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[Jan. 22nd, 2005|06:32 pm] |
Hearing Paint Dry
My grandfather has always had a knack for the succinct phrase, something so elegantly worded yet can express so much.
I first came across this gift at a very young age. I was probably about 4 or 5 and we were all sleeping in one bed, 3 of us, sleeping the wrong way in one of the bedrooms. That's how it was. There were more kids than there were bedrooms and you had to bunk up. We didn't care. It was more fun this way. It was almost too fun, because we couldn't get to sleep. We were making a lot of noise, and giggling. Grandma Tina came in and asked us to please keep it down because Grandpa was in the other room. "Your grandfather can hear paint dry!" she said, chuckling with us, but firmly tucking us in.
This was a new thing to me! Hearing paint dry? I knew that my grandfather did a lot of painting. He was around paint a lot, in fact. Maybe he knew something that we didn't! I was sure that he painted one room and then sat and had coffee listening for when to put on the next coat.
This made me abnormally quiet and allowed all of us to get to sleep. I continued to think about my grandfather's ability. Could this apply to other things? I yawned silently, then froze in terror! What if he heard that?! A yawn! So thinking, I fell asleep.
The next morning, my grandfather greeted me from outside the bathroom. As I came out, he called after me. "Didja wash your hands?!" He was always asking us about washing our hands. You could depend on hearing that sound when the door opened as often as you'd hear it squeak. The door would open, squeeeeeeeeak. From somewhere in the front room. "Didja wash yer hands?" Sometimes that's how we knew that the bathroom was free. "Didja wash yer hands?" "Hey, bathroom's free!"
"I certainly did wash them!!" I knew better than anyone else about the germs that could be spread. I'd been told by so many adults about germs that I was germ-o-phobic. Leave the bathroom without washing hands? Never! In fact, just thinking about it made me want to go back and wash them a second time. Eech!
Then I got his attention again. "Hey, Grandpa Nick... Last night Grandma Tina said that you could hear paint dry. Is that true?"
I saw the ghost of a laugh hit my grandfather's face, then he grew all solemn. He leaned towards me, as if to tell a secret. "Not only that, Danny, but sometimes... I listen to the grass grow!"
Wow! The grass grow! That got my attention. It's some kind of super hearing. I thought about it all for the next few days and there were many days afterwards when I would sit in the back yard and just listen for the grass growing, convinced that I could hear it. But I could never actually hear any paint drying, as much as I tried.
After that, I heard a lot of wonderful, succinct phrases. I came to depend on my grandfather to put into one phrase all the emotion that I was feeling and to do it with a funny image, too. Have a bad day at work? "That guy was busier than a one-armed paperhanger!" he'd day. Now there was a busy man, I thought as I imagined some poor sap with one arm trying to hang some paper. I mean it wasn't my fault that he took this job in the first place. I guess it's okay to laugh at him a little bit.
Or if you hated your job, and there were plenty of times when I did and I was steamed at somebody else I worked with. I'd come home and Grandpa Nick would be over. I could tell him all about it, commiserate a bit and get a choice phrase to wrap it all up in. "Yeah, nobody likes to go to a place they hate. That's goin' to work with a fork in yer throat, let me tell you."
Garbage can was "cabbage can". Decaffeinated coffee was "unleaded". If you were swindled in a bad business deal and lost your shirt, well: "That guy really raked me over the coals!"
It was liberating to talk like this, to think like this. As I got older, I understood what effect exaggeration and metaphor did. It kind of told you to take what life gives you, but don't take any guff... and if you can dish it out to somebody else, more power to you.
One of my favorites is, "You got any irons in the fire, Danny?" This one's great because you don't have to talk about the irons if you don't want to. You don't have to list the irons. You don't have to justify why there are only so many irons in this particular fire. It's just enough to trust that the irons are there. In all honesty, I've never seen an iron in a fire and if I did, I wouldn't grab it at least not without some kind of glove. I just need to say, "Yeah, Grandpa, I've got a bunch of 'em." "Thatta boy!" |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 22nd, 2005|03:52 pm] |
The Snowblower
As I was clearing the driveway of our house during our first snowfall, I got to thinking about when we had to do this as kids.
My brother and I took turns shoveling or mowing the lawn, along with other house-related tasks. We had recently purchased a snowblower during a recent sale right after a huge snowfall. In 1979, everyone was buying snowblowers, attaching plows to their cars, becoming part seal... anything to master the force of a Chicago winter. But snowplows and snowblowers were the big sellers. We had a red Toro.
I loved using this machine, much more than the lawnmower. It was horribly loud, screaming red and smelled of gasoline and oil. I loved using it and showing that snow who was boss. I enjoyed painting the side of the house with a coating of white snow like a huge airbrush. I even enjoyed those slightly embarassing moments when you had "hit earth" and coated your fresh white landscape with a dark dusting of dirt and frozen grass.
I detested starting it. Even though it had an electric start along with the pull-cord, I couldn't always get it running. I also held a healthy respect and fear of combining electricity, melted snow and gasoline. Yet with my small, squat stature, even more encumbered by a bulky coat, I usually had a slim chance of starting it.
Failure was not an option, even though I imagined getting out of the chore because I couldn't start it. If we had to shovel it manually, that's darn well what we did. You never, ever tried to explain to Dad that a chore wasn't done because you couldn't start the tool. Better to explain why your arm wasn't working. We also knew that if you broke the news to Dad that a tool was not working you also landed the chance of Helping Dad Fix It. This second, even longer chore, was dreaded even more than the first chore could have been. There would also be no help on Earth if you were the one who broke the tool or had lied and the tool started up immediate when Dad pulled the cord.
As I was finishing the driveway, I had an inspiration. I would not only shovel the sidewalk, stairs and the driveway, but I would also finish the cement apron that our camper sat upon. Wouldn't my Dad be surprised?
I imagined him coming home from work and seeing that some magical team of elves had removed every shred of snow from the cement on his property. Who hired this vast team of workers? Whatever did he owe them? I could see him walking in and not even having to wipe off his boots! I could see it all happening.
So real was my vision as I grinned, that I didn't see how close I was to the camper. In front of our camper are a few items that were buried in a comfortable looking mound of snow. I thought I had skirted away from most of them, however I heard a deafening clatter even above the noise of the snowblower. This went on for a second or two and then all noise abruptly stopped. Completely.
I heard nothing but silence as is common after a snowfall. Occasionally I heard the passing of a car, but that was it. Dead silence. I leaned over to see what I had done.
An involuntary squawk exited my mufflered mouth as I saw the huge chain from the camper wrapped around the blades of the snowblower about seven revolutions. This chain, over 10 feet long, had been neatly rolled up in front of the camper. Now it was holding the snowblower captive as neatly as a dog on a leash.
I tried to fiddle with it in my inexperienced way, however I didn't want to make it any worse than it already was. I knew that there had to be a switch or something to release the blade and allow the chain to be unraveled, however I didn't know where that was. I figured it had to be out of the way so that it didn't release while the snowblower was in operation. I was at least that insightful.
No amount of tugging, pulling or grunting would budge that chain. The snowblower itself wasn't going anywhere, either. I was at a loss as to what I should do. So I went inside the house to get warm.
Some time later my father arrived home. I think he was more confused than angry and he ended up asking one of his favorite questions with me. "How?" ("Why?" would be his second favorite, followed by the all purpose "Dan?") I didn't have a proper reason, but I did explain that I just got too close to the camper with the snowblower.
"I can see that!" he responded. I could see that any more input from me would only make him more upset, so I just stood by, ready to help. I knew that I had won the chance to do so and I was obscurely proud that I had made this father-son bonding moment possible. We had a nice moment with me handing him the correct tools and existing as an outlet for his anger and cursing. He of course managed to remove the chain from the jaws of the beast. Thankfully he did this quickly, as I think he began repeating curses and that can get embarrassing if you are a professional curser, like my father.
Oh yes, I did finish the driveway after that, keeping well away from problem areas. I'm sure that my Dad was annoyed when I left huge parts untouched after I was through with it, but I never heard him say anything after that. |
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| Hearing Paint Dry |
[Jan. 22nd, 2005|06:32 am] |
Hearing Paint Dry
My grandfather has always had a knack for the succinct phrase, something so elegantly worded yet can express so much.
I first came across this gift at a very young age. I was probably about 4 or 5 and we were all sleeping in one bed, 3 of us, sleeping the wrong way in one of the bedrooms. That's how it was. There were more kids than there were bedrooms and you had to bunk up. We didn't care. It was more fun this way. It was almost too fun, because we couldn't get to sleep. We were making a lot of noise, and giggling. Grandma Tina came in and asked us to please keep it down because Grandpa was in the other room. "Your grandfather can hear paint dry!" she said, chuckling with us, but firmly tucking us in.
This was a new thing to me! Hearing paint dry? I knew that my grandfather did a lot of painting. He was around paint a lot, in fact. Maybe he knew something that we didn't! I was sure that he painted one room and then sat and had coffee listening for when to put on the next coat.
This made me abnormally quiet and allowed all of us to get to sleep. I continued to think about my grandfather's ability. Could this apply to other things? I yawned silently, then froze in terror! What if he heard that?! A yawn! So thinking, I fell asleep.
The next morning, my grandfather greeted me from outside the bathroom. As I came out, he called after me. "Didja wash your hands?!" He was always asking us about washing our hands. You could depend on hearing that sound when the door opened as often as you'd hear it squeak. The door would open, squeeeeeeeeak. From somewhere in the front room. "Didja wash yer hands?" Sometimes that's how we knew that the bathroom was free. "Didja wash yer hands?" "Hey, bathroom's free!"
"I certainly did wash them!!" I knew better than anyone else about the germs that could be spread. I'd been told by so many adults about germs that I was germ-o-phobic. Leave the bathroom without washing hands? Never! In fact, just thinking about it made me want to go back and wash them a second time. Eech!
Then I got his attention again. "Hey, Grandpa Nick... Last night Grandma Tina said that you could hear paint dry. Is that true?"
I saw the ghost of a laugh hit my grandfather's face, then he grew all solemn. He leaned towards me, as if to tell a secret. "Not only that, Danny, but sometimes... I listen to the grass grow!"
Wow! The grass grow! That got my attention. It's some kind of super hearing. I thought about it all for the next few days and there were many days afterwards when I would sit in the back yard and just listen for the grass growing, convinced that I could hear it. But I could never actually hear any paint drying, as much as I tried.
After that, I heard a lot of wonderful, succinct phrases. I came to depend on my grandfather to put into one phrase all the emotion that I was feeling and to do it with a funny image, too. Have a bad day at work? "That guy was busier than a one-armed paperhanger!" he'd day. Now there was a busy man, I thought as I imagined some poor sap with one arm trying to hang some paper. I mean it wasn't my fault that he took this job in the first place. I guess it's okay to laugh at him a little bit.
Or if you hated your job, and there were plenty of times when I did and I was steamed at somebody else I worked with. I'd come home and Grandpa Nick would be over. I could tell him all about it, commiserate a bit and get a choice phrase to wrap it all up in. "Yeah, nobody likes to go to a place they hate. That's goin' to work with a fork in yer throat, let me tell you."
Garbage can was "cabbage can". Decaffeinated coffee was "unleaded". If you were swindled in a bad business deal and lost your shirt, well: "That guy really raked me over the coals!"
It was liberating to talk like this, to think like this. As I got older, I understood what effect exaggeration and metaphor did. It kind of told you to take what life gives you, but don't take any guff... and if you can dish it out to somebody else, more power to you.
One of my favorites is, "You got any irons in the fire, Danny?" This one's great because you don't have to talk about the irons if you don't want to. You don't have to list the irons. You don't have to justify why there are only so many irons in this particular fire. It's just enough to trust that the irons are there. In all honesty, I've never seen an iron in a fire and if I did, I wouldn't grab it at least not without some kind of glove. I just need to say, "Yeah, Grandpa, I've got a bunch of 'em." "Thatta boy!" |
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