The olde greenhouse


Our 6th hangout spot was a hollow foundation to a pre-civil war house built in 1853 and destroyed by fire in 1897. As we walked down sixteen cracked and crumbling concrete steps, I noticed an inconsequential amount of aggregate had been set in the mix to strengthen it. These steps would take us to the far reaches of the cellar where the humidity seemed
to peak. The last four steps had plant life growing out of them, yet they had not come apart. "How do you make this much mortar without a huge concrete mixer and even then, how do you get it all back here?" asked Peter full of latent enthusiasm, while looking for a place to sit in the boscage. I then responded by saying, a hundred and fifty years ago you didn't have any trucks, and you couldn't use a stagecoach cause there were no roads yet. "Then how did they get it back here," he asked bemused? They put the satchels on horses and rode them in. "How many horses?" Hundreds, and before that they used Bulldogs. Suddenly, he began laughing! "I gotta hand it to you," he said. "You really got me with that one!"

Whenever we got high, we joked around a lot and part of joking around would usually entail prefabricating complete nonsense. This we would do as an attempt to try and fool the other person, but mostly we did it for kicks. Indeed, John was the reigning champ at this, but I was quickly gaining ground over him! That was just a little crazy part of the way everything was back then. Everyone was carefree. Now everyone has worries, jobs to go to and never ending bills to pay.

"I can almost see it beginning to take shape in my mind," said Peter. "Four hundred Bulldogs all over Staten Island lumbering around with bags of masonry powder draped across their backs!" Hoe-Lee Christ! I can see them coming now, trudging through the woods with faces of despair! With that he fell to the ground in hysterics and began pounding his fists into the soft soil! "I can't handle it man," he said as tears came streaming down his cheek. "Such long faces!!!" In all actually, with no pun intended, they are one of the few creatures on earth, that actually appear to look sadder when the sun is shining. Picture if you woke up one morning looking like that!
You'd wanna stay inside too!!!

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After the laughter subsided, we looked around and saw how everything had taken form. It felt like we were in a large terrarium. One without a top. At least five degrees warmer was it down here, than up there, but felt like ten where it exhibited a semitropical atmosphere. As I gazed about to find a world encased around me, I felt like I was in the jungles of Vietnam, long after the war had ended. We made our way through a labyrinth of small trees, that had grown upwards toward the center, and were now looking
at bushes that had accumulated by the side corner. Not one thorn in here, thank God!

"Wouldn't it be cool right now to see a tree carving from the eighteen hundreds," asked peter blithely? "That would flip me out!" I know,
right? A tree carving from that period of time would have to be at least
a foot into the tree by now. Any carving, regardless of how deep it was would certainly be gone by now. But you must not fail to remember, that whatever is carved onto a tree, remains on that tree, kind of like a scar.
No matter how faint it appears to one's eye, it will always be there. If we had a TF-1 we could find it. "What's a TF-1?" A TF-1 is a device with
the small screen that allows one to see how old a tree is by counting how many rings it has. The deluxe model comes equipt with a fine tuning knob that allows you to see in black and white, what lies hidden beneath the trees surface. A two dimensional image that reads very much like an x-ray. Meaning, that anything which has ever been inscribed onto its surface would now be made visible. "Where the hell do you get one of those?" You could probably find one in The Twilight Zone under things entitled, what you need! "Don't tell me just made that up," said Peter quite stunned. "That was very convincing."

I then motioned toward the rear of the building where the remains of an old pot belly stove was lying. I pulled it to its feet but could not find its top half. It looked ridiculous standing up in that position, and so I laid it back down on its side again. Peter was examining the wall on the other side of the cellar, so I used my hands to part the trees in this wayward jungle. He then spotted something lying by the weeds and picked it up. "Hey Charles, look at this?" He handed me a deteriorated catcher's mitt that had been left by someone a very long time ago. The lacing had all but withered away and was black. My God, this thing is ancient. I would say it has to be from the thirties or forties! That old glove, which had been placed upon a three foot cluster of lateritious bricks from a fallen chimney and forgotten in another time by a passerby was now under scrutiny.

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Looking at the partially calcified mass of white pimpled bumps on a sticky layer of virescent leather were, in fact, spores of mold growing on its decaying fabric. I had attributed this to the fact that anything green, touching anything at all for a prolonged period of time would eventually begin to impart some of its own color unto that object. Of course,
I was only speculating as to this strange theory.

I then started to think of that old catcher's mitt and how wonderful it must have looked in the store when it was brand new. How it felt and smelled and how it held up next to all the other gloves and those autographed George "Snuffy" Stirnwiess bats!!! Go, you damn Yankees, I said aloud in my head with the crowd of that era cheering! Like baseball cards themselves, it was the pride of its day to every young boy growing up in the heart of North America! Unfettered by time. Free to live and dream without caring! Why was everything better back then, than it is now? Even further back, to his father before him. Free to craft heroes from a ten cent novel found at the local five & dime. Free to build hopes upon wishes was the adventurous heart! So chivalrous and true were those authors who made sure never to raise even the mildest blemish upon the tender skin of the fair maiden, who I could now see riding off into the sunset with her rescuer. The one who fought for her glory! To you, I remove my hat and bow, but you and that young boy have withered away. To become as fertilizer for the earth. Salt to the sea, a better place perhaps. One that beckons for my entrance. *That dinner, I am soon to attend* There is a particular area; one in our long, cord-like brains, which allows imagination to fester and right now, it must have been lighting up like an early Thomas Edison light bulb! These stories, are best left for dreaming as I know all too well, the only thing that becomes of dreams are tears, and the only thing tears are good for are to satisfy one's ailing conscience.

As Peter began petting a ladybug which had landed on his shoulder, a bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face and neck. Feeling a wee
bit restless, I decided to take my little Case knife and whittle my initials into one of the smooth trees. I carved them above a faded World War II victory medal someone had nailed into the tree years before. Pete seeing this said, "I wanna throw mine on there, too." As I finished, Peter carved his initials directly under the war god's helmet. After muddling around for twenty or so minutes, we walked back up the cracked and broken stairs, to the awaiting trail. We then followed that trail, while listening to the peaceful sound of birds chirping and insects buzzing, till we reached
our 7th little place of refuge.

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