Poems

Chore Boy After Dark

119 Comments

The reason for my fixation with ladders and gravity yesterday – one of the jobs on my list was to wash the outsides of the southward-facing upstairs windows before the weather turns. Yesterday that meant “do it right away”. But much of the day was bright and clear at my house, and direct sun does not help when you’re trying to do a decent job of cleaning glass.

So I waited. This is a practiced skill – putting off the beginning of the work until later. Much later.

When the sun finally started to disappear behind the hills, I grabbed my bucket and ladder and I discovered that doing this sort of work at night just amplifies the feeling of second-story dread. And I also found it possible, while wrestling with a 12 foot ladder, to write another one of those dreadful sing-song poems about falling.

Today the sun described its arc
It shone on home and nearby park.
Now in its fading westward spark
I’m washing windows in the dark.

Coyote, in a Looney Toon
That Acme Anvil toting goon
While missing rungs, he writes his ruin
Up off the ground beneath the moon

The neighbors to their dinners dash.
While serving up potato mash
They might not hear a distant crash
My ladder sliding off the sash

But in the quickly fading light
I’m making sounds that canines might
discern. A high pitched, screeching blight.
My sqeaking squeegee in the night.

A sound the local dogs abhor.
Their puzzled masters, they’ll implore
Don’t be like the baboon next door
Climb nighttime ladders? Nevermore!

What crazy risks have you taken to finish the job?

119 thoughts on “Chore Boy After Dark”

  1. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    I will have to think about this one for awhile. I’ve not been one to take crazy physical risks to finish anything because I’ve never had much physical prowess to work with! The biggest risk I can think of to finish something is using my check card then running to the computer to transfer money so that I don’t bounce anything.

    Off to the treadmill. Have a great Friday today. I have a busy, busy day planned–making up for time off earier this week.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thought of it — it is just not ladder bound.

      Rather than finish my career and retire from a Social Service/Mental Health organization with security, I started my own biz.

      Everyday I’m up on the psychic ladder, tipping, balancing, tipping….

      Like

      Reply

      3. Nice thought MIG.
        I might add your Trail Baboon creative license qualifies you to be creative in all forms of expression. You don’t have to pass any additional tests. Just give it a try.
        But is there a creative organ donor code?

        Like

        Reply

      4. If you’re donating a creative organ, does it require a monkey (a la organ grinder)? Would an old theater organ do? (We had one of those in our house when I was a kid…)

        Like

        Reply

  2. a good and gracious morning
    and thanks to Dale for the funny, and well-written and rhymed poem!

    the only thing i WON’T stop doing because of dark or other consequences is stop milking a goat in mid-stream, so to speak. (i chicken out from other tasks rather eagerly – i never even studied all night. what? not sleep???) stopping milking would risk their health but it would also give the doe the upper hand. one kick – i stop – easy, she says.
    when i first began, March of 2007 right after Alba was born, Dream was not very happy with me and i was a greenhorn and showing my fear. i think i’ve told this already so you can go back to sleep. she was dancing and i was trying to use a little hand-milker that i thought would make things easy. not. i approached from behind (a no-no) and was trying to attach the milker. Dream brought up her left rear hock solidly into my mouth and i could feel a warm, sticky liquid flowing. i kept on – finally going to hand milking which worked only a bit better, and from the side thank you.
    when i got in the house Steve shrieked – i looked in the mirror and had blood all over my face. but i didn’t give up. and Dream stood better the next time.

    Like

    Reply

    2. If you told this before, I must have missed it. What a dedicated goat mom you are.

      “neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night, nor hoof in the face will deter this milker from her appointed rounds!”

      Like

      Reply

  3. Hmm, all I can think of just now are things like driving home through the Halloween snowstorm at midnight after trying to get a set completed (the show was supposed to open that weekend – it was postponed) or designing more set than I was capable of completing (and not being brave enough to backtrack on the design) when I found out I was pregnant with Darling Daughter. Thinking on the latter, I probably would have had an easier time if I would have been into my second trimester…but first trimester tiredness and queasiness was a bad combination with an elaborate box set. Wound up bribing a friend with beer to come in and help with painting the “flagstone” floor. Thankfully the director was sympathetic (though I did have to swear him to secrecy about the pregnancy so his wife wouldn’t panic about my being up on ladders, getting back to yesterday’s topic).

    Like

    Reply

  4. Good morning and do good,

    I have taken short cuts to finish projects which were risky because I sometimes end up with nothing but a mess to show for the work I have done. This happens regularly in my garden when I do some quick last minute planting which doesn’t turn out well.

    I think the biggest risks I have taken to complete something is driving when I am too sleepy or driving when the roads are in very bad condition because I want to get home. In one instance I ended up in the ditch trying to drive home from work when the roads were covered with ice. Another time I fell asleep and went off the road. These mishaps have taught me to be more careful about driving when tired or when the roads are in bad shape. I will drive when road conditions are a lttle risky because here in Minnesota you would miss a lot of things if you were unwilling to drive when the driving conditions are a little dificult.

    Like

    Reply

    1. i thought wheni tread the first time that you said you drove when you were tired or in really bad condition. i thought that is a unique way of saying it jim. i hadn;t thought you the type. just close one eye and drive really fast.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Well, Tim, I am a careful driver except for my problem with falling asleep or with trying to drive when the roads are in bad shape. Drive fast with one eye close? Not me!

        Like

        Reply

      1. I know Al Batt. I forgot that he uses “do good”. He lives around here. I was trying to think of a short way to say that we should try to avoid crazy risks or doing bad on a day when we are recalling them or on any day. Of course, if we do good all the time we might not have as many interesting stories to tell.

        Like

        Reply

  5. As a young man, I yearned to own a sports car. After graduating from college, I had so little money that was simply not realistic. So I began looking at motorcycles. That freaked out my mother so thoroughly that my parents bought me a car. They couldn’t bear the thought of a foreign car, so they bought the closest thing they could find with an American badge: a Corvair Monza Spyder convertible.

    It was sexy looking, with that “Coke bottle shape,” and it had a super-charger on the carburetor, but it was actually a bit of a piggy Detroit econocar in terms of how it drove. I learned I could make the car “sporty” if I sent away for two kits that I could install myself. I waited for my folks to leave the home on errands and then I jacked up the Spyder and began installing stuff. Now might be time to say I had never touched the innards of a car before and had zero competency with auto repair.

    I had no trouble with the little dinguses to improve the steering, but the conversion of the mushy, slow gear shifter proved to be tricky. After sweating on my back for two hours, I called a local garage and tried to wheedle a mechanic into making a house call.

    “Let me get this straight,” said the mechanic. “You are crawling around on a concrete floor under a Corvair that is held up by a single bumper jack???? I think I’m going to be reading about you in the newspaper tomorrow morning, bozo! This is the dumbest stunt I’ve ever heard of. I wouldn’t go under that car for a million dollars!”

    I thanked him and ran back to scoot under the Corvair again. Trying hard not to push the car left or right, I finally got the shifter modified and I was washed up by the time my parents got back.

    I’ve actually done stuff that might have come closer to killing me, particularly when I walked into an icy marsh on a cold November night, but I didn’t quite die that night. And that’s a story for another time.

    Happy Friday, Baboons! I think I might have wine with dinner tonight and toast the disappearance of bumper jacks. They were horrible things, weren’t they?

    Like

    Reply

    1. I hardly ever try to do any work on my car these days. I have had some frustrating battles with oil filters that wouldn’t let me replace them in the past.

      Like

      Reply

      1. you know if the oil filter beats you , you had better give up on the rest of the stuff. although they did start hiding stuff under the hood so that you’d have to come in for work. there was one engine (70′ i think) where they had to lower the engine a couple inches in order to get at the oil filter. even the mechanics at the dealerships thought that was ridiculous.

        Like

        Reply

    2. Steve,
      I also had a Corvair to drive in my youth. In fact, one month after I got my license I drove that Corvair right in front of an oncoming van. I survived the crash, of course. But the humiliation stays with me. That, and the name “Norbert McNamara Plumbing and Heating” painted across a hood that was 2 feet away and approaching at 30 mph.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Ooooh! I’d hate to die colliding with someone named Norbert.

        My Corvair came to a sad ending. It caught fire and burned up like a picnic marshmallow shoved too deep in the campfire. Flames 30 feet high. My Corvair was a lousy winter car, but man it made a great bonfire.

        Like

        Reply

      2. The first day I got my license ON my birthday at the ripe old age of 16, I took the family’s 1966 Plymouth and my friends to Tony’s Drive-In to celebrate. I got the car stuck between a tree and the speaker/menu stand, then had to get it out. This process attracted ALOT of attention. My face still gets red thinking of it.

        Like

        Reply

  6. Well. there was that time I was working construction and I had to move a bunch of bricks from the 14th floor, and I tried to speed things up by using a barrel on a pulley. It’s a long story, but it didn’t work out so well. Use the hod.

    Like

    Reply

  7. Good morning all!

    Well done, Dale!

    My oldest son, a junior in high school, just completed a school assignment shadowing a professional for 4 hours. As part of the college and career planning process, he chose a dentist. (Why he opted for dentistry is for another day.) Someday I’d like shadow you for a day to observe the creative process.

    As once again today’s ballad reminded me of Swede Land from “Peace Like a River” and her epic poem of the exploits of Sunny Sundown that mirror her daily life. I really enjoy it Dale.

    Getting back to your question for today – where do I begin? I’ll keep it short and write only about the most recent risk. After snapping a cable on the garage door, I elected to fix it myself when I learned I could get replacement cables for $8.00 the local home store. (Those of you who have every worked on the common 2 car garage door might know where this is going.) I figure the best way to replace the cable was with the garage door up when all the potential energy was stored in the door itself and NOT the main spring.

    Really a simple task: 1) Disconnect the one remaining cable. 2) Wind the two new cables around the pulley and 3) connect each cable loop to the door. Now if only I could find someone to hold the door open… Oh well, let’s get to it.

    Thankfully I didn’t have to request medical attention. The only casualty was the five gallon bucket that was crushed beneath the weight of the door as it came crashing down just before I could attached the first cable. Oh, and did I mention I need to replace the garage door now?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Dan, ending up with a mess when doing home repairs is one of my specialties. I have found out that I should start plumbing repairs early in the day on a day when the local hardware store is open. I usually need to make at least three extra trips to the hardware store before I manage to stop the leaking in my plumbing repair jobs.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I learned a lesson this week about “pay attention to the plumbing” when one of those “yeah, I should take care of that soon” things turned into a leak through to the kitchen ceiling. So now I have a second thing to fix…

        Like

        Reply

      3. Alas, no. My Lloyds of Monday day happened before the plumbing incident. That came on Tuesday. Maybe I should have Lloyds of Tuesday insurance, too.

        Like

        Reply

    2. And Dan, I think now that you have reminded me of it, I shall have to read “Peace Like a River” again. I enjoyed Swede’s poetry – it was charming.

      Sorry to hear about the demise of your bucket and your garage door. 😉

      Like

      Reply

    3. i had a handy 2×4 to stick in the door when i opened it. heavy wooden door with windows in it. i was in the garage as a kid one day when the spring let loose and put a 2 inch gash in the top of the ford falcon 3 feet in front onf me that gave me lots of respect for those springs.

      Like

      Reply

  9. I washed eight windows at the top of my old wooden step ladder yesterday. I used bricks under two legs to balance the ladder. I climbed one step beyond the step where it indicates you should not climb. I did this alone. I got a huge splinter straight into the soft part of my thumb from the ladder. I can’t get it out.

    Then I mowed and bagged and mulched the entire lawn which is one large south-facing sliding hill with native beds planted in the steepest areas. It was dusty, hard work.

    I got it all done, drained the oil from the mower, changed the air filter and cleaned under the housing. It feels good to put that thing away.

    One risky thing that I routinely do is drive to Mankato or St. Peter and back home to help with or be part of musical events – even in snowstorms. We will have “My Sweet Patootie” tomorrow night at the Bothy Folk Club concert in Mankato. Snow is predicted.

    I tried hard to get to work the day of the Halloween blizzard. I lived in Northfield at the time and worked in Faribault as a nurse. I think I got as far as Dundas and found they’d closed the highway.

    Otherwise I’m a big chicken.

    Like

    Reply

    2. but a hardworking big chicken. good job yesterday. get the sliver by digging it out with the end of a pin. saftey pin hat pin any kind of pin. rip the hole open so you can grab the sliver with a tweezers or it will bug you for days. a little aloe after you’re done digging and you are good to go.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I have also found that soaking the splinter in warm soapy water first can help soften things up. Best tweezers I have ever owned is the small one that comes standard on most Swiss army knives (not the knock-off pocket knives, the real Victorinox ones). And follow tim’s advice to use a pin to dig it out a bit, that helps too.

        Like

        Reply

      2. and for Pete’s sake, sterilize that pin before you start working it around that sliver. A dip in some rubbing alcohol will make me feel better about the operation.

        Like

        Reply

      3. Actually, you should only use a needle to dig a sliver out of your skin–sterilized by holding the tip in a flame until it glows red. (Then, wait until the needle cools down to stick it in your thumb–duh!) Needles are normally made of stainless steel and won’t give you infections while pins can have nickel and other metals in them. I’m not intending to be judgmental here, just that there seems to be a need for a mother doling out advice in this day of foolhardy activities!

        Like

        Reply

      4. Thanks, tim. I was actually thinking of the little Victorinox pocket knife. The blade is fairly sharp. I was thinking of cutting in a little above the splinter, then down toward it, then going at it with the tweezer. We must have similar knives, Anna. Yes, I’ll using the alcohol – thanks, MIG! You are all really kind.

        Maybe I’ll try it tonight with a little brandy on the side… 😉

        Like

        Reply

      6. In Jon Hassler’s Novel of old Men “Simon’s Night” he speaks of an old male resident of a nursing home who is always looking for slivers in his fingers and how much he misses them.

        Like

        Reply

      11. i am laughing because after discussing splinters today i got both hands filled with fiberglass splinters from installing the reflective driveway markers before the snow hits. some were backed over last year by te ups man and so when you put them bak in tis year the bottom 4 inches are screwed up from being bent at a 90 degree angle so you bend it back and forth to snap it off and pound it into the ground. when it looks like you have bent it back and forth enough you try to snap it off. zip zap fingers full of fiberglass slivers. no way to tweezer them out. they will tunt you for days for being an idiot.

        Like

        Reply

  10. I have reached the point in my life, or more to the point, reached a point in my body, that such things being here described are in my past. (And I had many such a stupid and lucky a moment. My right thumb is pointed, thanks to quick and unthinking moment with the table saw. My body is covered with scars.) Thus we are selling our house, or should say hoping to sell our house, and move to a place where rather than squeegee at night or crawl under the sink, or make a bigger problem that the one I am trying to fix I will call the owner or manager. To make this change I am putting all my tools for sale, which made me think of my father at the same point in his life and thus awhile back I wrote this prose poem:

    A Manure Fork with Missing Tines

    In 1965 my father, with his sixth grade education and three college-educated children—my older brother, my sister and I—gave up his 165-acre farm because none of us wanted it with its hard work and few modern conveniences and far from a job to which our accounting and education degrees would apply in the decayed steel industry in the northeast corner of Minnesota.

    So they moved 25 miles away to five acres where my father could build some fences and a machine shed to hold his small tractor and a wagon and a plow and run a few sheep—a down-sizing from Holstein cows—and help my mother keep her large gardens, a task he avoided as woman’s work on 165 acres but which helped occupy his time on five.

    In 1973 we took away his driver’s license because he kept doing dangerous things like stopping in the middle of busy intersections, after which he gradually lost the ability to do even the basic tasks required for their small house and his five acres.

    In 1975 with my mother’s prompting he decided to leave the five acres because I refused to drive the 50-mile round trip from the town from which they had moved in 1965—having found a teaching job in the place I was once so desperate to leave—to drive those 50 miles to do anything but the needful chores.

    Because they decided to move 450 miles to South Dakota to an apartment near the daughter who was not a son who had failed to keep up the 165 acres or the five acres, my father had to give up a life-time collection of farm tools and carpentry tools and mechanics tools and blacksmithing tools, the emotional impact of which I did not recognize at the time.

    So he sold his tools and gave many away to men he hardly knew and who perhaps did not want them. But to me he gave a few broken tools, such as a rust-coated pipe wrench and a manure fork with missing tines, the symbolic implications of which would not escape Sigmund Freud and did not escape me.

    In 2010 I find myself at age 65, the age my father was in 1973, with a collection of tools, large but not as vast as his, but including a few of his good hand tools, which I had stolen from him at my mother’s suggestion in 1975; but now I must move, not from 165 acres or five acres but to some place where I cannot use these tools, a few worn to fit his hand, most worn to fit mine, and, yes, a few never even used.

    Now I know what it cost him in 1975 to let go of his tools and never again build or mend or simply look at them or hold them or smell them and to give up most of his manhood and thus try to kill himself several times, a last job at which he might have succeeded if he had still possessed the proper tools.
    My tools will be sold and a few given to my son-in-law, who is an escaped farm boy like me, who will know how to use them, but none will be burdened on my son, who lives 2000 miles away and would find them alien artifacts. However, that is as it should be, and with it I am content, for my tools or even what I mended or built with them are not my legacy.

    Perhaps that is what my father meant, if he knowingly meant anything, when he gave me the manure fork with the missing tines.

    In Memoriam: Lewis Birkholz.
    Born Lewis Radtke in Marathon, WI, April, 1908
    Lived in Sebeka, MN, Isabella, MN, Two Harbors, MN, Duluth MN, Brookings, SD
    Died in Brookings, SD, June, 1985.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I have a lot of things that were my mother’s at one time. I know I need to give up some of them, and the decluttering/organizing line on this is that they’re just things. Well…they are and they aren’t.

      Like

      Reply

    3. That’s a fascinating and moving tale, Clyde. It is surprising how much the experience of aging takes the form of losing or giving up things, and only a dolt would fail to see the symbolism of giving up the tools whose functions helped define us as a human being. I’m currently selling or giving away the fishing and hunting tackle that permitted me to have a career in a certain kind of writing. And it feels so unspeakably strange to think, “If I give up this thing, that means I will never again do ______,” when that activity was something we were passionate about most of our lives. It is hard to escape the sense that one is, in this sense, a manure fork with missing tines. Perhaps the challenge is to find what we can still do–or possibly do even better than we could before–of the things remaining within our dwindling capabilities.

      Free to any interested Baboon: a superb weight 8 fly rod with a cunning multiplying fly reel.

      Like

      Reply

    4. well said clyde. you are so good at bringing these memories back for us in pictures that allow us to see the sitution. don’t sell your computer. thats the tool you can enjoy in the new chapter of your life. use it well and often. fter seeing your typing last night it may be time to look for the voice activated program huh?

      Like

      Reply

      1. The tools will be sold next Saturday. Will ge the list to you later today, tim.
        Steve, there are layers of things I am giving up, as we all do. For instance my partner and I started a business 19 years ago. Two days ago I saw him almost certainly for the last time. Me with my ataxia, allodynia, fibro-fog, and high pain. He with his Parkinsons shutting him down and nine years younger than I am.

        Like

        Reply

      2. than you for the contributions you made while you were able. the stuff you have written about what you guys offered is stuff i wish they modeled the teaching criteria around today. the efforts you offered were for the betterment of all. thanks and take pride and solace in the knowledge that you did good. thanks

        Like

        Reply

    5. One thing that I longed for, even as a kid, and ultimately received, was my grandfather’s collection of wood planes. A number of them are in no shape to be used again for their intended purpose. But they are lovely. All shapes and sizes, most are wooden with only metal for the plane, and some are clearly for a particular size or type of planing. Some of them were gifts, which he has inscribed with pencil with the year and the giver’s name. My grandfather was also an escaped farm kid who became a teacher (after a short stint working the railroads). He was not a carpenter, but he loved his wood planes. And now they are mine and I love them, too.

      Like

      Reply

      2. Sweet, Anna, I’m so glad you have them. If we could just find the person who would really value them for all our things of worth…

        Like

        Reply

    6. Thank you, Clyde, for so eloquently explaining why it is I have geraniums in the basin from an old cream separator, a collection of rusty files on my tool bench, and a darning egg with my sewing tools, even though I have never darned a sock.

      Like

      Reply

    7. Clyde, my Dad had a lot more skill at using tools than I have and still had an old tool box with an odd collection of his tools when he moved into assisted living. He gave me the old box of tools and there are some of them I can use. Latter, when my Dad was still doing small repairs on things in his small assisted living apartment he actually asked me to buy a few new tools for him and I got him a small new tool box to use which he liked. Now that he has passed away I also have the small collection of tools he used in the last years of his life.

      Like

      Reply

    8. Beautiful prose poem, Clyde. It will help me remember the importance of tools as I help my elderly parents deal with two garages full. Sandblasting cabinet, anyone?

      Like

      Reply

  11. When I lived on the North Shore my next door neighbor Phil and I had many an adventure together. We were both raised to do it ourselves, no matter how great our ignorance or high the risk. But this was the best moment.
    We both owned a very narrow strip of land across Hwy 61 atop a 35 foot high cliff of crumbling shale. Right on our property line atop the cliff was a small birch tree threatening to take much of the cliff top with it when it eventually fell. So we decided to cut it down first. So over the edge went Phil, because he weighed about 80-90 pounds less than I did. He wore a harness and I held the rope. We decided that he might get in a situation which would require him to let go of the chain saw, so we also attached a rope to the saw and tied the other end to another tree. Phil climbed gingerly four feet down to the tree on the loose shale. When he was positioned where hopefully he could cut the tree and not have it fall on him, he lifted up the chain saw to pull the starter. I gripped the rope tightly. We nodded to each other. He pulled the rope. It roared to life. The cap came off the gas tank and dropped into the lake. Gas poured all over Phil. He shut down the saw quickly. We were both laughing so hard we had trouble getting him back up.
    He changed clothes, and we went and got my chain saw and made sure the cap was on tightly and repeated the operation successfully.
    If we had only tied a rope to the gas cap. Then there was the time we had had a standing tree on fire . . .

    Like

    Reply

      1. No, alive. One of those birches that grow out of the banks above Lake Superior, starting 2-5 feet below the edge, arching down and then back up, weighing quite a bit at ther bottom. When they fall they do usually take much of the bank. One of the problems that MNDOT has yet to address is that this crumbling 35-foot-tall shale wall is now only about 8 feet from the edge of the highway.
        If you are driving up past Two Harbors, about 3 miles from the TH campground, there is a place where the large house on Silver Cliff (Jumerhoff) is framed right in front of you and the lake comes in right beside you about 40 feet below you, about a mile short of the first tunnel. That is the place.

        Like

        Reply

  12. I routinely take crazy risks to get to and from the job. Not so much to get the job done. People’s brains become proportionally smaller the larger the vehicle they drive (that’s a paraphrase of or part of an idea of something Chomsky said), and they don’t see very well before they’ve had their morning coffee. There isn’t a day when I ride my bike or run to or from work that I can’t say “I almost got hit today”, especially now that these trips take place partly or fully in darkness.

    Happy Friday, all!

    Like

    Reply

    1. lots of reflective stuff i hope. bless you who ride bikes on this planet. i saw yesterday the minneapolis bike program was a huge success with 100,000 rides and blue cross blue shield has pledged to toss a million bucks at the program to expand it in minneapolis and add st paul to the deal. thank you r.t. for pushing this one through.

      Like

      Reply

      4. You live in the wrong area then. Kids are out biking, skateboarding, walking, etc in my neighborhood (and the town I live near) constantly. I have to watch for them at all hours. Luckily, my neighborhood also has sidewalks so I don’t have to worry about them on the street 🙂

        Like

        Reply

      7. Sadly, this is true of Mankato. There have been numerous news-making accidents in which pedestrians and/or bicyclists have been struck by cars and killed. I can think of 3 incidents in the last 5 years.

        Like

        Reply

  13. Love this line, Dale – My sqeaking squeegee in the night… I think we may have one of those on our block.

    In my Space Wizard downsizing business, one of my tasks was to “disappear” the things people were letting go of. So the risky part was not having any idea at the beginning of, say, a garage clean-out job what I would have to haul away. Usually what didn’t fit in the recycling and trash bins, I toted in boxes or bags to Goodwill using the back end of the (then) Saturn wagon, which really held quite a lot. Best case scenario was boxes of boox I could take to Half Price. 🙂 But then there was the old defunct lawn mower, or an old mattress… got lucky a couple of times with permission to use a nearby dumpster, but Husband did have to help me on a couple of runs. You’d be amazed at what can be lashed to the roof of a Saturn.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Yes, and I forget about that because I’ve never learned to use it. But soon… my neighbor just got rid of a ton of stuff on Craig’s List, too…

        Like

        Reply

    3. I’m a fan of Freecycle – it’s a great place to find new homes for your no-longer-needed-stuff. The caveat is that you’re giving it away for free, but then it’s out of your house, and that’s a good thing.

      Like

      Reply

  14. i am a maniac at heart and have been aware that this needs to be tempered before i get myself into stuations where my tendancies can not back up after the fact. but many episodes come to mind just the same. i broken bones and stitches from idiot moves. the last broken foot from doing a job i felt needed to be done in one of my warehouses, i will do it rather than ask someone else to do an idiot job, i was in the bone doctors office and his helpre guy looking at my yellow purple foot said ” did you know you know you were in toruble before you were in trouble.” i told him i did and he said about 80% of people who come in busted up say they knew they shouldn’t do it before they did it. i have used that as a good measuring tool since. oh by the way, my daughter lost their piano books the other day and we used steves look where you think it is only look harder rule and lo and behold there it was in a variation of where it should have been. i love that. smiled to enjoy plugging new wisdom gleaned form the blog. i may have to get back and give some more fun examples later. clyde already used my cutting trees with a chainsaw while wearing a barge rope story so i will skip that one.

    Like

    Reply

  15. One of the saddest men I ever met was the husband (now ex-husband) of a family member, a man whose passion was gathering and hoarding stuff from garage sales. He fancied that he would become a photographer, so he bought three used photo enlargers and all the trays and timers. He hoped to exercise, so he bought four recumbent bicycles, all broken, and didn’t get around to fixing them. Over the years his purchases mounted until all that stuff filled a large two-and-a-half-car garage, stacked floor to ceiling, without even room to walk through the stuff. And each thing represented some pathetic vision of the man he might become, someone who created art after a vigorous session on the treadmill; only he never got farther than accumulating the outdated and broken accessories that he imagined would allow him to finally become the man he was meant to be, not some sad-eyed old guy with a warehouse full of broken dreams and unrealized ambitions, pondering a musty old monument to a life intended but never lived.

    (For a much funnier take on this Google George Bilgere’s poem “Unwise Purchases”.)

    Like

    Reply

    2. What a sad story you’ve shared, Steve. There’s a great book called “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”, by Terrence Real in which he writes about generations of men whose dreams were never realized. He goes on to describe the effects on their sons, grand sons, and so on. It’s sad and amazing how broken dreams can convert themselves into a legacy of pain throughout generations, especially given the reality that it remains unconscious.

      Like

      Reply

  16. Thought I had posted this eary this morning, but apparently not.

    I will be reaping that which I have not yet sewn this weekend (see our earlier discussion of procrastination), which may well involve falling asleep at the sewing machine. Sewing machines have neither buckets nor pulleys, so I feel pretty safe in doing this. The only time I have ever had an “incident” with a sewing machine, I was wide awake and REALLY concentrating on what I was doing (just not especially on where my finger was).

    I am also prone to trying to lift too much at an awkward angle, because, well, it needs to be moved and there is just little old me. (s&h is getting there…….)

    Like

    Reply

  18. Evening everyone…

    Been a busy day; took my wife and my sister –(You all get that’s two different people, right?) to the MSP airport this morning for a quick trip to visit my niece, the sister’s daughter.
    Sure has been fun reading to the end; I think this entire week has been one better day after the next! You are all so witty and clever and fun. Thanks!

    I know when I was younger I did stupid things; I’m still sort of fascinated by things that spin but I’ve managed to avoid sticking my finger into the middle of the blender other than that once…
    And I agree, usually just before it happens you say ‘This is really dumb’… Isn’t it Darwins rule the most famous last words are “Hey Guys- Watch this!”

    But now, I’m all about safety. Farming is dangerous. Theater is dangerous. And it’s when you get in a hurry that you do stupid stuff. How many stories of farmers getting run over by machinery or loosing fingers or arms do we need to hear? How many theater people falling off ladders or rigging can we take?
    Honestly people! Slow down and Be CAREFUL!

    Like

    Reply

    1. it says gravitar allows you to manage all you different identities in one place on the web. so the ex dairy farmer, theater guy email addict looks like a very sound citizen with this new identity. night ben

      Like

      Reply

  21. eden prairie football got whooped by brainerd and the son is free to begin living life freely until spring training for baseball. its funny how you give up all options in life in order to be part of a team.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Clyde Cancel reply