This simple shack has been a familiar aspect of life for as long as I can remember. Okay, there were times when I didn’t see it at all—and a glorious time spent on the other side of the planet, where there were no shacks of this particular sort. But still, it’s a familiar bit of architecture, a bit long in the tooth these days, and probably slated for eventual demolition. But for now, it still stands. There was a time when you could ride the Number 3 bus from downtown Chicago, to the far South Side. You could only get as far as 92nd Street (south) however, before the bus turned around and headed back north. This shack marks the spot where busses turned. It stood, for decades, in front of what was once the home of my maternal grandparents. For a time, I lived within close proximity to Martin Luther King Drive, on Chicago’s south side, and so it was often necessary for me to take the Number 3 bus, if I wanted to head downtown and transfer to a train for a journey farther north. I work within almost-close proximity to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, on Chicago’s south side, and so it isn’t impossible for me to meander over to the Number 3 route and ride north. The busses make their way to 95th Street now, and so the bus turnaround at 92nd Street is no longer required. It stands, half-derelict, used only on occasion, by people walking dogs, or—most recently—by neighborhood artists. (Someone decided to plant flowers around it and turn the whole turnaround into something of an outdoor art gallery. In subsequent years, however, the CTA-outhouse-shack/gallery has reverted back to it’s unused state. There are still occasional photographs displayed on the shack [the bus driver equivalent of an outhouse] and one or two of the more hearty flowers still grow. But that’s about it.) I can’t say that I have any real sense of nostalgia for my past. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t something I’d repeat, either. I will say, however, that I have a kind of body memory that I slip into whenever I walk through an area that was once an everyday part of my life. Things have changed, as they always do. I’ve lived overseas, and will again. The neighborhood in which my maternal grandparents lived, has passed through an epoch; a large-scale die-off is underway, as the “original” neighborhood settlers were all within the same general age group. New families occupy many of the houses, though the houses themselves look largely the same. Busses no longer use the turn-around area, but I suspect if I look hard enough or dig through the debris of dead plant stuff, I might find old, rusty children’s jacks (once thrown in an attempt to flatten bus tires, to see if they’d explode like they did on 1970s television. That bit of brilliance wasn’t my idea, I’m proud to say. And I’m rather disappointed to say that bus tires don’t explode when they run over children’s jacks. Hmmm…maybe that’s a good thing, though.) I might also find a few dead Star Wars action figures. A few of them took one way trips from my grandparents’ front yard: victims of various experiments in chemical rocketry, involving…well…crude, chemical rockets, masking tape, and action figure volunteers who never made it back home. They were always the action figures I didn’t like very much. I’m sure there’s a disembodied action figure head over there somewhere. On the day that I took this photo, I didn’t go looking for the debris of a past childhood. I was simply heading home--probably in a hurry to post "Between Roads" or something from that time period. I'd only paused to take this shot because of the photos adhering to the bricks, and the odd piece of dark cloth that obviously served a purpose I'm not certain of. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.