Sunday, August 22, 1999 - Parking in the Fire Lane

One night last week Larry and I walked to Sun Mart Foods.  It was late, and the chil­dren had all gone to bed.  Just in front of the store, in the designated Lazy-Bones parking spot (actually the Fire Lane), was a grubby, longhaired man who couldn’t get his car started.  His young son and daughter were with him, along with a woman and her son, friends of his, to whom he had given a ride.  He was hoppin’ mad, cursing and swearing and throwing car­buretors crash-bang into the engine.  His graying hair stuck straight out and up in snarled, dirty sticks of a mane, of sorts, all around his head.

We stared, trying to pretend we weren’t, and went on into the store to get our gro­ceries.  As we were coming back out, I said to Larry, “Well, I don’t feel very sorry for that horrid man, but did you see the expressions on the faces of those poor children?”

Larry agreed, and went to see if he could help. The man was under the dash, muttering darkly, when we approached.

The boy, looking rather frightened, called, “Dad!”

“What!” barked Grouch R. Grubworm.

“There’s a man here to ask you something,” the boy told him, taking a step back­wards.

The man came out from under the dash, and tried to act at least a little more civil.

“Do you need some help?” asked Larry, “A ride, perhaps?”

Mr. Grimy declined, saying that the woman who was with him had already called for help, and he thought somebody would soon be coming.  So we walked on home, and then Larry got his pickup and went back to make sure they weren’t still stranded.  They were.

So Larry took the man, his two children, and the lady and her son home.  They lived somewhere near Bellwood, about fifteen miles away.

A couple of nights later, we went to the grocery again, this time driving the blue pickup.  Since it was raining, Larry parked in the same place Mr. Muck had parked his ill-fated jalopy.  He left it running, because the alternator had begun misbehaving, and he was a bit leery as to whether or not the vehicle would start back up again, should he turn it off.

So it died on its own, just as Larry was putting the bags of groceries into it.  And it wouldn’t even make so much as a ‘click’, when the key was turned in the starter.  Further­more, it was raining.  Not pouring, just a calm, steady drizzle.  I told Larry, “Well, at least you know how to act, after watching Mr. Soil B. Sullied!”

           We collected ourselves a granola bar apiece and set out for home, after one futile at­tempt to contact Hannah with Larry’s cell phone.  But she’d already gone to bed, and didn’t hear the phone.  At home, we got our nice, trustworthy Suburban, drove to the shop for some jumper cables, and headed back to the store.  It started raining harder.

Larry said, “It’s too bad it’s raining so hard; you’re going to get pretty wet when you get out to hook up the jumper cables.”

“And you are going to get pretty wet when you climb out to see what the enormous flash of lightning was, and why I’m flat on the ground, after I hook the cables up to the wrong battery posts,” I retorted.

He soon had the pickup started, and we drove both vehicles home, only slightly damp after all.

That little trek didn’t do much for my cold; I was already hoarse, and, by the next day, I was speaking only in a bass whisper.

Not feeling too well, I totally forgot I’d promised to go help Bethany with her com­puter at 5:00 the next day.  She called at six to see what had become of me.  I helped her a little bit over the phone until my voice went away entirely; and then I left her to fend for herself.  She told me that, the day before, the computer had locked up quite thoroughly; even the mouse refused to move.  The Wrights, who have a way of looking at things from a different perspective than most, tried a unique way of solving the problem:  they dismantled the mouse.

And, no, it didn’t help the state of the locked-up computer at all. 

Dorcas has still been taking care of Matthew in the mornings.  Monday she went back in the afternoon because Susan had to go to the doctor.  She’s not doing well again, because last Saturday she felt so good that she went out to play with Matthew in his sandbox a couple of times.

Tuesday evening, Kay, Evelyn, Julie, and Amanda came to church to practice I Will Not Forget Thee, which they planned to sing at our Wednesday night service.

Wednesday afternoon we finished cleaning the house (well, most of the parts that would show, anyway).  Everybody was excited:  we would be meeting an Internet friend in person for the first time ever.  After the service, and after we extracted her from all our friends who didn’t want her to escape before they greeted her, we had a very nice visit.

           One hot morning, the air conditioner fan quit, which in turn made the compressor get hot and quit.  Luckily, I noticed and turned it off before any permanent harm was done.  I called Larry at nine o’clock; he came and ‘looked’ at it.  ‘Looking’ at it doesn’t seem to fix it, however.  He was of the notion that it was simply ‘defrosting’, or some such thing, and would doubtless repair itself before long.

I have done some scientific studies on this issue, and have discovered it to be a some­what universal phenomenon associated exclusively with husbands:  they invariably believe that whatever it is their wives tell them isn’t working, really is working, if the wife would just know how to make it work.  Either that, or the wife simply doesn’t understand how it’s working.  The disgusting thing is, sometimes the article that wasn’t working, commences perfect operation the moment the husband reluctantly takes a look at it.  If one would re­search that latter matter, I’m absolutely convinced one would find that each of those refrac­tory objects was made by the male species of the human race.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that the air conditioner was ‘working properly’, our house was roasting hot all day.  Our house has very poor ventilation; the windows just aren’t placed suitably, and they are the sort that only roll open part way, and if you roll both sides open at once, one side blocks the other from any breeze that might happen to float by.  There is no shade on the west, so, as the afternoon and evening wear on, it gets worse and worse inside.  It was much cooler outside, but I couldn’t very well move all the furniture out there, so…

Larry worked until 9:15 p.m. that day (I accused him of staying at his shop that long on purpose, since he knew it was cooler there), and--would you believe!--when he walked in, he noticed it was kind of hot in here.  His fix:  he got a square fan from his shop, plugged it in outside, and laid it on top of the air conditioner box to blow against the non-working fan, which of course made the fan go round and round, cooling the compressor, and forcing air into ducts.  So the house began cooling down.  In the meanwhile, we went for a ride to Sapp Bros. truck stop, where Larry got some new switches for our water distiller, which doesn’t work either.

When the electrician, Arthur Frewing, one of our best friends, arrived the next day, we knew he was here--because we heard him laughing.  He was laughing over that box fan lying atop the air conditioner box, blowing air down into it.  He shrugged, grinning at Larry.  “Well, if it works…”

Arthur had us back in working order in no time.  But I have to say, albeit unwillingly, that with the square fan on top of the air conditioner box, our house was cooled better than with the air conditioner working on its own.

One day Hester showed Victoria how those awful locust shells could hook onto her dress and stay there.  Victoria peered down at it, eyes wide, arms well behind her back.  "They're really nice?" she queried, and then she shivered violently from head to foot.

Her mother rescued her.

Friday, Larry and Joseph went to Madison to get a couple of cars, one for Lincoln Auto, the other for Lawrence and Norma, who came to see it later that night.  They came in to look at my Colorado pictures, which I’d just gotten in the mail, and Larry made us some coffee.  We chewed it while we visited.  That’s right, we chewed it.  Whewee!  Was that ever strong coffee!  When the pot was half empty, I added four more cups of water, and it was still too strong.  We decided, since Larry liked it just fine, that he must be part Turkish, because they like Espresso so dark it must be eaten with a fork, I think. 

Last Sunday, Genoa’s airplane hangar was demolished in high winds.  It was lifted clear off the ground, carried a ways, and then dropped on the highway.  Fortunately, there were no vehicles there at the time.  Saturday, Larry and Joseph went to get the metal remains of the building.  He wants to use it for fencing, and metal fencing is rather expensive.

That afternoon, Joseph and Teddy mowed the lawn, while Dorcas, Hester, and Lydia pulled weeds in the flower beds.  Teddy found a baby garter snake in the back yard, and brought it to the front door to show it to Caleb and Victoria.

Victoria, who knew he was coming, tipped her head and smiled at me.  “It’s a little baby”--she wrinkled her nose and curled her lips--“snake?”

Caleb just had to touch it--and then he shivered all over.  “Ewwwww!  I don’t like them any better when they’re babies than when they’re great big!” he exclaimed.

Victoria clasped her fingers together, palms outward, and shivered likewise.  “And I don’t, too!” she agreed, nodding adamantly.

Victoria likes slides -- but she wants help when she's coming down the big one at the park with the double humps.  If she arrives at the second hump and sees no one nearby to help her, she grabs the sides to stop herself and calls, “Kiiiiids!  Catch meeeeeee!” and, of course, somebody always comes running.

Saturday evening, we practiced the song There’s a Sweet By and By For the Christian with the Wrights’ quartet.  It’s a beautiful song, one of my favorites.  Penny, Linda, and Leanne practiced Only Glory By and By, another of my favorites.  As it turned out, the songs were even more appropriate than we could’ve guessed, because Mrs. Gehring died Sunday morning.  There’s a sweetness in the songs about heaven that does one’s heart good when something sad has happened, don’t you agree?

Loren and Janice were in Colorado, but my mother called them on their cell phone, and they came home immediately.  The Gehrings have been here in Columbus longer than my own family has.  Walter was our head deacon from the time my father came here, until finally his ill health caused him to ‘retire’ (if that’s what a deacon does) from the job, although he still holds that position, honorarily, and is gladly welcomed to any deacon’s meeting he is able to attend.  We feel so sorry for him, and also especially for Jeanne, who is a dependent person who will no doubt be quite lost without her mother.

But they have a network of friends, 270 strong, who love them dearly.  They won’t be forgotten.