Story #27 - Our adventures climbing the patio walls, hand over hand – yikes!
In the previous story about sleeping on the roof I mentioned we had a patio wall. My mom planted grass inside the patio. My dad built a small pond with a waterfall next to it. We tried to keep goldfish in it, but the neighborhood cats kept getting over the wall and into the pond and eating the fish. We stopped buying the fish. My mom also planted some flowers. It was my mom’s little Garden of Eden; her place of retreat and peace. On one end of the patio my dad poured a concrete slab.
He built of pole roof over the top and it was nice and shady. When you came out from the living room into the patio, just outside the door my dad poured another concrete slab. There was a fireplace in the living room on that wall. My mom grew ivy on the outside wall. It kept that wall cool. Our house was mostly made out of adobe brick and had concrete stucco on the outside. My mom would barbecue in the patio. It was a nice area to be in. The patio walls were made of adobe too and had concrete stucco. The top of the walls had a capstone of concrete as well.
Now comes the fun part of this story---Climbing little monkeys!
My brothers and I would climb the stairs up to the rooftop. Then we would ‘hop down’ off the top of the wall down onto the arch way over the patio door and then we would kneel down on the top of the patio wall and then slide down so that only our hands ‘were holding onto the top of the wall!’ Yes! We did that!
My mom didn’t know we did it either or we would have been in ‘BIG TROUBLE!’ Then while we were hanging by our hands, we would put hand over hand and go all the way around the patio wall to the other side. Then we would drop down to the ground! We just thought that was the coolest and most fun thing!
My dad built three houses behind our house. Trusses are the beams the support the roof. I would go back and see my dad build and I was about 7 years old. I would climb the ladder to the roof the then walk across the lower trusses near the end of the house. My mom came out to see my dad and I forget what she wanted but when she saw me on the roof she almost fainted! She scolded dad and told him to be more careful and keep a better eye on the kids while he was working and we WERE NOT allowed to climb the ladder and be on the roof! We still did it when her back was turned! My dad told us to be careful and we were! We never fell off. Now that I am a parent and have children and grandchildren, if my kids did that or my grand kids, ‘I would probably faint from fright for their safety!’ When you grandchildren are all grown up you will compare stories with your siblings on growing up. When I was a mom I told my mother about the patio wall and she about had a cow! That’s why you don’t tell your parents about those kind of stories until ‘years later!’ All I can think of now is---our guardian angels worked over time keeping an eye out for us!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #27
Posted by Grandma's Cookie Jar at 8:09 AM
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1 comments:
Sounds just like my dad. He is still a daredevil and always will be.
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