“Who’s coming with me to kick a hole in the sky?”

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I can’t tell you how perfect I find ► JD’s comment ◄ to be.

 

There’s a synchronicity in it that he couldn’t possibly know.

 

And, frankly, that didn’t hit me until this very moment (prompting this post).

 

 

 

See, my dad built a bar in the basement of our family home that he called ‘The Plaster Horse Saloon‘.

 

It was beautiful.

 

 

 

As you’d walk down the varnished, well-made wooden steps, there was an old carousel horse he’d fished from the trash and covered with a rough, beige plaster (he was an art teacher) on the overhang above.

 

(My father grew up poor and, long after he made a solid living, he continued trash-picking from roadsides if the items looked good enough. 

 

He never “dumpster-dove”, though).

 

 

 

The walls were covered in a dark blue burlap on the top half and alternating dark and lighter wood on the bottom half.

 

The bar was a fine, dark wood with black leather on the bottom half of the front of it.

 

I wish my words could do it justice.

 

 

 

Looking back on it, I miss it greatly.

 

My brother bought the house from him and will likely sell it soon.

 

So I’ll never see it again.

 

I’d supply photos to prove my tale but, sadly, I have none.

 

Lamentable, more because I’d like to have them rather than provide evidence, Truth be told.

 

 

 

I often wondered why he did it.

 

He never drank (besides a tiny glass of wine at dinner).

 

Perhaps one beer a summer, too.

 

And, honestly, he was never really a sociable person.

 

He wasn’t mean-spirited, by any means.

 

Don’t get the wrong idea.

 

But just not one for crowds.

 

He was one of nine children, so it makes sense when I think on it.

 

 

 

I’d finally asked him why he constructed it all.

 

The answer, to the best of my recollection, was:

 

“I found all this great wood and that horse.

 

So I used them.”

 

 

 

Decades later, I get it.

 

I suppose it’s the Portuguese in us.

 

We don’t watch TV.

 

I, myself, don’t really use the internet for anything other than a music provider/learning/teaching tool.

 

(Except for Twitter, which is a bit of vice I’m trying to curb.)

 

We both feel lazy if we don’t have some project going.

 

Lastly, we both just create to please ourselves.

 

Then hope to share the results with the ones we love.

 

 

 

 

 

Ω