Playground Lumberyard

     In a previous post I mentioned how we would play in the old lumber shed and the old high school gym converted into a warehouse.  Those weren't the only places.  Lutterbein Lumber was a treasure trove of places to play and imagine adventure.

     Where do I start?  My dad ran construction crews and they layed bricks and blocks on those buildings.  To make the mortar they needed masons sand, lots of it sometimes.  There was always a pile of sand contained by three wood walls.  Whenever it would run a little low, dad would order another dump truck of sand.  Sometimes there was a little sand and sometimes it seemed like there was a mountain of sand.  It was a great place to play except it was also a cat litter box, but we over looked that small problem.

     In the back of the lumberyard there were wild strawberries growing all over the place.  In season it was fun picking and eating thosestrawberries.  There were really small and as I remember pretty sweet.

     Climbing on piles of lumber was our version of going mountain climbing.  We would use our imagination and reall have fun.  There was one day that the boy across the street had a pile of lumber tip towards him and trap him so he couldn't get out.  I still remember him screaming "I'm dying, I'm dying."  In reality he was just scared half to death.  He wasn't hurt at all.  We just unstacked a few dozen 2X4's and let him out.  No harm.  No foul.

     Speaking of fouls, we also had a grass basketball court nailed to the side of the lumber shed that had the walk across plank.  All the neighborhood boys would come over to play basketball.  We didn't have referees so there may have been a few fouls here and there.  Again, no one ever got hurt, we just had fun.  

     Dad and Uncle Dick were quite the promoters.  A few times they hired a company with an elephant and a monkey for a promotion.  A way to attract customers.  An elephant inside the retail store!  That was the neatest thing in the world.  How many people have been able to experience that?  What fun!

     One time one of my sisters (I won't say which one) was in the office playing.  She found a few sheets of "stickers" and thought it would be fun to past them to the office chair.  I imagine it was very pretty.  We were pretty much banned from the office from that point on.  Those stickers were postage stamps.

     In the back of the lumberyard where the strawberries were there were dirt driveways with deep ruts in them.  When it would rain those would fill up with water.  A few times when it was hot we would play in them.  Running and doing belly flops in them sliding from one end to another.  We were just like barnyard hogs wallering in the mud to stay cool.  To this day, I don't know why I didn't get in a lot of trouble over that.  Again, we were never hurt.  I can't imagine even thinking about letting my kids do half of what I did as a kid.

     I mentioned earlier that Dad and my uncle were promoters.  On another occasion they put a pen up in the north lumber shed and had a large pig put in it.  They had a hog wild sale!  People could enter to win the pig.  The good thing about it they had Pepsi put a Pepsi/Mountain Dew machine out there with paper cups.  We drank all we could get away with.  I think my friends and I drank up any profit that might have been made.

     It was another day back in the 1950's and 1960's.  We did things that parents would probably be charged with child endangerment today if they let their kids do.  Of course we didn't ask our parents if we could do any of this.  We were allowed to roam as we pleased.  There was little or no danger to any of us being allowed to do as we please.  I am thankful for the freedom I had.  We learned as much playing as we did in grade school.  Both parts were important to growing up.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Soft Shoulder.......

Diana and I drove to the coast yesterday.  On the way back I saw a sign that said "Soft Shoulder".  I said my mom had a soft shoulder.  What? Diana asked.  I said my mom had a soft shoulder.

I remember when we were kids mom and dad would take us to grandma Rowe's house once or twice a year.  It was always a long drive and it was usually after work in the evening or very early in the morning.  

This was before seat belts and car seats.  Once or twice dad would put concrete blocks in the back seat where your feet would go and then put a piece of plywood cut to fit all across the back seat.  That gave us a level floor to play or sleep on.  I think he put some kind of padding on it to make it more comfortable.  Cars were a lot bigger then.  I can remember sleeping in the back window ledge of the car on one of those trips.  I would draw things in the frost that gathered inside the window.  It was pretty cool and a fun place to be.

The very best place late a night was in the front seat with mom and dad.  I still remember the warmth and love mom showed as I leaned against her soft shoulder.  The radio would be playing softly or mom and dad would sing quietly to each other or they would just talk softly to each other.  We were lucky, my sisters and me, to have parents who were so much in love.  We were lucky to have parents who loved us unconditionally as well.  Yes we got spanked from time to time and yes we tried them as much as we could, but the love was always there.

Some days I feel really sad when I think of the way mom is now with her memory pretty much gone, but I will always have my memories.  I think I will tell her about this distant memory when I see her next month.  I love you mom.

Chisel, Hammer and Mercurochrome

Growing up in a lumberyard was a pretty cool life.  It was like having a playground and an amusement park right out the back door.  Big trucks coming and going, the sounds of the big belt driven rip saw and the wood planner, lumber sheds and lumber piles to climb on and of course the retail store to explore.

A couple of things I remember was the lumber shed that had a catwalk on both sides and a 2X12 plank running from one side to the other in the middle of the building and the old gym building with loft areas to explore and hide in.

That 2X12 was one of the things my sisters an I felt we should master.  It was really scary at first.  It was less than a foot wide and eight or nine feet to the ground.  It looked like a mile to the ground when we first tried crossing it.  At first we would crawl across it very slowly hanging on for dear life.  Then walk a couple of steps and the crawl the rest of the way.  After a while we could walk over it like it was dry land with no problems.  We eventually ran across it.  It was nothing to us then.  

The old gym was actually once the high school gym.  It was an old wood structure that my grandfather bought and had moved from the school yard to the lumberyard.  If you used your imagination you could see where the bleachers were on both sides and where the stage was at the east end of the building.  When we were kids there was a big sliding door on both ends and on either side was built a loft for misc. building materials.  The neighborhood boys loved to play back there.  We'd be all over it exploring.  We really weren't supposed to be there, but you know boys.  Every once in a while old Nick Watson, one of the truck drivers would come back to load something onto the truck.  We were scared to death of old Nick.  He was a big thick person and wore bib overalls.  When he'd come we would hide hoping he didn't kill us or worse tell dad.  I'm sure he heard us once in a while, but he never found us.  As we grew up we found old nick wasn't so bad.

Back to the title of this little story.  My dad worked with the construction crews when I was small plus sold buildings in the evenings.  He was very busy.  Sometimes when he worked at home and if he didn't get done with a job he was working on he would leave the tools lay so he could continue the next evening.  Well I have a scar the width of my left index finger and you can still see it fifty six years later.  Dad left his hammer and one inch chisel on the front porch.  Somehow I managed to deeply cut myself all across my finger.  I think dad was home at the time because I was the only one person panicking.  That would be me.  We didn't go the the doctor for stitches as we would today.  No it was the soap and water, mercurochrome, gauze and tape.  That ended up being the way it was from then until I was married.  I never had a stitch until after I had a wife to insist that I go to the doctor.  I have a lot of scars that I'm sure would not be there if only they were stitched nice and tight.

Life simple in the 1950's.  I thank God that I was able to grow up in a time where a lot of what you learned was from doing dumb things.  We didn't have to worry about making the right decisions.  We were allowed to make bad decisions and learn from them.  There was much less stress and a lot more care free fun.

Stay tuned for more exciting (or not so exciting) stories of growing up in the lumber yard.

I Was Born

I Was Born.......the first time.

On October 1, 1952 I was born, the third child and only son of John and Myrtle.  A couple of years later I had another sister.  My Mom wanted five boys.  The pressure was on.  And woe was me with three sisters and two being older made it even harder.  I think one of the first politically correct thing I learned was putting the toilet seat down.  Enough of that.

Mom got the the hospital ready to pop a baby out, but the doctor wasn't there.  The nurses must not have known what to do, so they held her legs together for twenty minutes until the doctor arrived.  I can't imagine that being done today, but that's what I  was told.  At any rate, when she finally pooped me out my head was pretty deformed and blue in color.  Of course it straightened out pretty quickly and I look as normal as anyone else today.  I didn't learn all this till I was in my forties.

As I grew I was physically active and enjoyed baseball and basketball as a child.  In school however, I was always a little slower than my sisters and much slower than my parents and grandmother "L" thought I should be.  We will never know if any of that was connected to the birth delay.  I like to think it was.  

I had a terrible time memorizing things and I still have trouble with that today.  I took me forever to learn the alphabet and to add and multiply.  I had to be tutored in reading well.  Socially no one could tell I struggled with that.  I was able and am still able to figure out things that a lot of people smarter than me had trouble doing.  I have the ability to spot things that are wrong and then able to fix the problem.  I think that is how I learned to study.  I was and am a terribly slow reader, but I can look at a page and almost instantly pick out words I don't know.  I was terrified when I had to read out loud in class at school.  I always embarrassed myself.

Despite all of my early problems,  I managed to graduate from high school and college.  I worked in the family business, as expected, and feel I was successful there as well.  I have probably more confidence than I should have.  My wife and two kids really help me in the confidence area.  They are all kind to me and respectful.  God has been very good to me.  When walls go up, go over or around them.  Work with the gifts you have and don't fret over the gifts you may not have.  Have faith that you will succeed and work towards those ends, and you will succeed. 

STORIES................

Over the next year I plan to write a series of very short stories about my life and stories my father and uncle told me about things they did growing up in the lumber business.
Titles will be something like this.............
The Late Doctor
Chisel, Hammer and Mercurochrome
Playground Lumberyard
Eleven Perfect Years
Broken Bats
The Dog and the Dog Catcher
All Star to No Star
Speech Therapy and Tutored
Jr. High Science
Coronet Lessons
Sittin The Bench
Dick's Sales Technique
Dunker
14-15-71%
Song Spinners/Band
Saw Christ
High School Girl Friend
Chose Mary Jane
Rock Concerts
Joker, Smoker, Midnight Toker
The Tar Kettle
What I Learned I College
10-9-1977
10-13-1978
Be Careful What You Pray For
3-12-1980
10-25-1981
In Business There Are No Friends
OLA
Music Booster Years
Apha
California
Killing Chickens
There may be more and I may decide to leave some of these out.  I hope my children, grand children, and other family members will enjoy reading little bits of my life.  This, in the end, may explain a little of my insaneness.  Keep checking back for the stories.

Happy Fathers Day?

I have come to the conclusion that Fathers Day is a joyous day if you are with your children or your father.  I have also discovered that it can be one of the saddest days of the year if you are not with them.  

This morning was pretty hard for me.  My kids live 500 and 2300 miles away from me and my father is no longer alive.  I guess what has made this day especially hard this year is the fact that my mother-in-law is failing health wise.  We recently moved her in with us and have found we can't take care of her and still make the move we plan in August.

We have started talking about a move for her to the nursing home.  With Father's Day this morning and the thought of Irene failing, all the hard memories of Dad in the nursing home slowly going through the process of death are in my head.  I'm having trouble getting those thoughts out of my head.

The thing that helps are the loving notes and comments from my children and Diana.  They have always carried me through my rough times.  This all of a sudden has become one of those times.  As always it will pass quickly.  One thing my dad taught me is that you have to move on and keep your chin up.  Be positive.  Everything will be alright.  You know what, he has always been right.  

I have faith in God and I know things will work out.  God has blessed me beyond what I deserve because he is a forgiving and loving God.  

I am looking forward to tomorrow, because I know it will be a great day.

Our new home................

Living room looking toward the kitchen.

Pool and east end of the house.

The front view.

 

    We finally did it!  We bought a house in Visalia, California.  This is the same town Erica, Steve, Otis and Isaac live in.  We will be able to watch our grand children grow up and also have close family support as we grow older.  You see a few pictures above.  It is a very nice house and the bonus is that we got to meet the seller who is a very nice person who loved her house. 

    We feel confident we will really enjoy our new home.  We will be moving sometime in August.  We have a lot to do in the mean time.  The most important thing is for Diana to retire.  Her last day at school is May 31st.

    More coming later............



Almost Spring!

February 23, 2013
It's another cold and dreary day in NW Ohio. I just heard a flock of geese flying over. I think a lot of them stayed over the winter as I have seen and heard them several times over the winter.
Spring training has started in baseball and my beloved Detroit Tigers won their first per season game. They are picked to compete for the American League East title and the World Series. I hope they do well again this year. On paper they are a very good team.
This may be my last winter in Ohio. We are planning to move to Visalia California within the year. I'm hoping to make the move by my birthday. Time will tell. I have two grandsons growing up out there and if I want to be involved in their lives, I have to be there. When I'm at the round table at Rita's, I hear other guys talking about all the games they go to so they can watch their grand kids compete. I want to be able to talk about my grand kids and actually cheer them on in sports and other school and church activities. Oh by the way, I want to spend time with my own kids and their spouse or significant other.
Spring also reminds me of the resurrection of Christ and how thankful I am for the gift and grace of Jesus Christ. I am nothing without Him and through Him all things are possible. Even though there have been setbacks in my life, I have no regrets. I have been forgiven and I'm sure will continue to need and to ask for forgiveness in the future. Not one of us on this earth are perfect, but we strive to be acceptable in the eyes of our Lord. I pray peace, good will and blessings to all. God Bless you.
Bill L.

It's been a while........

It's been a really busy year, 2012. I think the most change in my life ever. This was the year the music stopped. "At Lutterbein Lumber you can do it all." Yes, on March 1, 2012 Lutterbein Lumber no longer existed. A month later we sold our truss business as well. We had things pretty well buttoned up by June and I worked (and am still working) part time taking care of loose ends, rental properties and attempting to sell remaining properties.

I'm a little bored, but can't decide what I want to do. I always thought I'd like to sell cars, so I got a job at Bryan Ford and tried that for five weeks. That was about the most boring job I've ever had, so I quit in early December. It was also 50 hours with two evenings and Saturday hours.

Last summer I registered as a substitute teacher and have done a few days of that, but that just terrifies me. I don't know why, but it does. I guess it is because I was such a poor student and I assume half of the kids are way smarter than me. I don't want to come across looking like an idiot.

So now I'm doing things around the house in my spare time. Laundry, floors, the dishes and some cooking; all while Diana gets up and goes to work. I like helping, but feel funny saying good bye to her in the morning as she leaves.

One of these days, I'll have to get a real job again. In June when Diana retires, we'll have to start paying a lot more for health insurance. If not for the health insurance cost we could probably live nicely on her retirement especially when my social security starts in a few years.

So I'm looking for a part time job of twenty to thirty hours a week. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

We are doing well and love to here from our kids and grandsons. FaceTime is a wonderful thing as we can actually see the grandsons when we call.

That's about all for now. I hope it is a good winter for you all.

Four Generations

Four generations of Snyder and four generations of Lutterbein in the same picture.