Red in Snow

On the way home yesterday in the snow shower(ya, we got another inch out here), I caught sight of this red outbuilding near the road. With the snow sticking all over, sort of like a foggy dream, the redness just seem to jump out at me. It sent me back, for a few minutes, to old man Bustin's back yard. His rows of corn and our outfield marker(they were one in the same) often came into direct conflict, when Leo whacked a long ball. I got caught once, retrieving a homerun, and he dragged me to his backdoor all the while wagging his finger in my face. I always thought, if we ever had a neighborhood theater production, he's make an outstanding Mr. McGregor from the Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books. Nothing really came of it. All I got was the standard, "Stay out of my garden." On nights we slept out, we'd often prowl around his garden and his garden building. Not much in there, just tools and such. We never even left 'our mark'. Fast forward- in later years, when I delivered the Portland Evening Express and the Press Herald, he always wanted to talk and often rapped the paper on the top of my head. Really, he was a pretty good, old guy.