The Shack

Naomi asks, "What does/did your family do that is/was different from other families?"

Leo answers:

It’s hard for me to think of something that my family did that was different from other families, but I think I had some unique opportunities and experiences as a child. Some were very good and some were hard. One of the best things was when my dad and I built a kind of playhouse when I was about 11 in our backyard. We called it “The Shack”. It was my own special place. I slept out in the shack from the time the snow melted until the snow came again the following fall for about 3 years. It was like my bedroom, but it was 20 feet outside and away from the rest of the house. We had an extension cord that went out there so I had light and heat and could listen to my own music and read late even when I should have been sleeping.

One that was hard was when my parents got divorced. They tried for a long time to make things better and even lived together again a few times for a while but my Dad could not stop drinking alcohol and it made him too unpredictable.