This is probably a New Year's Fest, circa 1955 or 1956. Why the folks have placed a mattress frame on end up there, I have no idea, but I'll bet one of the boys can remember. The deck was a flat-roofed addition to the farmhouse. I seem to remember that it was 18 feet x 30 feet. The metal roof is visible behind the celebrants. I know that roof well, the summer after we moved in I painted the whole thing with a four inch brush. Dad put a ladder flat in one of the segments and I painted adjacent segments by moving down the ladder. I don't know the age of the roof; the original house was built between 1840 and 1860. The floors were wide pine boards fastened down with square-headed nails. I think these nails were hand-forged. I do know that Thomas Jefferson, earlier, had a slave whose job was to make nails. Jefferson sold surplus nails to others for a profit, but despite this Monticello was not a huge financial success, I seem to remember. But that thing about hand-forged nails has stuck with me, for some reason.
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