Sleepy Saturday

Stayed up late last night, so I'm feeling a bit logy today. The good news is that the only thing on my schedule is sweeping and mopping out the Attic building. Whoo-hoo!

Write about a tool: After supper my dad usually worked on cars. He had been a mechanic at Rosenberg's gas station, but quit there and started up a business of his own. There were always two or three cars in the back yard, parked under the willow. Of course, the folks at Rosenberg's didn't like the fact that he was undercutting their business. My dad, on the other hand, didn't like the idea of making somebody else rich. Besides, he was flexible in the way people made their payments. A lot of the time, he took eggs and boxes of fresh vegetables and even home-made sausage in place of cash. He said it just made things a lot simpler. Mrs. Fitzgerald, who cooked for us at the time, liked that everything was fresh, or maybe a day old at the most. Suppers were generous affairs, and Mrs. Fitzgerald always took something home once things were cleaned up, which was, I think, a big part of the reason she cooked so well for us. When she was ready to leave, my dad always thanked her for the meal. I don't think I ever saw her leave without being thanked. She would lower her eyelids and say that it was pleasure.

Then after supper, he went out to the garage, to the cars. When I had finished my homework, I'd go out too and hand him tools and listen to him explain what he was doing. He would ask for an Allen wrench, for instance, or a ring clamp, and then he'd talk me through the procedure.

"You see what I'm doing here?" he would ask, leaning over a car engine, a light bulb hanging on the raised up hood, and turning a screw on the carburetor or the intake manifold or some such component.

Sometimes I got it right, but most of the time I didn't have a clue. I'd make my best guess, usually couched in terms of two plausible possibilities, and hope for the best. Then he'd smile and say that I was close, and explain what he was working on. I'd listen and wait for him to ask me to hand him one of his tools, black with grime in where it had been stamped deep, and gleaming dully in the light of the bulb overhead.

Bob ;-)