Suntana's Blog Trek

Figaro! Figaro Figaro Fiiiiigaro!
Yeah Right! Did y'all actually think I got all dressed up in traditional going to the Opera attire, you know, a Thor-like helmet with horns and stuff and then headed out to attend an Opera? Don't be ridiculous. Of course I did no such thing.

I just thought I'd use that title so as to chronicle a particular adventure in which I've been engaged up to my neck recently. You know ... on the way to Valentine's Day, on my way to MyOpera. As some of y'all who follow my Blog are aware, my Dad & I periodically take on projects for family members. The latest project, which we are just about finishing, made me laugh when I first heard about it. Why? Some of y'all may remember that sometime last year, one of my nieces and her husband moved out from where they were living in my older brother & sister-in-law's house. My niece & her husband bought and moved into their own house.

My older brother & sister-in-law were sooo excited to regain their house all to themselves that they wanted to get rid of everything that wasn't theirs, anything that didn't belong there. So, on different occasions, my Dad & I were hired to disassemble and transport a Swimming Pool, a Trampoline and a Swings / Playhouse set to my niece's house. My Dad & I had from the get go dreaded the possibility of someday in the future being the ones to have to reassemble that Swings / Playhouse set at my niece's house. This, given that without instructions, it would be a Mission Impossible to reassemble that pile of wood and seemingly a million pieces of hardware into ... well, into something that resembled anything other than a pile of wood and hardware mess. At the time that my Dad & I had been disassembling the Swings / Playhouse, we had pretty much gone, "Wooooooo! We pity whoever has to put this MESS back together again … and without instructions."

Well, once the MESS was at my niece's house, she did on a couple of occasions drop some very overt hints of her wanting my Dad & I to reassemble the Swings / Playhouse. But, being scared Shitless to take on the project, my Dad & I kept finding strategic ways to keep putting off the project.

As it happened, I recently dropped by my niece's house to use her High Speed Internet to download some Apps. While there, I decided to take a look at the pile of wood MESS to see if by now it looked any less intimidating. Nope. I was wrong. It still looked ready to kick anyone's Ass who dared try to reassemble it.

The next day, out of the blue, my sister-in-law called me and said that now my older brother wanted to hire my Dad & I to transport the Swings / Playhouse BACK to their house and reassemble it there. That's right. Right back where it used to be. Right back at the very spot where they had no longer wanted to see so much as any atom-sized evidence that it used to exist there. It's that my older brother and sister-in-law decided that now when my niece's little boy and little girl go visit, they have nothing with which to play. So, knowing that my older brother and sister-in-law do always pay us very well, my Dad & I decided, "Nnnnggg, O --- Kay! FINE! We'll do it." With some definite trepidation and definitely NOT 100% confident that we could put that Sucker … I mean, that Swings / Playhouse back together, we took on the challenge.

So, we transported the pile of wood MESS from my niece's house back to its original home, my older brother's backyard. While we could figure out where some parts went, not surprisingly we quickly got stumped. Luckily my sister-in-law informed me that my niece was gonna be dropping by with some pictures of what the Swings / Playhouse used to look like. They weren't the most ideal pictures, but nevertheless, with them and my niece's more solid recollection of how the Swings / Playhouse used to look like, we started making headway.

Sometimes we had mini debates there between all three of us … my niece, my Dad & I as to how something went together. But, my niece's recollection was pretty solid and the most reliable. She turned out to be very helpful. And my Dad & I appreciated her help very much. We're NOT the type of guys to have the attitude that that was Assembly / Construction work and therefore MEN's territory. My niece pretty much turned out to be correct whenever she informed us something was WRONG, backwards or whatever.

While my Dad & I would have probably been able to put that Swings / Playhouse together eventually, it would have taken us longer AND it would NOT have looked the way it was supposed to. It would have had a different LOOK. You know … with certain parts backwards and in the wrong place. Like I remember one day when I kept telling my Dad, "I don't like this Rope Ladder. It is dangerous. It is a hazard. SEE? I'm an adult and I'm finding it unsafe to climb. Kids can easily fall back." Well, as it turned out, when my niece dropped by later, she immediately noticed and pointed out, "Whoa! These boards aren't supposed to be here in front. I don't recall them being here like this." My Dad & I tried to explain it away, "Ohhh, they HAVE to be there that way to make the frame sturdy." My niece countered, "But, the kids would have tripped all the time if those boards had been there before." My Dad & I were calmly adamant, "Well, that's the only way they can go." So, my niece searched through the pictures on her phone and finally goes, "Ahhh HAH! THERE! SEE? Those 2 boards should be in the back … NOT in the front." I immediately confirmed that she was absolutely correct. And I immediately noticed that that new observation of how those boards went would fix the Rope Ladder problem.

Yadi Yadi Yada … my niece got us back on track on several occasions. Little does my niece know that at one point, my Dad & I actually SAWED OFF a little piece of board which was sticking out about half an inch. We couldn't figure out why the board didn't want to cooperate. So, Fugg It! We decided, "Saw it off and the problem will be solved. No more board sticking out." My Dad & I also applied a coat of Weatherproofing and a coat of Clear Coat on the Swings / Playhouse. It now looks awesome. It's NOT 100% finished yet. We still have to go back there one more time to screw on the 2 coverings on the roof and on the front.

But, anyway, it's hilarious that we used to pity whoever was gonna be the Suckers who got stuck putting that Swings / Playhouse MESS back together … and WE wound up being said Suckers And it's hilarious that it ended up being reassembled right back where it started, in its original home.

Oh yeah … I guess it IS my birthday today.
So, any Butter and / or Art is welcome!

Yay! I did it. I finally achieved what was thought to be unachievable. No, I didn't finally get to meet Kelly Monaco, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Heather Graham, Julie Bowen, Christina Aguilera or any other talented women who just happen to be easy on the eyes. Scientists and Experts of every discipline the world over thought my mission stood almost zero chance of success. No, no, I did NOT get High Speed Internet yet. And no, I did NOT get my newer computer running yet. The mission I am talking about is something on which I embarked almost 3 years ago. Earlier this year, I told one of my friends here on MyOpera that I had seriously made up my mind to achieve this goal once and for all before the end of this year. WHAT? What could it have been that I told my friend? What was I so determined to do before the end of this year that neither rain, sleet, snow, hail, a Stampede of Guinea Pigs or any other obstacles would dare prevent my success? No, I did NOT finally get a Cellphone.

Well, up to now, my Blog's entire Photo Albums gallery has consisted of 1 … ONE photo. My friend brought up this glaring observation in casual chat. So, I told my friend that I was officially declaring at that instant that I was making it my goal to add a SECOND photo to my Photo Albums before 2011 was over. And as of yesterday, add a second photo to my Photo Albums I did. Actually, I got really bold & adventurous and added 5 photos to my Photo Albums. That is correct, my Blog now has 2 Photo Albums consisting of a whopping 6 photos. I am cooking now. I am on fire.

I guess I should now move on to elaborate on just what's behind this photo-fortifying of my Blog. Just what do the photos entail? Ideally, I really would have liked to have created this Post way back on July 4th or shortly thereafter. But, I didn't have the photos to go with the Post. I kept trying to get my niece to get her Dad, my older brother to send me the photos that I would need to create the Post. But, my acquisition of the photos kept falling through the cracks. So, one day I had a novel idea … Why don't I just E-mail my brother myself and ask him to send me the photos? I did that and Ploop! The next day I had the photos. I should have gone this route from the get go.

Nevertheless, this past 4th of July, as per my older brother's idea, he, my sister-in-law, my Mom & Dad and I went on a Road Trip. Yep, we filled up the ice chest with Sodas and water. We packed up the Fritos, Chips, Bean Dip, Cookies and what have you. We then headed on out on our Road Trip to the 60s. We set out to go visit some of the farms where we had lived wayyy back in the 60s when my siblings and I were just growing up. I am talking about places I had literally NOT seen in decades.

We arrived at the small Texas town, which is the base for the 2 farms we were going to visit. We made a fuel and restroom pit stop. We then slowly navigated through the small town while nostalgically looking around as we then headed out to the first of two farms we were going to go visit.

We finally found it. Our first stop … Below is a photo of the house where my family lived way back in 1969.



My family lived in this house approximately 2 years before moving yet again in early 1969. The Kitchen was there in the immediate forefront. The Living Room / Parents' Bedroom was to the left. Further back were 2 more Bedrooms. The house used to be Brown back then. We used to have a pretty nice green lawn there in front. You can go visit my Road Trip to the 60s Photo Album to see the full screen version of this photo. Plus, while there, you'll also be able to see a full screen photo of me looking into the window of what used to be my bedroom.

Our next stop … Below is a photo of the Farm Shop where my Dad used to work when we lived in the Chuck's Mansion 1969.



My older brother and I helped our Dad there at the Shop at different times. That brings me to the other significance of this photo. See that silver Butane Gas Tank there on the right of the photo? Right around that location is where back in 1969, the Gasoline & Diesel Pumps and their huge Tanks chronicled in my October 2008 Gasoline Pump Remodeling infamous incident Blog Post were located. You can go visit my Road Trip to the 60s Photo Album to see the full screen version of this photo. While there, you can see a photo of the Farm Workers Housing that was next to the Farm Shop.

While on this farm, we really wanted to visit another house where we had briefly lived before the house in the 1st photo. And we had also wanted to visit the house of some friends of ours from back then. But, we had to pass on those 2 visits because we felt we were pushing our luck with possible trespassing. Plus, one of those visits would have involved going off onto some questionable dirt road with my brother's new truck.

So, we headed on back to the small town. We did some more nostalgic looking around. We passed by our old Elementary School and the Grade School. The original High School was still there, but I never attended that one.

With it being pretty much Lunchtime, we decided we should see if we could find someone to feed us. Well, it just so happened my Dad had called some old friends of ours the day before to inform them that we'd be visiting them. Okay, so it's NOT like they had promised to feed us, but we could hope, right? I literally had NOT seen these people we were about to visit, in 42 years! Needless to say, the meeting was almost surreal. We all sat around outside in their porch and chatted for about half an hour. Feeling sorry for us and seeing that we wouldn't go away, they finally decided to ask us to join them for lunch. But, seriously, in anticipation of our reunion, they had prepared an awesome, delicious Mexican lunch. We then did some more chatting with obviously a lot on which to catch up after so many years. There was also plenty of photo viewing by both us and our friends. We then said our goodbyes and headed on out to our next destination.

We traveled on to another farm where we lived back in 1966.
Below is a photo of our old house on that farm.



The house is really a duplex. My family lived on the right side of that duplex house. The entry to our side of the duplex house is the door there on the right. Our Living Room was there on the front right. Going back is the Kitchen, followed by 2 Bedrooms. There used to be a nice green lawn there to the right of the house between it and the Farm Shop where my Dad worked.

We then proceeded to journey on back to our area of Texas and back to 2011.
Throughout our entire Road Trip it was interesting seeing how memories of this, that and the other fade and fog up at different levels between different people. There would be cases where some of us recalled something vividly while others recalled them either only vaguely, differently or not at all. For example … On our way to our old house in that last photo, I casually commented, "Hey, I remember when those friends we just visited used to live in a house over there somewhere." My Mom quickly jumped in, "No they didn't." I asserted, "Yes, they did." My Mom countered, "Nope! Never happened." I stood my ground, "Yes, they did. And I am NOT backing down on this one. You all refuted that certain other memory of mine a couple years ago, but I am 100% sure on this one. I am NOT giving you this one." After we had visited our old house and were on our way back home, I brought the issue up again as I pointed to something more concrete this time, "THERE! That house over there in the distance. I'm pretty sure that has to be where our friends lived. It seems to be in about the right location." This time my Mom went, "Hmmm??? You know … I think it's coming back to me now. Yes, I believe I do remember now that they did live there." Swooooosh! And Chuck Scores! Nothing, but Net! I KNEW I was right. I hate to brag, but albeit I of course had my micro memory voids here and there ... overall my memory was more intact than everyone else's.