TheBanyanTree: Stairway to Heaven

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Labor Day seems like a perfect bookend to summer.  It represents the end of
summer and the beginning of fall, just as Memorial Day represents the end of
spring and the beginning of summer.

Minnesota passed a law last year that prohibits school districts from
starting classes until after Labor Day.  They did that so that the resorts
up north and the State Fair in the south would have cheap teenage labor to
finish out the summer season.  School will drag on until the middle of June
for students, but the Legislature felt Minnesota would benefit economically
if the schools began their year on the same day.  The orange buses will roar
to life on Tuesday.  The freeways will be more congested as students and
teachers along with the regular workers fight for space on the road.

For me, Labor Day weekend does not mean that one last chance to take a
vacation, although we have done that.  One year we did the Mount Rushmore
and Montana thing and another year we drove up to Lake of the Woods and
managed to fish for exactly 30 minutes over a four day period because the
weather was so bad.  Labor Day represents a time to get those summer
projects finished, to begin thinking about autumn and winter activities, and
get ready for a time when we spend most of our hours inside.

Our massive garage is actually an oversized double garage with a second
floor.  The previous owner of this house built this garage just a couple of
years ago, so it’s brand new.  It looks like he started doing something with
the second floor, but we’re not sure he was going to with it.  There is no
insulation in the garage, except what Ray has added, and there is no heater
or air conditioning either.  The lower level has four windows and the upper
level has one large window in the back and smaller one in the front.

In order to get to the second floor, there is a pull down ladder, but it’s
inconvenient to use and it’s almost impossible to carry anything up there
with you.  The previous owner had begun to put up walls, there is carpeting
on the floor, and he had began building a closet.  There might be electrical
outlets up there, but I’m not sure.  But it is space that we don’t use and
of course, like all good middle class Americans, we want to use our space.

Almost immediately after we moved in, Ray began building his garage
workshop.  He installed shelves and tried to organize all the junk we had
brought over with us from the old house.  Even with all our stuff and Ray’s
new workshop, we still had plenty of room on the lower level for our cars.
In our old garage, we only had room for one car to park, MINE.  What a
difference!

But we still wanted to do something with upper level.  Ray was thinking
about an elevator to reach the top, but that seemed expensive.  I suggested
a staircase, and the words were barely out of my mouth before Ray went to
work.  He got wood for the staircase from someone who was tearing an old
deck apart.  Before long, the frame was done and he had installed the first
set of stairs.  Then the landing was built and the he built the second set
of stairs.  He added railings.  And voila!  We had an easy way to get to the
top floor.

Now we had to decide what to do with the space.  My older grandson thought
we should make it a play area – yeah, right.  It’s not really set up for
anything else, because of the lack of insulation.  I think if Ray was more
of a sports fanatic, I could see him really going all out and building a
guys’ room above the garage, complete with insulation, heat, and a massive
TV.  I’m sure my son, if he lived here, would probably use the space for his
music studio.  The possibilities are endless, aren’t they?

But, alas, we decided to use the space for storage.  Some of my holiday
stuff was out in the garage, so I spent part of yesterday reorganizing our
storage room on the second floor of our house to accommodate more things.
The I hauled in from the garage the Christmas totes and the Halloween totes,
and the fake Christmas tree.  Now Ray has more space in his work area to
store wood and other stuff.

In the meantime, I was thinking about our Panama Canal pictures for some
reason, and I began to look for them.  I thought I put them with my
scrapbook stuff, but they’re not there.  Now I’m not sure what happened to
them.  I hate it when I have memories of doing something completely erased
from my mind, and I have to admit it’s happening more as I get older.  I’m
sure I’ll find those pictures when I’m not looking for them, but it bothers
me when I can’t put my fingers on something I know I have.

Each time I go out in the backyard, I plot my strategy for next year’s
garden.  This year was an experiment and a successful one.  I now know how
my yard works and I know what I want to do next year.  I really need to go
shopping and get stuff for next year as it’s on sale right now.  I hate
shopping, however.

Today is supposed to be dreary and rainy, so I think I’ll keep working on
moving my photos which I have stored on my computer to an external hard
drive.  It’s one of those putzy projects, because my pictures aren’t as
organized as I want them to be, so I’m organizing them as I go.  I want to
start moving music onto my new big ipod, which I bought speakers for, so I
can use it as a stereo, too.  That’s another putzy project.  I have photos
to add into albums as well.  Gosh, it seems like photos take up all my free
time.

As I moved my Christmas stuff into the house, I started thinking about how I
would decorate the place.  Now, that’s really sick, because first, we’re
going to be out of town this year and why decorate anyway, and second,
because Christmas shouldn’t even be on the horizon right now.  But that’s
what Labor Day does for me, I begin thinking about the future.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

I am learning all the time.  The tombstone will be my diploma.
~Eartha Kitt