Show me your barns.

On our trip to Walla Walla last week I started looking at barns we passed. On my trip to school today I realized that twice a day, three days a week, I pass dozens if not scores of barns visible from the highway on my commute. And no two of them are the same.

I don't think I have any pictures of barns.

Tomorrow is my day off and I am going to go out and take pictures of barns. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Well, I guess I will show you mine even if you don't show me yours, but I would still like to see your barn pictures and hear your barn stories.

I can tell you a barn story now.

When I was a kid I took piano lessons for four years. I made it through the first grade book in that time, which probably tells you how musically talented I am not and how diligently I practiced.

For part of that time my piano teacher came to our house for the lessons. But some of the time I went to her tiny farmhouse. Dominating the house were two grand pianos. I have never seen another place so tiny sporting so much musical potential. (I'm obviously not talking about myself.)

Because it was a long way (all of about five miles, I think--wouldn't even be thought twice about these days) there were three of us girls about the same age whose mothers carpooled us to the farm. So, while one was having her lesson, the other two of us usually played in the old barn. That barn was a fun playground.

Besides being a fun place to play, the barn was very popular with local artists. It was the subject of many paintings at local art shows. Later, long after I had moved away, I passed by the barn with Mother during a couple of visits. She told me that, despite development of the area, the barn had been preserved for the sake of the artists.

That has been a long time again, so I don't know if the Kelly barn still stands on El Camino Real. (Maybe my brother can tell us.)

Added 2/26--message from my brother: "I just drove past the site of Kelly's barn and it wasn't there."