Wall Mart

I mentioned not long ago that my boyhood home was up for sale, and the people who bought it from Mom ten years ago invited me and Peggy and my sister Robin and her husband John over to take a nice look-a-roo before it goes over to another family.

In a word, it was a memorable evening, and gracious, and wonderful, in two other words.  These fine people kept the best of the old homestead, and made some nice upgrades too!

I got to thinking about when my father made a clubroom out of the cellar. Even though we never really had a club, there was room for them downstairs.

In 1960, before framing out the walls and adding KDKP (that's kiln-dried knotty pine, you know?) as paneling, Dad tarred the old cinderblock walls for waterproofing, and got me to run and find a 1960 quarter, which he stuck into the tar on the far wall, so that someday, when some Future Dad goes to install Italian Marble walls down there or something, he will find that quarter and be able to say to himself, "What the hell is this thing with a picture of George Washington on it?"

I had all that in mind when I came across this story.

Alex Monney is a guy from San Jose, and he knows the way to make a twitter posting that everyone likes. What happened is that he and his wife are remodeling their bathroom, and they found a message left pasted under a wall from the previous residents.  This one was all fancy, with a picture and everything:

The Shinsekis (no apostrophe needed) wondered in 1995 why anyone would want to undo the redo that they did that year, not knowing when it would happen, but seemingly knowing that it WOULD.

So the Monneys shared this the world, saying:

"Thank you for the note. It gave us a lot of smiles. It brought a lot of laughter to our life. Your bathroom was great. Sorry, for messing with it."

And they plan to carry on the tradition and leave their own message in the walls.

They'd better hurry. Mrs Monney is going to have a baby in about three weeks.