The last of the floors done--whew!

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“Do you have a socket set?” he asked

                 Robert and Clayton had spent one day last week prepping the kitchen and back room floors to receive the vinyl tile I’d selected.  The next day, they laid it. The former activity took much longer than the latter. Now it was time to move in (from the back porch--cleaned to a fare-thee-well to hold the six large appliances) and hook up the range. Done.

               Next, they moved the fairly-new refrigerator inside, hooked up the ice-maker pipe, and then plugged it into the wall recess. I say recess, because the wall was originally thick plaster. Over time, it had crumbled and was lying between the outlet and the paneling. A piece of the wood had been cut out to access the electricity.

 

               Then they moved the washer and dryer in, but left them freestanding on carpet squares. Something wasn’t right. With their sharp carpenters’ eyes, they noticed the fridge was leaning forward. 

 

               “Do you have a socket set?” Robert asked. I didn’t. So while he lifted the front of it with a carpet-square-cushioned crow bar, Clayton unscrewed the front feet of the appliance until it was squared up. Voila! Their job was done, so we hugged goodbye and wished each other happiness.            

 

            Eddie came the next morning to lay the new base shoe (what I called quarter round). He used a coping saw to cut the wood at-an-angle for door frames, corners and thresholds. Then he, too, took his leave after a conversation about deer hunting and his son’s house that he would help build off Brazil Road near here.

 

            All that remained now was Steve-the-plumber. He replaced a piece of paneling behind the washer that had stained and softened. He soldered fittings for new flex metal hoses, put in a new “box” to house the washer hoses and tightened the drain hose —after it pulled off in his hand. He attached the lint hose to the dryer and tested the two machines.

 

            He’d bought a metal pan for the water heater (requiring a hole drilled through the floor to the dirt of the basement) in case it ever leaked.

 

                That left the dishwasher. Here, Steve found something else: a frayed wire at the back of the space. “Looks like a mouse gnawed on it,” he said.

 

               Uh-oh. Aren’t there enough cats on this hill to keep the mice away?

 

               He called an electrician; we made an early-the-next-morning appointment. When that was repaired, Steve would come back and hook up the dishwasher.
 

               He took his boots off at the door, Richie did--this young electrician whose grandparents I taught school with. “No rat chewed this,” he said. “It looks frayed, that’s all.” He did his thing and attached a metal box that jutted into the empty space at the back.

              That afternoon, Steve saw the box and said, “Aw, that won’t hurt anything. It’ll fit right under the body of the dishwasher. But he didn’t test the machine, and he, too, bid me goodbye with a ‘Call-if-you-need-me’ message and a wave.

 

              Would I need him?

~~

 

c 2014 Pat Laster dba Lovepat Press



August events and deadlines have swarmed..........

 

 .......... so you get an updated post on one of my favorite subjects: birthdays and birth names.

                August 19 was my late mother’s (Anna Pearle Scott) birthday (1912). It is also Bill Clinton (1946) and Tipper Gore’s (1948) birthdays. Plus a jillion others’, not many of whom I’ve heard of. Oh, some actresses, composers, but beyond that, no. The list I viewed began during the 16^th century and ended in the 1970s.

Mom had a thing about Bill Clinton because they shared the same birthday. She loved him. He (his office) sent her birthday cards. She sent him birthday cards. She had two FOB Christmas tree ornaments she dearly prized. (And I continue to use.)

                She would have watched everything on TV about Chelsea’s wedding. Likely, she would have said, as was her tendency, “For such an ugly child, she made a pretty bride.”

                Mom didn’t like her own mother’s spelling of Mom’s middle name (appearing on her wedding announcement), so Mom omitted the “e.” Her parents’ names were Flossie Samuel and Elmer Holloway.

                I named my fourth child Annamarie—one word—after both her grandmothers. I often laughed and said, “It could have been Margie Pearl!” In all my name-collecting, I have never seen that combination.

                Ah, a perfect segue into something that takes up hours (when added over the years) of my leisure time, my paper-reading time: names. It started with the High Profile section of the daily state paper. Odd first names; odd surnames. Then I discovered the obituaries held, in addition to names, so much more information.

Lately, I’ve begun keeping a name’s list of those 90 years old and older at death. And if he/she was born before 1920, I keep a list of the deceased parents’ names. (A good friend told me once to 'get a life.')

Compare the names of the parents of this generation to the parents in early 1900. Now days, parents of either the deceased or the engaged might be Susan and Eugene, Cynthia and Timothy, Patricia and Paul, Sharon and John.

                Ninety years ago, parents' names were George Washington and Lucinda Beatrice, Frank Willie and Anna Elizabeth, Virgil and Dora, William and Myrtle, and Richard and Mary Ida. (BTW, I have a beloved friend named Anna Elizabeth. Some things don't change.)

                Given names of engaged couples—except for Elizabeth and William, which span all times—are noticeably different, too.  A Rachel Lee (middle name) is marrying a Nathan Lee (middle name. In earlier times, a William Daniel married a Sarah Adeline.

                Today’s parents have names like Beverly and Quranner; in the old days, it might be Fred and Mittie Jane, or Clenis and Odessa, Argus and Effie. Like Dave Barry, I’m not making this up.

                One more example:  Parents today might be Kathy and Denny, Janet and Steve. In the decade of 1910-1919, it might be Will and Willie, Mattie Pearl and Hugh, William Dexter and Bertha, Len and Beulah.

 Fascinating, the changing fashion in names. In one issue of this month’s Saline Courier, were the following new babies’ given names: Tinleigh Rein, Yesenia Angelic, Tate Ryan, Xander Hayden, Tinley Elyse, Chevy Lynn Kayee Vegaa and Hunter Matthew.

Just this morning--and before I even read the obits in the state paper--I jotted down these names: Kayliee, Vivica, Dellar, Kiyanda, Deja and Brianetay.

AND this from Wednesday: Chris Christopherson-- a California fire spokesman. Is no name sacred???

 

Look, Daddy, she hugged that stranger!

Dancing with a former stranger-

pic by J. White, at Beaux Bridge, Louisiana

 

 

                But Daddy, I thought we weren’t supposed to even speak to strangers.

                Darling, that’s for little folks. Big people are different. Some talk to strangers all the time. It’s called being sociable.

                Now, here’s the big people’s response to this hypothetical scenario. I’m the ‘big people.’ At 7:30 Saturday morning, after two people had commented that my front tire looked low, and before I drove to Conway for a 9:00 writers’ meeting, I tooled south to Williams Tire--my mechanics and all-round good guys. Only one youngish man was already there, standing and watching the big TV in the waiting area.

                After I surrendered my keys, I walked over. “Looks like rain today, and I’m headed to Conway,” I said to the handsome stranger. We chatted a bit about why we were in this place.

                “I took my son to the high school for a football game and decided since I was this close, I’d check on . . . .”

                I didn’t catch on to the last part of the sentence. What I DID hear was a football game ON SATURDAY morning. When I said, “The little boys?” meaning the future Panther teams, he said, “No, it’s a high school mock game.”

                I must have done the melodramatic back-of-the-hand-against-the-forehead gesture. “I used to teach there. So glad I’m retired.”

                “I thought you looked familiar,” he said. “I was in your class.”

                “Who are you?” I asked.              

“T - - - H - - - - - -.”

I might have whooped, but I don’t remember.

“I remember your name. Was it at Eastside (Junior High)?

“Yeah, Eastside Cougars.”

That’s when I hugged him. And he returned it.

“Isn’t it great that there’s life after junior high?” I said, and he laughed heartily.

 

Darling, see that? Sometimes for big people, strangers turn out to have been younger folks that have grown up. It’s okay to hug them. You’ll understand some day.

Keep your fingers out of the clippers

 See those clippers? Their cousins bite if you're not careful

 

                When you’re left-handed and you slice open the top part of your left-hand pointer finger. . . well, there are a few things it’s hard to do with it wrapped in a tissue that makes it twice its size. Like type. But it’s doable. Typing my password with one hand is possible if I watch the keyboard. Wiping my nose is a breeze. Working the crossword puzzle is impossible.

                This is not the first time I’ve gotten some part of my anatomy too close to the vine or privet or sassafras sapling I was cutting out of the yellowbell hedge.

For all its heavenly aroma, honey suckle is the devil to deter. It wraps itself around the host so tightly it’s hard to nudge the clippers between vine and host. But it’s hard to fathom how—while I’m holding the clippers in my left hand, how I can get a finger of that hand between the blades. But I did, and because I take a doctor-ordered baby aspirin daily, I bled like a stuck hog. I was never that close at hog-killing time, but it’s an expression I’ve heard since Hector was a pup.

I remember (back when Hector WAS a pup) my grandma Flossie severing the tip of one of her fingers while doing something at the well house. She—smart widow woman that she was—took the piece of flesh inside, dipped it in sugar, replaced it on the cut and probably wrapped a handkerchief around it. Then she walked up the lane to catch a ride to the doctor. Compared to that, my injury is nothing.

When he was five or so, my dad got too close to his dad’s table (planing?) saw while it was winding down and lost three fingers on his right hand. Granddad tossed the severed flesh away, even though Dr. Jones’ office was nearby. With time, scar tissue grew over the stubs – the size of my tissue-wrapped digit—but with his thumb and pinkie, he still was able to do his carpentering jobs as an adult. I presume the result of that accident is what kept him out of the war. Though he couldn’t be a soldier, he did help build Fort Leonard Wood.

Many’s the time I’ve jammed my hand holding a washcloth down into a glass or a fruit jar only to have said piece break. There are several scars on my dominant hand for proof.

One time while living in Arkadelphia, I cut a gash into my pinky, and white stuff oozed out. I took Billy (6 or 7) years old and we checked in at the emergency room. When the triage doctor saw it, he delivered the most withering look anyone had ever laid upon me—except Mama. We must have skedaddled because that’s all I remember about the event. The ooze was fat, I suppose. I should have known better and seen to it myself in the first place. Like Grandma Flossie did with her fingertip.

In the sequel to “A Journey of Choice,” one character falls into a puddle of glass and pretty well messes up the side of her face.

Warning: be careful when wielding clippers, saws, knives, and use a brush to wash jars and glasses. Our ten fingers are one of God’s greatest gifts to humankind.

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