My mom has been cleaning out the cabin, getting it ready for it's next phase in life. This involves the attic. There is a hatch/staircase in the front hall that goes up to a large attic. I often imagined putting an artist studio up there with a big skylight. Maybe someone will someday do just that. For now it's storage- today she brought us a bag of roman candle fireworks- none of us remember putting them up there. Maybe none of it did. One of those old house mysteries.
When visiting there I would often look around and wonder about who had been there, what they had done. And I mean more than just the many folks my mom has rented the home to in the years that she has owned it- I wonder during the 40s- when many of the other homes nearby weren't there. Who drove all this way out into this wilderness, what did they drive, how have things changed?
One of the local bits is about Teddy Roosevelt's visit in 1938, when this cabin was almost brand new- and the local elk herd was named after him- Roosevelt Elk. He led efforts to save them- bring them back from near extinction. One time I saw a huge herd of them, watched as they blended into moss covered trees, the bucks keeping close tabs on us. In that moment- there is no timeline, no year, no history even. Nothing in the attic- artist studio, fireworks or forgotten treasures. It's just you and these huge elk.
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