DRIVEWAY 2, BOB 0

                        

DRIVEWAY 2, BOB 0

Tomorrow is Diane and my 35^th wedding anniversary.  That means we’ve lived in the same house for 35 years.  (Well…maybe just a few weeks longer!)

When we went house hunting those many years ago, neither one of us seemed to notice the long, and very steep, driveway.  Why, I could literally sprint up or down it without an increase in heart rate. 

Since then, that driveway seems to have become much steeper.  I did have it resurfaced a few years ago but did not notice any increase in the angle between house and street.  Must’ve been, though!

About a dozen years ago, when Diane was visiting her parents in Arizona, I had one day where boredom overtook me.  During the early evening, I had consumed a few (too many!) Gin Martini’s.  I guess, in reconstructing the sequence of events, I decided to get something out of my car, which was parked on the steep slope of the driveway.  I have a very slight recollection of lying quite comfortably at the end of my driveway, partially in the street. 

My first clear memory was an unknown male voice asking, “If we lose you, do you want to be resuscitated?”  Those words tended to wake me up.  Not really understanding what had happened, I’m happy to say that my answer was consistent with my personal philosophy;  “No.”

The next few days were spent in the hospital, trying to figure out why I was there.  Not that the physical signs were insufficient.  Broken nose, concussion, face swollen and purple.

Putting it together, my forensic investigating skills at their best, I was able to piece the scenario together.  I admit, though, to this day, it is a blank.  However, sometimes circumstantial evidence is sufficient.

A young man who lived around the corner with his parents was driving home, and the route to his house was past mine.  He appeared at my home when I was released from the hospital and explained he had seen this “body” lying in the street, and called 911.

A friend of ours, whom I was supposed to meet that evening, drove to my house since she had called several times to wonder where I was.  When she arrived, there were police cars and yellow tape blocking the area.  The thought at that time was that someone had attacked me, and thus the yellow “crime scene” tape.

The first Police Officer on the scene, noting that the front door to my house was open, entered and found my cell phone.  The first number in it was my wife, Diane’s.  I can only imagine how she reacted when told her husband was in intensive care.  She managed somehow to get home the same night.

The investigation continued the day I got home.  There were bloody fingerprints on the outside of the back door of my car, still parked in the drive.  Apparently I had fallen, and tried to get up by grabbing the car (an obvious stroke of genius!)

And then continued my roll down the driveway.

For a long time, I thought the actual events would come to me.  Outside of the above reconstructin, I have had no recollection.

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My garbage pickup day is Thursday.  I religiously roll the three receptacles down the driveway and place them at the curb.  Sometimes, the container which holds the green garden and discarded food items is quite heavy.  To avoid it from speeding down the hill, I have developed a sort of zigzag path from the top of the driveway to the bottom.  This has always provided enough inertia to avoid the cart to build up too much speed.  I used the term “This has ALWAYS” worked.  Well, only once did it not work.  As I write this I am still purple in various parts of my body.  The scabs covering the wounds are still there.  My balance is now fortified with a walking stick.

The green waste got up a head of steam, pulling me down the hill.  Finally, when I let it go, the recoil pushed me backward.  Ouch!  No broken bones this time.  But also, no numbing alcohol to shield me from the pain!

Putting false pride behind me, I now am willing to appear in public with my walking stick.  (But don’t you dare call it a CANE!). I have asked for the local recycling company to pick up my bins at the top of my hill.  This entailed declaring myself as “disabled.”  Well, I did this for the department of motor vehicles a year ago, but it was all in writing.  This time I had to actually admit verbally to another human that it was unsafe for me to do this simple task.

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Is there some deep moral here?  How profound is it to say that it is wise to recognize one’s own limitations?  Could I, if presented with this thirty five years ago possibly think it would ever apply to me?

Maybe it needn’t be so complex.  Ah, yes, here’s a platitude which defies argument:  Do not fall down steep driveways:  If you do fall down a steep driveway, the pain is less if you are full of Gin.

DON’T FIX THAT!

DON’T FIX THAT!

I was just a kid during world war 2. Having reached maturity, (i.e.as in

physical deterioration,) I look back, certainly not with an unbridled

“Those were the good old days) attituded, but still with a kind of Nostalgia for some of the elements of my childhood.

Around the corner from our apartment was a hardware store;

“Schneiders.”

Stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s existed only in the minds of future

entepreneurs.  The idea of “Home Improvement” stores or even what

we now call “big box” retail stores such as Walmart and Target was the

purview of dreamers and science fiction writers. 

And lest you think we were a primitive society back then, let me tell you we DID

Have electric toasters, irons, coffee makers and sewing machines. 

(Well, some of the more affluent families among us did!)

And before I become blinded to the forces of sentimentality about the

 Nostalgia of the “good old days,” let me tell you that given the average

income of that era, those things we bought were, based on

affordability,  far more expensive than they are today.  And the notion

that “they don’t build them the way they used to” is true, the fact is

today’s products are far more reliable and long lasting then in the

1940’s.  Sorry fellow codgers,but  I remember a slogan for Pontiac

Automobiles: “Built to go a hundred thousand miles.”  Most of today’s

Cars, if  their manufacturers used that phrase today, would be out of business.

But let me return to Schneider’s Hardware Store.  Proprietor Jack

Schneider packed that little shop with more stuff that one could

imagine.  And he could tell you how to use it, whether it was paint, a

 lawnmower, a tool or some hinges.  Jack’s store had a sign in the

window that modestly put forth the claim: “If I don’t have it, you don’t need it!”  And he supported that claim on an almost daily basis catering

to a lower middle class population.  If you wanted to start a project, ten

minutes with Jack would not only get you supplied with the hardware

needed, but verbal instructions on how to do it.

When mom’s electric toaster would only toast one side of the bread, there was no thought of disposing of the toaster.   Jack would have it in order in a day.  If the iron wouldn’t heat up you’d Simply take it to Schneider’s, and it would be good as new in an hour or

Two.  Usually the cost of these fixes was measured in small bills, or

some pocket change.  Of course, Jack was probably paying about

twenty five dollars a month for rent, and he and his family lived in an

apartment in the back of the store.

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A few years ago, the CRT screen on my first computer simply flashed

one day, and stopped working….no image.

I questioned my coffee buddies.  Who should I take it to, to fix it?

My question was greeted with sympathetic smiles.  “You take it to

the curb, and you buy an LCD at the local electronics store.” 

“You mean it can’t be fixed?”

“Oh, yeah.  It CAN be fixed.  The average repair person charges about

$50 an hour.  The average repair TIME is about three hours.  You can

replace your sixteen inch CRT with a 22 inch flat screen for about a

hundred.”

Reluctantly, I GOT it!  And I heeded the advice.  But I felt like somehow

it was wasteful to do this. 

During the war, we saved (the word

‘recyling’ had not yet been invented.). Used clothing, tin soup cans,

even used solidified cooking fat.  We had a bottle in the kitchen with enough in it to make candles for a Christmas Nativity scene.

A few months after replacing my computer screen, my countertop

microwave failed.  There was a man around the corner who was an

electronic repair man.  Our phone conversation was brief but

nformative. He would be willing to inspect and evaluate the microwave for a minimum price of $50.  If it could be repaired, it would probably take  a couple more hours at $50 PLUS PARTS.  If he deemed it could not be repared, the initial inspection fee was non refundable. I am not good at math, yet I sensed discomfort with this proposition.

Montgomery Ward was still in business.  That day I purchased a much improved model microwave for under $100. I was learning what it was like to be living in a disposable world.

A few weeks ago, our Mr. Coffee pot stopped working.  Without a

second thought, I was off to Target, bought a new unit.  I can justify this

act by informing you that the model I purchased had the identical

glass carafe as the original.  So now I have a spare.  And the deceased

coffee pot was interred  without ceremony into the eternal care and custody of my

garbage service.

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At the same time, the science of medicine refuses to acknowledge the truth human disposability. (AKA MORTALITY.)  Every day they come up with new ways to repair and extend our existence. But, unlike the toaster, NOT our usefulness.

Is this is a good thing?  hould it have limits?  Is an

expensive repair fee which relegates one to a few more months of being strapped into a chair and drooling on ones self really a benefit?

Is an emergency surgery which guarantees only a limited extension

of acute excruciating suffering a  boon to human kind? Might it be more

beneficial to the planet and its mortal inhabitants to prolong the lives

of toasters and coffee pots, and simultaneously, ,our limited natural resources, than to extend those final days of misery, anguish and pain to our fellow human’s?  Just a question. 

I wonder if Jack Schneider’s great, great grandchildren are now performing heart transplants.