Thursday, November 8, 2007
Beyond Words....
There are so many layers of meanings for words, never mind when we string these words all together into sentences. It is no wonder we have communication difficulties because each word is so different for each person. What do I mean? I am talking about each person's individual schema. What do we have stored away in our minds for background knowledge and how does that dictate or mold how we come to understand a certain word or phrase. Take a word,barn, for example ...what do you do to make sense of it? Think about the word, the context, what images it stirs up for you, what it reminds you of or makes you think of. What do you see, smell, hear, touch when thinking about this word? What do you feel? Is it a pleasant feeling or not? Why? Write down your thoughts. Show us "your" barn. What does this word make you think of? How did you come to these conclusions and what strategies did you use to arrive there?
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My barn can be seen from Route 93 North, right between the Plymouth and the Campton Exits. It is a beautifully maintained barnyard-red barn. White letters give my uncle's barn a name: DA-WE-HI. It is always neat and organized, sometimes housing a few horses, and always smelling of musty hay and dirt. The dark corners make great hiding places, with streaks of light sneaking through the cracks. Antique tools (of unknown purpose)hang from the rafters. I love this place.
Love your description, Darlene!
My barn could also be seen from a major road-Rte. 25 in the northern part of New Hampshire. On the side of the barn were enormous letters spelling out the word ANTIQUES. It belonged to my beloved grandmother; the person who taught me all about antiques. Inside this building of secrets were mementoes of peoples' lives. I remember playing with a top hat and cane- pretending I was a great performer and wondering who might have used these items before me. There were musty old postcards with beautifully written letters, advertisements from old magazines, hundreds of books, and vintage clothing which served as the costumes we used for the plays my brother and I created and performed. In the loft, there was still some hay left behind by the old owners and I wondered what animals had made their home in this place.
My grandmother's barn was a magical place that served as a sort of amusement park for my brother and me. Unfortunately, the new owners have not taken care of this special building. The paint is peeling, roof is caving in, and the broken windows look like the grimace of an unhappy jack o'lantern. So, when I drive by, I look past all that. I remember that magical place as it used to be, and then I am content.
I love reading the barns of both Darlene and Christine. i can see them in my mind.
My barn is very different. it is the barn of my childhood. Surprisingly it was not mine or my families but a kind farmer that would let us girls go into their barn and have fun. The hay loft was quite high and the hay smelled of stale manure. But we did not mind, the girls and I, we just ripped opened the bales and piled them up. Then we climbed to the top of the loft and swung into the air gliding, slicing through the stench and landing softly laughingly into the prickly hay. My girlfriends and I would do this for hours!!! We pretended to be all kinds of super heroes! The only thing that brought us back to reality was when we returned to our neighborhood to be teased by the lovely aroma that we all emitted.
Like Deb the word barn conjures up smells that transport me back to memories. I can almost smell that musty smell right now. I went to a barn sale a few weeks back and just walking in the door brought back many things I haven't thought about in years. My dad was brought up in Canada and his aunt still owned the old homestead when I was young. We visited every summer and were allowed the run of the place. The barn was always a geat mysterious place filled with filtering light, smelly hay, and even smellier horses. My sister loved the horses but I was petrified of them. She was always trying to drag me in there to pet them, but I usually kept very close to the door and spent time exploring all the funny things that hung on the wall. I never did figure out what most of them were for, but I did see some of those same things at the barn sale. When I see barns now that are crumbling around themselves I often think how sad it is that most kids today never have the chance to explore those types of mysterious places that we had the benefit of when we were growing up. Times change but....it would be nice if we could hold onto the past.
Barn? The only barn I know of is on Old MacDonald's farm. With my inner city background I never had the opportunity to experience the sensory wonders of the "barn". The only contact with any barnyard animal would have been when I marched in parades, and our group was unfortunate to be behind the horses. The enclosed place I used to play in wasthe National Guard Armory. It was my cement barn and smelled of deisel fuel. So I guess our definitions of a barn are different.
Growing up on the Connecticut shoreline, barns as a life's experience eluded me for many-a-year. It was not until my younger sister settled in Vermont on a working farm that I had my first opportunity to hang out in a barn....a small barn, but indeed a barn! Hers is a place of birth and early life. Its majesty is not borne of itself as a single entity, but rather as part of a whole lifestyle so very different than any other I have encountered. Located at the base of Mt. Mansfield, their 20+ acres is vintage Vermont countryside where one encounters cows(and calves), sheep (and lambs), chickens, ducks, horses, dogs, cats, turkeys, and whatever else my brother-in-law decides to try to raise. My sister is a teacher and her husband a landscaper, so management of the farm, its crops and stock, is a shared commitment. Theirs is a life of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and love of one another and their land. This is ingrained in their three children as well. Life is more simple up on the farm; it is richer and purer; it is basic and real. Yes, it has all those sights and smells that others wrote of, but of far greater consequence for me is what I see as the core of a family whose chosen lifestyle is something so very different from most families in this day and age.
May I just say, we have some wonderful writers at Center School. I enjoy the journey this blog takes us...
My barn is on our family "farm" in Plainfield, Vermont. As a child our only vacations were the two weeks each summer we traveled north to help my bachelor uncles, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Ralph, with farming chores. Although I was a city girl and lived at "5914 N. 14th Street" these farm experiences have led many to believe that I was born and bred on a farm!
There were two barns on the farm, but one in particular was special since it housed about a dozen milking cows and several calves. My three brothers and I spent a great many hours, and did a great deal of damage I might add, to that barn and the bales of hay housed within. We would jump off the highest level, a loft, down onto the bales of stacked hay below. Many of the bales would break open upon impact, which made that landing (and all others that followed) a great deal softer. Small, itchy pieces of the hay would be stuck all over our bodies and hair as we left the barn hours later. Soon after we would hear the grumbling of our uncle as he muttered about the way "those kids" had destroyed so many bales of his hay. Yet, this same uncle would buy us candy and look forward to our visits year after year. The barn has long since fallen, only a pile of rubble and old boards now, but for me,just the smell of a barn filled with hay is comforting "childhood" smell.
My barn sits amid the beautiful farming fields of the Maine countryside atop Thurston Hill. (Hey, no high school boys found their thrill on Thurston Hill!) The 200 year old barn holds the wonderful memories of my young brother and sisters, along with those who likely filled its boarded walls before us. Like my classmates, the most fun was had among the huge "bricks" of baled hay. The loft was a wonderful place to jump into the huge, prickly piles of straw. We also had a long swinging rope and a huge swing hanging down from the rafters. Certainly does beat those plastic playgrounds of today! The barn loft was a great place for creating a "girls only" fort and the bales of hay could be arranged into tunnels which would lead to more hidden fort among its boundaries. The other side of the barn held the stall for our horse, Bingy, and several open stalls for the cows of yesteryear. Each spring, my twin sister and I would excitedly explore the holes in the old cow stalls. We would reach into the holes, down to the bottom of the stall to discover a furry bundle of two or three newborn barn kittens. We didn't care where they came from, or question their parentage...we simply enjoyed the springtime ritual of finding these cuddly surprises. Thinking back on all of this as an adult, I don't recall any of these wild cats hanging about the farm as full grown adult cats. Hmmmm...Daaaad!
Oh well, guess that's the harsh reality of life on the farm.
The first 16 years of my life I lived at 15 Valley Hill Drive in Worcester, MA. My house was on top of the hill and at the foot of the valley was "the barn". My father purchased the barn to house his toilets, pipes and other various supplies for his plumbing business. The barn was nestled in our neighborhood and was the playground for all of our friends. We were not allowed to go inside for fear of getting hurt, but did that stop us...we would play hide and seek until the sun dipped below the horizon. The musty odor, broken windows and mice scurrying along the rafters bring fond memories of chilhood to the forefront of my mind. My father sold the barn on a handshake deal for $25,000 shortly after I was married some 32 years ago. Although the barn no longer stands, my heart will forever hold onto the memories of a place I could be myself.
barn
Very cool idea, a barn! The first image to pop into my mind is walking into a barn at a New Hampshire fair and seeing the endless cages of rabbits and their prize ribbons. The smell of hay, food, and rustic wood surrounds you as you smile while looking at these animals. Barns remind me often of fairs and fall!
My barn can be found in Milbrook, NY, just down the road from the Timmothy Leary estate (home a many an LSD experiment). The barn belonged to my aunt and uncle who bought the farm when I was 6 years old. The barn hold many wonderful memories for me. Hours were spent sitting on the fence watching hundreds of black angus "mooing" away (maybe where my love of cows was born). The silo filled with grain, a faded red in color. Time spent looking for the may stay cats (who were there to keep the mice count down). I remember holding generations of kittens, always begging to bring one home. I remember the feel of the wood, the smell and the safty felt within it's walls. My cousin and I would sit for hours in the barn talking and dreaming. The farm and that beautiful old barn are in the process of being sold. Memories are a good thing.
Better late then never.... My Great-grandmother lived just down the road from us. On the way home from one of our many trips up to Crescent Lake, Dad would pop the old blue volkswagon bug out of gear and down the hill we would coast. On really good days we would make it all the way to Gram's, silently coasting into the drive way, on other days he would pop it back in to gear and a sputtering we would go down the road. Mom must have been working,...so it was dad and the five of us kids, crammed in that bug; one in the front, 2 in the back and me and my little brother stuffed in that little cubby space in the back--(I swear we both fit in that spot). Jumping out of the car, us kids would head into the barn while dad went in to visit. By barn standards, it wasn't large, or painted bright red. I don't even think there were any cows, pigs or chickens. What there was, was a big claw foot bath tub, hay, kittens and lots of spider webs. The hay was musty, and the air a little damp and heavy. I remember entering the darkness with a sense of fear, trepidation and adventure, all rolled in to one. To this day that closed air smell and the taste of dampnes brings me back to Gram's barn and memories of a carefree childhood.
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