This is my high school buddy, Bill, sitting on our old couch in the middle of the workshop building he and I demolished for $100 (to split between the two of us) back in the 1970s.

This was a wonderful sold L-Shaped workshop on the rental property that was my home from age 12 until I got married at 23. Apparently, my parents (who weren’t workshop people) found termites in the wood, told the landlady and suggested she have it torn down. She agreed, and Bill and I decided we would make an offer.

First thing we did was cut all the way around the roof while sitting on the walls until it collapsed inside. Then we tore it apart and got the rubble carted off. Took months, but we finished it.

At one point I was prying loose some binding wire that had been used on the inside walls to hold tar paper in place, and the wire sprung back and sliced across the surface of the white of my eye, but miraculously just left a visible groove and didn’t puncture the orb nor scratch the cornea. Lucky me. Much more careful after that.

In retrospect, I really liked that workshop and, in the process of tearing it down, discovered it was hardly termite damaged at all – easily fixable. What a shame as it dated way back to the construction of the neighborhood.

The landlady, as a side note, had married an Arab prince when they were both in young (in their twenties, I believe, which would have made it in the the early 1920s. He was a polo player, and during one match a young girl wandered onto the field and into danger. Being the dashing young prince, he leaped off his horse and protected her, but was hit in the head by a horse’s hoof, was brain-damaged, and could no longer take care of himself. So, she took care of him for all of those decades and he was still alive while I lived there.

Rent was $125 a month. I loved that property as it originally had two huge trees in back, the workshop, and a summer house, all in the oversize back yard that was at least 50% larger than the other yards on the block since it was along the diagonal alley.

Later, just before I eventually left to strike out on my own, the landlady sold it and the new owner cut that triangular section off the yard and put up a warehouse where the old workshop had been. Very sad indeed.

Oh, and by the way… This was before cell phones, so Bill isn’t talking on one in the picture, he’s just got his hand on his head to rest. Otherwise it would be one of those “proof of time travel” historic photos, but, alas, no such luck.