The W On The Barn

A project that was started almost a year ago has finally been completed. It was one of those projects that in reality should have only taken a week at most to complete, but we managed to drag it out for 10 months. First, a little history.

During my childhood through college years, my family was very close with another family. Our families had the type of relationship where we vacationed together, celebrated family occasions together, got together on Friday nights to hang out, went out to eat, etc. Some of my best childhood memories were made with this family. My best friend was a part of this family, and I was the maid of honor in her wedding and she in mine (although she was married the time, so does that make her the matron of honor?) They lived just outside of Swayzee out in the country, and the sure fire way to identify their house was the W on their big yellow barn. It was a large, black W made of metal, and it hung above the barn doors centered between the doors and the roof.

Years have passed, the family has since moved out of state, my friend has since moved out of state, and another owner occupies the house. My family (that is Jason, the girls, and I) moved to our current house around 7 years ago, and the house we bought has an old barn. 2 summers ago, we knew that we either had to tear down the barn or remodel it, because in its current state the roof was caving in and the barn was not structurally sound. After deciding that the barn was quite useful for storage and as a psuedo garage (we don't have a garage,) we decided to have the barn remodeled. A wonderful Amish crew came and gave the barn a makeover, and all of our neighbors stood around and applauded that they no longer had to look at an eyesore.

I could never get the idea of that W on my friend's barn out of my head. I always thought that W was so neat, and I wanted a W for our barn. Then an idea popped in my head. I would research to see who currently owned my friend's former house, I would call them up, and I would ask them if I could have/buy the W off the barn. This was going to be huge for me, because I am not a forward person. But I really wanted that W. First I called my friend to make sure she was okay with me trying to get the W. She was. She shared the history of the W and said that her dad had the W specially welded for the barn. This is a special W. Then I got on the internet on some housing assessment site to see whose name came up. To my dismay, the owner of the house had a first name that started with "W." Of all the letters the name could have started with, it had to be a W. But it was her first name, not her last, so maybe the W had no significance at all to her. I got out the phone book and found her name. Sure enough the address of the house was listed there. I took a deep breath and called the number.

It was quite an interesting conversation. I told her all about my friend and our families and all of my fond childhood memories and how we now had a barn and I would really love to have/buy the W off her barn. Did it have any special meaning to her like it did to me?

Of course it did. She had looked and looked and looked for a house, and she was at her wits end when she went to see this house, and lo and behold when she saw the W on the barn, she just knew this was her house - it was meant to be.

I thanked her for her time and assured her that I did not want to pressure her into giving me a symbol that was also important to her. But wait. She had one more piece of information that I did not know. THERE WERE TWO W's on the barn. I didn't know this part because I only went to my friend's house from one direction. Apparently there was another W just like the one on the front that was on the back of the barn, too. And she was willing to share - one W for her and one for me. She wanted to make sure it was okay with her kids if she sold me a W (I went ahead and told her we would buy it from her) and I told her I would ask my husband if we could buy the W. She said she would call me back. A few days later there was a message on my machine saying yes, we could buy a W, and to call her back to discuss a price. It was the first of December.

A couple of weeks passed. Jason and I decided on a price to offer her (pathetically cheap compared to what I'm sure it cost to make but comparable to if we would get a cheapie one off the internet) and I called her back. We agreed on the transaction, now we just needed to decide when Jason could go out and get it off the barn. She said she may be around that weekend, I said we would call.

Something came up that week, and before we knew it it was February. I called her again, she wondered what had happened to us. The superbowl, I explained. The Colts had distracted us and we hadn't gotten around to the W. Could we come out that next day. Sure we could, she said.

The next day came and I don't remember if it rained or if it was a huge snowstorm but inclement weather postponed our W trip. February turned into July, and still no W. My birthday is July 6. When Jason asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said all I wanted was the W on the barn. So July 5, he called W-----, made arrangements, and went and got my W off the barn. The next week I went to Wal Mart and bought some rustoleum black spray paint. The following week I sprayed my W. It dried until September. Then last weekend, finally, Jason hung up the W on our barn. Mission accomplished.