Unable to keep in memories of fence

(Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis)

The fence is badly in need of new paint. A dozen New England winters and springs will do that.

But I can't bring myself to restore it, or paint over it. It represents a family moment, frozen in time. So the weathered wall is probably going to remain untouched by scraper or paintbrush.

Our wood fence was installed sometime in the early 1990s, a typical suburban structure designed to keep kids, cats, and dogs out of the driveway. A tasteful battleship gray with white trim, the fence provides a speck of privacy in a neighborhood peppered with big houses on small lots. We played a lot of Wiffle ball back there.

It was a short poke for righthanded pull hitters. Our three kids were young, but they were versed in the nuances of Fenway Park, and it didn't take long for someone to suggest that we paint the left-field wall green.

Not the whole thing, mind you. Just the two inside sections in the corner.

We were lucky. I knew a guy who had real Fenway paint.

When Boston's beloved baseball theater opened in 1912, its color was described as "Dartmouth Green," but in the early 1990s, the official hue was a lighter shade called "field green." In the latter part of the 20th century, the Smith family of Wilmington painted Fenway's Wall, using a custom blend made for the Red Sox by the California Paint Co.

Joe Mooney was the Sox' groundskeeping guru in those days. When I asked Mooney where I could find a close replica of official Fenway paint, he gave me a half-bucket of the green gold. The Sox always had a few cans handy for small jobs and touch-up work.

Our backyard project didn't take long. The kids helped with the green part. Armed with rollers, 4-inch brushes, and a dented can we relabeled "Monster Green," they were latter-day, baseball-crazed Tom Sawyers.

I took care of the detail work - the white trim that would replicate Fenway's left-field scoreboard.

Decisions had to be made. Declaring an opponent was easy. We were going to stencil a single game on our Wall for eternity, so the Sox had to be playing the Yankees.

Today, the fixed numbers on the old wall serve as an archaeological dig of sorts. The starting pitchers are No. 21 for the Red Sox and No. 46 for the Yankees: Roger Clemens vs. Andy Pettitte. The identities of the starters certify the Wall was painted in 1995 or '96. Clemens's last year with the Sox was 1996 and Pettitte did not pitch in New York until '95. All those years ago, how could we have known the infamous manner in which the two would be linked in the Mitchell Report of winter 2007-08?

It was agreed we would feature Mo Vaughn (No. 42) batting for Boston. Mo was MVP of the American League in 1995, and every kid in New England loved him.

We had a little fun with the linescore. In Little Rascals script, our board has the Sox leading, 7-0, in the bottom of the eighth and Clemens is working on a two-hitter. The Yankees have 20 errors. Forever. Got to like that.

I was reminded of our old scoreboard when I read a June 29 Globe Magazine feature about a New Bedford artist (M-C Lamarre) who specializes in Fenway-inspired murals. Her work adorns bedroom walls, dens, and even the broad side of a barn in Waterbury, Conn.

She's good and she's thorough. Lamarre's Wall usually includes the expanded out-of-town scoreboard and the logos over the numbers. She even replicates the ads. Like everything else at Fenway, the Wall was simpler back in the days when I did my artistry. I mean, who among us had ever heard of W.B. Mason back in 1995?

We walk past our Wall every day, numb to the attention it gets from first-time callers at Chez Shaughnessy. In that way, it's a little like the real Fenway Park. When you work at Fenway every day, you can forget how great it is until you see the wide eyes of folks making their first visit from Nebraska.

My son has a favorite Wiffle memory from the early days. A lefthanded hitter, he learned to take advantage of the Wall with an inside-out swing. One day he sliced a foul ball into the street just as a landscaping truck was passing through. We never found that ball. It must have nestled into the back of the truck. We like to think it's still traveling. Longest homer he ever hit.

Time passes. Our old Wall is flagging and sagging. Mo's number is partially obscured by hosta plants, and the apple tree - a mere sapling in the mid-1990s - is a virtual Sequoia rooted in front of the shabby Monster. The little people with the paintbrushes and rollers graduated from high school and a couple of them are done with college. They played a lot of softball and baseball in the years after outgrowing Wiffle Fenway.

Every family home has something similar. It could be a squeaky swing set, a splintered tree house, or a rusted basketball hoop over the garage. It's a place where things happened, where there was always noise, nonsense, and laughter.

Paint fades and peels. Memories are forever lush and green.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.