For decades, my family has labored under the ludicrous
belief that I am a bumbling goon. They have even taken to referring to me as
“Clark”, not in reference to Clark Gable; no, it is homage to the fictional
Clark W. Griswold, Jr. To which I offer
a hearty “Horsefeathers!”
I began this line of thought after wheeling into the
bank-in-a-box to grab some quick cash. Of course, the person at the machine
ahead of me was attempting to apply for a mortgage via the keypad of the
ATM. Twenty minutes later, I was on my
way. This caused me to think of the absurdity of some things. Not the least of which was the above
assertion. Such a comparison leaps entirely over “Sublime” and lands squarely
on its keister in “Ridiculous”
It certainly could not have been from the time I was
striving to get our young daughters off to school. Of course, it was a time
fraught with pleading, cajoling, even bribery, to get them all into the car at
the same time. While backing out of the drive, someone announced they had left
something in the house. I put the car in park, shut off the engine, and took
the key. I told the girls to “wait here, I will be right back, and DON’T TOUCH
ANYTHING.” I was a young father then; I did not realize “don’t touch anything” translates
into “goof around, push buttons, do what you want.” One of the things our
daughter Char opted to touch was the garage door opener. As the door was open
at the time, its list of options of what to do next was pretty limited.
Now, this was not a “hip style” door, which is a series of
horizontal sections, hinged to flex and roll up or down within the confines of
its track; nice and orderly. No, this was a “Marquis De Sade” style door, a
single piece of steel, slightly less formidable than an Abrams tank. It was not
hinged; it did not roll up and down in a confined track. No, this monstrosity
would swing out, up and back to open. Closing was the reverse; the mammoth slab
of steel would move forward, down, and swing inward to close.
While walking at a pretty good clip, I suddenly felt a
tremendous pain in the center of my forehead, saw a brilliant white flash, and
heard the sound of the door continuing to close. I sported a dandy gash and bruise in the
middle of my forehead for some time.
Naturally this brought to mind the Great Luminaries
Incident.
Back in the late 1980’s softly glowing luminaries were quite the in
things. This was prior to the ubiquitous
empty plastic milk jug being repurposed. These consisted of a nifty translucent
paper bag, about the size of a brown paper lunch sack, some clean kitty litter
and a votive candle. At times, various designs, such as snowflakes, or
Christmas trees, would be perforated in the sides of the bags, making a
charming display.
The children and I carefully assembled the bags, and set
them gingerly along our walk way. In eager anticipation, I struck a match,
lowered it toward the candle, and exclaimed “Golly gee! That is kind of warm!”
or something to that effect; it was apparent, the candles were too low to reach
with a hand held match or lighter. Attempts to extend the reach by grasping the
match with a pair of pliers proved to be rather futile.
It was at that time I was seized by a flash of brilliance;
why not use a propane handy-man torch?
In retrospect, I can give you a fairly sizable list of “Why
not”, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Seized by the prospect of a
quaintly illuminated walkway, I cast all aside. Some of which included the
basic laws of physics, and thermodynamics.
Thrusting the brass tube and tip of the torch in the bag, I
triggered the ignitor. I chuckled as I saw the needle sharp blue flame burst
forth. I became a tad concerned when I saw the tip of the flame curling upward,
riding upon the current of hot air rising within the chimney of the bag. I reached
the “OH NO” point as the bag began to darken, smoke, and finally ignite. The
kids arrived at the “DAD! It’s burning!” point simultaneously. The unlit candle was nestled snug and secure
upon its bed of kitty litter.
Did you know that burning paper bags can spread from one to
another when they are placed in close proximity? Especially when a brisk
December breeze springs up? Neither did
I. What we did learn, though, was snow
makes a dandy fire extinguishing media. When
it was all over we had the most picturesque pile of sooty snow, frozen kitty
litter, and randomly placed candles you could ever hope to see.
This also brought The Christmas Tree Caper to mind.
Years ago, one of my customers was a Mom and Pop hot-dog and
ice cream stand. In order to increase traffic and sales, the owner would sell colorful
hanging baskets in the spring, perfectly shaped pumpkins in the fall, and
Christmas Trees in December. Wanting to support one of my loyal clients; we
loaded up our Chevy van and went to get our tree.
The van was a humongous white Chevrolet conversion van. I
referred to it as Moby, an unaffectionate reference to Moby Dick, the great
white whale.
After enjoying some hot chocolate, chit-chatting with the
owner, we found our tree. The young men
working in the lot tied the tree to Moby’s roof. With a beep and a wave, we headed for home.
Turning on to the freeway, I accelerated up the entrance ramp. Thirty-five,
forty, forty-five….suddenly a scraping sound from the roof of the van indicated
that all was not well. Our daughter Aubrey exclaiming the tree had fallen off
confirmed my suspicions. Glancing in
the mirror I saw the tree rolling and bouncing along, trying vainly to catch up
to the van. Adding a bit of comic relief was a stream of vehicles playing
dodge-em with the tree.
I pulled over, and carefully backed down the shoulder about
a hundred feet until we were within a reasonable distance of the tree. For its part, the tree simply lay there,
beckoning us to come to the rescue.
LB decided it would be easier to thrust the tree into Moby’s
rear-end rather than wrestle it to the roof.
She flung the rear doors open as Aubrey, Gabe, and I went to recover the
tree. I didn’t realize Cleveland had so many friendly people; as we were
dragging it across the on-ramp, so many folks beeped and waved as they sped
past. I am not sure what or who they were saying was #1 though.
We trotted to the van, and began to jam the stupid thing in
Moby’s open maw. If you have ever considered stuffing a pine tree into the back
of a van, don’t do it. Trust me, it doesn't end real well.
The kids were providing forward motive power for the lousy
bush while I was attempting to guide it between the captain’s chairs. At some
point, the combined force of two overcame the calm, reasonable, analytical
efforts of one. I found myself ensnared by the grasping tentacle branches of
this vegetative monster, being pulled into Moby’s gaping rear.
Surely, I would have been lost, were it not for the back of
my new leather jacket fortuitously snagging on a door hinge. With the
gut-wrenching cry only ripping leather can emit, the brave jacket gave of
itself to save me.
After much frenzied pushing, shoving, and cramming we got
the bush from Sheol half-way in the van. We were encouraged by the cheerful
honking and waving coming from the weaving vehicles passing us. We pulled the
doors as closed as they would go, and then tied them securely with the remnants
of the dental floss the lot guys had used, and went on our way. A snow squall
roaring in off Lake Erie provided some additional levity.
Various events coursed through my mind;
The time I was on the platform at church and realized I had
a pair of black and brown loafers at home perfectly matching the pair I was
wearing…
.
The time I traveled to Florida for a week-long business
trip on a Sunday evening. Imagine the smile of delight on my face come Monday
morning when I discovered the only shoes I had were the deck-shoes worn on the flight…
I recalled a business seminar in Chicago. LB had accompanied me. Our plan was to meet
with a friend at The Berghoff downtown. As I hurried along, saw what I thought
was a hallway and did the old “bird-into-a-window” trick. Much like a bird’s,
my beak was also broken.
LB and our friend were amused beyond words by the constantly
changing colors of my nose and eyes. My heart was warmed to know I had provided
them such joy.
My little mishaps also extend to the great outdoors. It is
no secret that I am very fond of woods, mountains, and fields. My skill level
is a very well kept secret. For example, while conducting a refresher course in
black-powder for our son Gabe and son-in-law Eric, I decided to see if they
were paying attention to the proper loading technique. I cleverly loaded in
reverse order, placing the lead ball prior to loading the charge of powder.
This was to test their powers of observation, which both young men failed
miserably. The error was confirmed when the percussion cap "snap" was not
followed by the rifle’s "boom". They did
learn the proper technique for tugging, yanking,and pulling a stuck ball from the
barrel of a muzzle-loading rifle.
I pulled my Jeep into the parking spot at work. I shook my
head while chuckling at such a silly notion my family insists upon clinging to.
I retrieved my coffee cup from the console between the seats. Bemusedly, I
watched as the cup separated from the lid in my hands, splashing hot black
liquid upon the console, the passenger seat, and my khakis.
You know…they may have a point after all.
