my cousin Anthony could not keep from bursting out with laughter. “ Look!” laughed my cousin “ A Davey Crocket hat!”
Poor Bruce was so startled that he jumped out of the ditch on his own screaming, “Get it off of me”. Meanwhile the other kids saw Bruce swiping the top of his head and ran in the opposite direction. It was then that me and my cousin heard someone cry out “I want my mommy.” We looked at one another in disbelief and laughed harder still. By then Bruce had passed us by, minus the Davey Crocket hat, still yelling “Get It off me!”.
From the top of the hill, above the thicket, came the voice of Johnny Rannou.
“Hey you guys” He yelled ‘I found the barn.”
“How’d ya get up there?” asked Rocco
“While you guys were running around like frightened mice I stayed on the path and followed it up here.” Johnny replied
“What path?” asked Rocco.
“The one you’re standing on,” answered Rannou. “The barn’s right behind me.”
The rest of the kids gathered their belongings while me and my cousin made our way to the clearing and joined Rannou at the top if the hill.
“By the way” he asked, “Whose the courageous cat that yelled out for his mommy?”
The three of us had a good laugh as we helped the rest of the crew up the embankment. The first thing we noticed as we approached the barn, was that the door was lying in a warped heap a few feet from the entrance. We chose to see who would enter first. Rannou won or lost depending, how you look at it.
Without saying a word the Frenchman walked in. After a moment of making sure that Rannou wasn’t snake bit, we followed.
Once inside, I recall seeing a row of empty stalls. I was let down as if I were expecting to see cows in them. All that remained were clumps of rotted straw upon which were petrified scatterings of manure, which served as mementos of the cows who once lived there. The barn itself was a depressing, lifeless place. Even the embrace of the morning sun, whose rays pierced the twisted beams on the roof and had shown down in heavenly delight, still the barn had a melancholy aura. This was not a happy place to be in. Not even the echoes of a joyful past remained, only fragmented pieces of forgotten dreams and of those who passed through leaving behind the rusted tools of their trade. We stepped cautiously over those dreams as we searched for something we could carry home with us. We left empty handed. I recall all of us walking away in complete silence as if we were walking away from a burial. That is how it felt to me; a feeling of loss that was new to me. Yes, it was like walking away from a burial. Something was dead! In our own way, we mourned.
We followed the path down to the clearing until we saw the light of day again. From there we made our way back to the dirt road. Once there, we noticed a couple of kids walking toward us from the direction of the Arnot Street water tower. They were carrying a big box, an empty refrigerator box. Bruce pointed out the words “General Electric” printed in bold red letters across the side.
“Hey you kids, where you going with that big box?” asked Rocco
One of the kids pointed to a distant hill where a group of kids were gathered.
‘What’s the refrigerator box for?” Asked Rannou
“We’re gonna roll down that hill in it” replied the same kid.
“You’ll break you necks doing a crazy thing like that” warned Rocco.
“Maybe” replied the kid “Wanna try it?”
Before Rocco had a chance to reply we all blurted out “YES!”
So we all followed the kids to that distant hill where we were going to roll down in a big box.
“We’ll break our necks!” repeated Rocco, whose warning fell on deaf ears.
Little did we realize at the time, that for the kids from the hill this empty refrigerator box was a bad omen. It meant that new homes were being built on many of the surrounding vacant lots and empty fields. Places where we once played and used as short cuts to get from one neighborhood to another. Over the coming months, we’d be seeing more of those empty boxes. By the time we realized what was happening to our sacred landscape, it was too late, for the change had already begun. For now, however, we were determined to have some fun.
As we reached our destination, we noticed that a few kids were sliding down the side of the hill on pieces of cardboard which were taken from other empty refrigerator boxes. The summer sun had scorched the once green grass and turned it into dried up straw, making the hill like the Arnot Street hill after a snow fall. We were “sleigh riding” in July and having the time of our young lives. We were having so much fun that we forgot why we were there in the first place. The two kids with the big box reminded us. “You gonna do it?” asked the kids from the top of the hill. We were about to choose to see who would enter the empty box first, but Rannou crawled in ahead of us. “ I want my mommy” said Rannou with a wink of his eye. We all gave a nervous chuckle and followed him in. Suddenly, we were being tossed around like a garden salad. The hill was so steep that at one point we became air born. When we hit the ground, the impact shot Bruce out of the box like a cannon ball. As he went flying out, his polo shirt got caught on an exposed staple and was torn almost completely off of his back. We rolled down the hill out of control and were beating each other up in the process. Heads were colliding, elbows into ribs and feet onto jaws. Oh yea, folks it was great fun. When we finally reached the bottom of the hill, we fell out of the box one by one dazed, disoriented and lumped up. By then Bruce was walking toward us with only half of his shirt, smudged Levi’s and one sneaker. He said not a word as he passed us by but returned to the dirt road and went home. Rocco picked up the lost sneaker and followed.
The rest of us proceeded to carry the box back up the hill with the intention of making another frolicking trip down. We noticed the two kids who owned the box standing on a boulder located higher up the hill just below a red barn. As we got closer, we saw that the kids were throwing dirt bombs at an angry looking ram that was tied to a small wooden shed a dozen or so feet above them. The menacing looking ram was bolting furiously from side to side as the two kids pelted him. Don’t worry folks “dirt bombs” were nothing more than dried up pieces of mud that, more times than not, broke apart before they left your hand. When you got hit with one, all that you got was dirty, which was what was happening to the ram who by this time was absolutely out of its mind with anger. There was no retreat in this beast, whose head was the size of a steam shovel and his temper the size of King Kong. This was his territory and he was ready and able to defend it to the death. Not his death mind you, rather ours. Under heavy fire, his head covered in dirt, the ram chose to attack. With a tremendous burst of power the ram lunged forward and came charging down the embankment - with the shed in tow. The two kids jumped off the boulder and ran down the hill as fast as their Buster Browns could carry them. Soon every kid on the hill scattered and ran for cover including me and the kids from Westervelt Place, who were too close for comfort to begin with. We dropped the big box and joined the others in the frantic race down the hill. Unfortunately, for the ram that is, the slick grass forced him to slow down only to be passed up by the shed, the one he was still tied to. We watched, at a safe distance, as the ram was being dragged down the hill by the runaway shed. At one point, the shed toppled over and disappeared into a gully. The ram followed it in. Me, my cousin Anthony and Johnny Rannou ran over to the gully, which was at least 4 foot deep, to see if the ram was still alive. There was the ram at the bottom of the gully laying there in a lifeless heap under what was left of the shed.
“He’s dead!” I shouted “Let’s get out of here.”
Just then Rannou noticed that the rams leg was twitching.
“Stuff like that happens when you’re dead” said my cousin Anthony.
Who, along with me, had seen many a twitching turkey come the days before Thanksgiving. “The muscles twitch and some bodies even sit up.”
“Do they get out and walk?” asked Rannou
“ Of course not!” replied Anthony
“Well this guy is!” shouted Rannou
Sure enough the ram, who had broken free from the dismantled shed, got to his feet, shook the cob webs out of his head and began his ascent out of the gully.
“Holy God!” I shouted “He’s freaking alive.”
“Yea” added Rannou “He’s alive.”
We didn’t stop running until we were back at the corner store, telling whoever would listen about what had happened. By days end, the entire experience, ram, big box and the Barn was forgotten and stored forever in the memory box of my mind.
note; unfortunately these Westervelt stories are out of sequence so I can understand how the reader can become lost in the shuffle. luckily they are all numbered so the reader can put the pieces of the puzzle in proper order starting with part one Dusty the Dog and so on. Thanks for taking the time to read this. More to come.