We have two garages with tools (actually three, but the third one is 700 miles away). The one in these pictures is more like a museum, but if we can't find something we need in the other garage, we look here. I enjoy spending time just standing there taking it all in.

Back in the 1960s my folks used to go to the beach in Mexico. Back then, if you were really lucky, one of those glass Japanese fishing floats had broken free from the nets and washed up on the beach. If you were my mother, you hired a deep sea fishing boat and got those guys to cut a float off the net for you. The Mexicans didn't mind - they didn't like the Japanese fishing near their shore.



That phone was in our kitchen when I was growing up. Our town had telephone operators who asked 'number please' when you turned the crank.



My dad went to farm auctions and brought home old drill presses like this one to fix up. This is the only one we kept after he died. You can stand there and crank and crank and watch the drill bit descend.




Lots of things to look at here. The "Berthoud" license plate accessory represents the town where I grew up, and my dad grew up there, too.

There is a set of screwdrivers there that my mother bought in the 1970s. She would see something she liked, so ordered two of them - allegedly for gifts to go to my sister's house and the other for my house. Then, because she really liked whatever it was, she'd give one of them to my sister and keep the other one for herself.

Here is a list: those fancy screwdrivers with wooden handles (upper left in the photo), a log holder made from wrought iron salvaged from the family bank, wooden TV trays, and a wind chime made out of iron. All these items were still here when my dad died, so I inherited them (had to pay my sister for the contents of the house and garage), so I waited 30 years for those gifts. No, I'm not bitter, just stating the facts.