Dec. 31: The old red barn on the hill

Somewhere in South Glengarry, there really is an old red barn on the hill. You can see it while driving along County Road 2 beside the St. Lawrence River. I have never been inside that barn, though a picture of it has appeared in our newspaper before. We used to have a barn-of-the-week feature and I knew that, eventually, that old red barn would squeak its way in.

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The barn has the words River Run on it. These words are what make the barn memorable, especially because most barns are unbranded. By the way, there is a reason why most barns are red. In fact, I once did a story about it in the newspaper. Here is why most barns are red:

A recipe consisting of skimmed milk, lime and red iron oxide created a rusty-colored mixture that became popular among farmers because it was cheap to make and lasted for years. Farmers were able to easily obtain iron oxide the compound that lends natural red clay its coppery color from soil. Linseed oil derived from flax plants was also used to seal bare wood against rotting, and it stained the wood a dark coral hue.

Farmers also noticed that painting their barns with the homemade paint kept the buildings warmer during the wintertime, since the darker color absorbs the sun's rays more than plain, tan wood. So red paint spread in popularity due to its functionality and convenience, becoming an American tradition that continues to this day.

Source: Live Science.  

So there you have it. Barns are red because of convenience, frugality, and tradition.

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The River Run Barn is the quintessential barn. Whenever someone asks me to think about a barn*, it is the River Run Barn that I think about. I happen to know that it gets its name because it's on River Run Farms.

Apparently, River Run is a horse stable. Several pictures of the barn can be found on Flickr. The one above was taken by me.

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Grandad had a barn but it was neither red nor on a hill. There was a calendar in the barn from the 1950s. I asked my grandad why he didn't change it and he said there was no reason to. There was a radio in the barn. The radio was on. Grandad said he never turned it off. It might have been broadcasting continuously since before I was born.

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A red barn on a hill plays a prominent role in the 1980s slasher flick, Friday the 13th part 3. In fact, because of the presence of the barn, the film is sometimes referred to as "Friday the 13th, the one with the barn."

It's been a while since I've watched the Friday the 13th movies but, if memory serves, at least three characters get killed by Jason in the aforementioned barn. Since all the characters are members of an outlaw biker gang, no one really cares. Actually, no one cares about anyone getting killed in the Friday the 13th movies because everyone in them is stupid.

And now I learn that basketball superstar LeBron James is trying to reboot the Friday the 13th franchise. That's right - in between making slam dunks and wining NBA championships, he wants to bring everyone's favourite goalie mask-wearing mass murderer to the big screen. There are complications because Jason didn't appear in the first Friday the 13th movie; his mother was the killer in that flick. So LeBron may have to leave Jason out of the reboot and cast his mommy as the villain instead. That would sort of suck since the big reveal in the first movie, which functioned a bit as a murder mystery, was that Mrs. Voorhees was the psycho.

It kind of sucks that the last thing I am talking about in note-a-day is a silly slasher movie from the early 1980s, but hey... that's life with the rotating pineapple.

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* For the entirety of my life, there were only two people who have asked me to think of a barn. The first was a child psychologist who was trying to assess me when I was in Grade 3. The other was Orville Redenbacher.