The Gibbons Box

My Dad's always been both a thinker and a doer.

I think it's unusual to find that in a single person.

He usually ponders something for a while--sometimes over a beer (Gibbons when they still had it, do they still have it?--it was cheapest) at the old Sittn' Bull now Spencer's Western Cafe in Fairmount township--then does it. Things most people would not think a second about doing themselves, he takes on.

If it's something new he's never done before, and it doesn't come out exactly right, still, it always works. And if not exactly as he sees fit, he trys again and perfects it until he's satisfied.

He should've been an Inventor but could've been anything.

Which leads me to the Gibbons Box.

Back in the day when the only shed you had in the back yard was one you put together yourself out of whatever old used lumber and scraps you had around, he decided he needed something to store stuff in--lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, garden tools, and stuff like that.

Knowing the limitations of a wooden framed shed and how long it might last, he thought there must be something better. But I'm only guessing at his reasoning.

So somehow, somewhere, he found someone with the box off the back of a Gibbons beer delivery truck. I wish I had a picture of that, but I still can see it in my mind's eye. It was wooden framed, but covered by a thin layer of sheet metal on top and on the three sides. Come to think about it, perhaps it wasn't metal on top but a canvas material that was coated with Aluminized paint. That's how old it was.

At what would have been the back of the truck were two swinging doors with iron hinges and an ample latching mechanism. The back doors opened into a wooden-floored, wooden-sided space maybe 10 feet deep and 5 feet wide, not unlike what the inside of the box on a U-Haul truck might look like. Just with wood instead of metal.

On the outside was the familiar red Gibbons logo and lettering, painted on mind you, this was way before decals.

So he got the box and got it to the house, I don't know how, but my Mom was abhorred by it as almost any Mother would be, a Mother trying to keep things neat amid a constant disastrous mess made by five boys. She must've said something along the lines of ``I don't want to see that thing around here, get it out of my sight.''

So it ended up back in the woods a little ways off from the house. All you could see of it during the summer were the back doors which faced the big yard adjoining the house.

Me and someone came close to death at that Gibbons Box one day. A situation transpired that happens around farms from time to time--you read about them. I haven't thought about it for a long time, so I won't write about it here just yet. But we survived.

The Gibbons Box lasted a long time until I moved away and went in the Army. At least that long. I've been over that way, but I don't notice it anymore. I wonder if it's still there.