The Barn, 2006, by Aaron Kregness

From MemoryArchive

Who: Aaron Kregness
What: The Barn
When: 1997
Where: South-West Wisconsin

When I was just a wee lad and the family farm was, well, still in the family, we would spend a couple weeks there every year, one in the winter and one in the summer. The whole extended family would go and we would just have a grand old time. One of the greatest parts of the vacations was the barn. All of us kids would run around in the feilds and woods in the area, but for me the greatest place was the barn. With the smell of hay and rain, and the the old and aged aura of the place that seemed to just place everything at ease in my mind. The Big double front doors of the place would slide open to reveal the vast inner expanse. On one side a large pile of hay bails reaching up towards the ceiling. Expertly laid by my Great-Uncle to form a large castle of sorts, with of course chunks missing due to the need to feed the horses. We would spend long hours chasing each otehr around the 'castle' of hay climbing and falling through the various walkways and culverts laughing all the while. On the side opposite the front doors were another set of similar doors leading out onto the feilds and woods beyond the farm. And Lastly on the third side were the older horse stalls, which were no longer in use and had long ago been cleaned and cleared. Just above the stalls was a walkway accessable by a ladder right in the middle of the barn. This walkway had a very important purpose in our games. One it acted as a staging area to ascend to th ehights of the main barn loft and second as I will enter into later it served as a landing pad. Now from the walkway a second ladder led high up into the frameing of the roof to the main loft area, which was never as safe as it should have been due to long periods of rain and rot creating weak spots in the floor, which included one large hole through which we hung a rope down from the loft to the castle. This rope was were the landing area came in. From the tallest 'tower' in our 'castle' you could grab the rope and swing across the barn to the walkway which was always helpful for those quick escapes. Now for the best part of the barn, the part I have specifically forgotten to mention as of yet, the upper loft. From the main loft there was an area where you could climb the rafters of the roof to get to the upper loft which was at the very apex of the barn. From there if one crawled along the eaves he could eventually reach an area where standing was possible and here was the weather vane mount. The weather vane was mounted on a small point protruding from the top of the barn and had four sides that were vent like in nature. These you could pop out one of and climb out onto the roof, which always gave the parents a scare. That was my space and no one else ever came with me cause no one else could climb quite like I could.