Nailed to the Wall

Is it just me, or is it true for most husbands?  I cringe when my wife tells me she wants something hung on one of the walls in our house.  The thought of pounding a nail into a perfectly good wall 
makes me squeamish.  If God wanted holes in walls, He would have made them that way. 

Years ago, I worked at U.S. Steel’s headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh.  The office walls were made of steel.  Hanging a picture was easy.  Maintenance would bring an appropriately sized magnet with a hook.  It stuck wherever you wanted it.  No muss, no fuss.  Someone now makes picture hangers that stick to drywall, yet they pull off easily without any damage if you decide to move the picture an inch or two up, down or sideways.  I don’t trust those things, though my wife has taken to using them when she doesn’t want to hear my complaints about hanging a new picture.

I firmly believed my picture hanging days were over after living in the same house for over 30 years. There’s only so much you can hang on a wall.  Then our first grandchild was born, and we moved to be closer to him.  Of course, my wife wanted pictures, plaques and shelves to break up the monotony of the lovely bare walls in our new house.  So I gritted my teeth, made a trip to the local hardware store for various hooks and hangers, picked up my trusty hammer and was ready to work.  This wasn’t a one-day project.  As soon as we finished hanging things in one room, my wife was ready with an armful of home décor items to be hung in another.

“We’ve got to drive to Target to pick up the cloud shelf I ordered for our grandson’s room,” she announced one day.

“What’s a cloud shelf?” I grumbled as I picked up my car keys. 

“It’s shaped like a cloud.  It’s whimsical.  Our grandson will love it!”

I had to admit that my wife had done a wonderful job to transform our new house into a lovely and comfortable home.  All that was left was the guest room. 

Some years ago, I had started to learn to play the guitar.  In the course of that learning, I had purchased an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a travel guitar and a banjo.  They all ended up in their respective cases on the floor of the guest room. 

“This looks kind of messy,” my wife informed me.  “Can’t we figure out a better way to store these instruments?”

“Most guitar shops have them hanging on the wall,” I responded, instantly regretting it.

“That’s a great idea!”  Minutes later she was searching the internet for guitar hangers.  “How do these look?” she asked. 

“They look ok,” I responded with a lack of enthusiasm. I realized ordering them was the first step toward having to attach them to the wall – with screws no less.  Within a few days, the guitar hangers arrived.  I promptly deposited them in the guest room where they’d stay until I could muster the courage to hang them.

Weeks passed, and my wife did not say a word.  Several guests came and went, and during their visits, they had to negotiate a path around my instruments and the box of hangers.  But to her credit, my wife held her tongue.  Finally, she decided to nudge me a little.

“Your family is coming to see our new house in October.  Do you think you might get your guitars up by then?”

“Sure, sure, I’ll get it done by then,” I said, knowing their visit was a couple months away.

As the days slid by, I continued to look for ways to procrastinate.  Then my wife decided to invite our son-in-law’s parents to lunch. They hadn’t seen our house since we first moved in.

Though the deadline I had agreed to was still a month away, I knew my wife would be thrilled if I got it done before the upcoming lunch.  So I got my hammer, my tape measure, my electric drill, my $25 electronic stud finder, my old-school $1.98 magnetic stud finder, a ladder and a pencil. I was ready to get this job done.

I wanted to be sure the hangers were screwed into the wooden studs behind the wall so there was no danger of my guitars falling.  Therefore, I measured, I used my expensive stud finder, I used my cheap stud finder, and then I measured some more.  I put pencil marks on the wall where I was fairly confident I would hit studs.  I was ready to start drilling holes.  But first I wisely decided to show my wife where I planned to hang the guitars.

“You’re not going to hang them on that wall, are you?” she asked.

“That’s where I figured three of them would go; I haven’t decided where to hang the fourth.”

“If you hang them on that wall, you won’t have enough room to actually play them.”

She was right.  So what if I’d just spent an hour marking up the wrong wall.  I considered calling it a day and getting a fresh start the next day, but I didn’t want to disappoint her.  So we talked through the overall plan for the room and I began again to measure and look for studs behind the drywall.  I got lucky with the first one.  I removed a cold air vent and was able to see the stud behind the wall.  So I drilled my holes and screwed the first hanger solidly into a stud.

For the next one, I figured correctly that two, side-by-side outlets were attached on either side of a stud.  Having hit two in a row, I was brimming with confidence.  More measuring, more stud finding and voila!  I hit a third one.  I had one more to go on a different wall with no vents or outlets to guide me.  Nervously, I measured.  The electronic stud finder was giving me a reading that there was a live electric wire somewhere near the stud.  I marked where I thought the stud was located, picked up my drill and hoped for the best.  And I hit it – the stud, not the wire.  Even in the Big Leagues, it’s a great day when a player goes four for four.  I proudly attached the last hanger to the wall and hung up my three guitars and banjo.

 

I still had three pictures to hang, but that was the denouement to this nail-biting suspense novel.  They went up handily.  Then my wife asked me to hang up the cuckoo clock she had gotten in Germany.  No sweat!  I got my hammer and a nail and it was on the wall in a flash.

I admitted that the guest room looked great with those instruments hanging on the wall.  As my wife pointed out, I will be more inclined to play them than if they were packed away in their cases.

Now that I’ve had such success in hanging those guitars, my wife is convinced that I can hang just about anything.  So the next time she asks me to hang something on the wall, I will just . . . ok, I admit it.  I’ll probably listen quietly and commit to doing it . . . soon.  Yeah, real soon, Honey – I promise.

The Letter - Chapter 14

I took a bite of a ginger snap.  Beverly looked at me expectantly with her blue-gray eyes.

“OK, Eleanor, I am ready to be your scrivener.  How do you want to start?  My dearest George?”

“A bit strong,” I smiled.  Let’s keep it simple.  Just write, “Dear George.”

“An excellent start, dear Ellie.  What next?”

“I think I should apologize to him.”

“For what?  Isn’t there a saying, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’?” Beverly grabbed another cookie.  “These damned things are addictive, you know.  You’re going to make me fatter than I already am.”

“You’re the one who brought the lady locks.  And you are in fine shape,” I said to her.

 

“Tell that to my bathroom scale.  I seem to gain two pounds for every one I struggle to lose,” Beverly frowned.  “OK, so it’s Dear George – colon or comma? Comma, I guess.  That’s what Mrs. Lehr, my 4^th grade teacher taught us for a friendly letter.  Geez, it’s been so long since I wrote an actual letter, I’ve almost forgotten all the rules.”

“This is a draft, Beverly.  Don’t worry about those details yet.  Anyway, let’s start with ‘I’m sorry or I apologize,’ uh . . ..”

“Maybe you should start with an introduction since your friend George won’t know who is apologizing let alone why.”

“Good point, Beverly.  How about, my name is Eleanor Barnhart, but you may remember me as Ellie Kosko.  I’m an old classmate of yours, and . . ..”

“Old classmate, huh?  You really know how to seduce a man.  And do you really need to confuse him with your married name?  Let me have a go at it. ‘Dear George, This is Ellie Kosko writing to you again.  You should have received a letter from me a few weeks ago, though you wouldn’t have known it.  After I put it in the mail, I realized I had forgotten to sign it.  Foolish me.’  What do you think so far?  Notice how I avoided any apology. So where do you want to go next?”

“Should I say I’m sorry about not making it to the game?”

“Of course not. Was it your fault that a blizzard caused your flight to be cancelled?  Now let’s see.  ‘I really had wanted to make it to our class reunion last fall, but’ . . ..”

“I had no intention of going to that reunion, Beverly.  I don’t look back on my high school days with much nostalgia.  Would you like more tea?” I asked as I got up to fill the kettle.

“No thank you.  I’ve had enough. George may or may not have been there.  Who cares?"  Beverly spoke as she continued to write.  ‘But it was too soon after my husband passed away.’   She looked at me across the table.  "We’re trying to do a little exposition here, Ellie.  We want to make it clear that you are single and eligible now that George is free of the clutches of that witch ex-wife whom he justifiably divorced.”

“For all I know, she could be a very nice person.  Maybe the divorce was George’s fault.”

“Didn’t your sister say . . .?”

“Yeah, Marnie did say his wife had run off with a rich guy.”

“OK.” Beverly continued to write.  “‘Nevertheless, the reunion got me thinking about how much I missed Pittsburgh, so when my sister invited me to visit, I was excited to make the trip.  I thought it might be fun to visit our high school and see my nephew play basketball.  It’s been years since I was there, and took a chance that you might be interested to meet me and reminisce about our high school days’.”

“And what’s happened in the years since. Add that,” I said.

“That’s good.  Let’s not let George think we’re stuck in the past.  So for when have you re-scheduled your trip?”

“I haven’t.”

“Seriously?  Are we sending this letter so you can become Facebook friends?  Really, Ellie, you need to get to Pittsburgh and see if this guy is worth fantasizing about.  Anyway, I think we’ve got a good start here, but I’ve got a hair appointment at 3:00, so I have to be going.”

“But we’re not finished,” I whined.

“Eleanor, I know where we’re going with this, probably better than you do.  I will take this draft with me, finish it off and bring it back to share with you tomorrow.  In the meantime, you need to call your sister and re-schedule that visit to Pittsburgh, capiche?”  Beverly got up and started for the front door.  “So what do you think?  Should I have them turn this silver into gold?” Beverly chuckled as she grabbed a bunch of her hair.

“I just can’t see you as a blonde,” I smiled at my friend, recalling her auburn locks that faded to gray many years before.

“Flaming red, then,” Beverly laughed, picking up her umbrella from my front porch.  “If you don’t go after this George, I might be in the mood for a trip to Pittsburgh myself.”

“Stay away from my guy!” I laughed as she hurried away with a wave of her hand.  

Once Upon a Time in New York City

What luck!  Seldom do the planets align in such a way that the plans of mere mortals work out so perfectly. 

Last Christmas, my son Michael and his wife Jamie gave my wife and me tickets to see Hamilton.  We had a fairly long wait to collect our present; our tickets were for September 6.  But that gave us nine months to get excited about seeing the musical that everyone wants to see.

 

In the meantime, Michael and his juggling troupe, Playing by Air, received an invitation to appear on national television in the latest incarnation of The Gong Show.  They flew to Los Angeles in May to tape their appearance, but did not find out for several months when it would air.  Was it mere coincidence or the hand of Providence that scheduled it for September 7 when my wife and I would be in New York City to watch it with him?  In either case, it couldn’t have worked out better, because my wife and I would be in a hotel with cable television.  Like many millennials, my son doesn’t have a television.  He and his wife have computers, smart phones and even a large screen, but they use them to watch online entertainment, not broadcast television.

My wife and I were excited to host a Gong Show party in our hotel room.  We bought snacks and beverages and ordered pizza.  Michael and Jamie arrived around 7:00 PM, even though the show didn’t air until 10:00 PM.  It had taken us a little bit of time and effort to figure out the hotel television when we first arrived at the hotel.  So my wife insisted that there would be no channel surfing in the time leading up to the show.  She put on the ABC channel at 7:00 and announced that it would stay there until The Gong Show was over at 11:00 PM.  So we suffered through Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Battle of the Network Stars while waiting for the show we all wanted to see.

When a second Battle of the Network Stars came on at 9:00 PM, I was tempted to suggest that we switch to CNN to see what was happening with Hurricane Irma.  But my wife is usually right about these things – in fact, she is always right.  I didn’t want to be the guy who ruined the party if for any reason we weren’t able to get back to ABC.  So I held my tongue, and we continued to watch actors from shows we had never watched compete in contests we didn’t care about.

 

Then at 9:30, the screen suddenly went black.  We started furiously fiddling with the television controls, but couldn’t get anything.  I called the front desk.  Someone would be right up I was told.  Two or three minutes ticked by and nobody came.

 

“Go down to the front desk, and demand that they give us a room where the television is working,” my son shouted.  I started for the elevator, turned around and saw that my wife was coming with me. 

“Michael insisted that I go too,” she said.  I understood.  Hell hath no fury like a woman concerned that a hotel would deny her the opportunity to see her son on national television for the first time.  But before we could say a word, the guy behind the front desk informed us that the cable was out for the entire hotel.

With this information, I literally ran out the door and up the street to the hotel next door.  Perhaps they had a television in their lobby that no one was watching.  I ran into that hotel and desperately started looking for a television.  The only one I could find was in the bar.  A couple of surly looking guys were watching football.  Were they interested in the game, or might I convince them to switch to The Gong Show?  One of the guys cheered something that happened in the game.  A lost cause, I surmised.  My phone rang.

“We’re catching an Uber and going to Michael and Jamie’s.  We’ll try to figure out how to watch it on one of their computers.  Get back here,” my wife said.

I ran out of the hotel and back to the corner where they were waiting.  Within a minute or two, an Uber driver picked us up.  On the trip over, my wife and daughter-in-law were on their phones trying to get information that would allow us to connect to the show.  Time was running short.  We arrived at their apartment at 9:55.  My wife amazed us all by getting the show on my son’s laptop in a matter of minutes.  Then Jamie got it running on their large screen as the clock struck 10:00.  We had left all our snacks and drinks back at the hotel, but the party was on at their apartment.

We watched act after act, and Michael told us this was definitely the show that he was on.  However, sometimes they cut acts, and when 9:40 rolled around and his group hadn’t been on, Michael began to get worried that his act might have been cut.  This would have been pretty embarrassing as we had alerted hundreds of friends and family to watch the show.  At 9:45, they cut to commercial and we began to consider the possibility that his group would not appear.  We watched a commercial and then, the screen went to a test pattern that had the ABC logo and the message, “We’ll be right back.”

“This has happened before,” said Jamie.  “They must be taking a long commercial break, and they don’t show them all when you’re watching online.”

We waited, but the screen didn’t change.  We called our other son, Samuel, who was watching in Pittsburgh.  The commercials had just ended and the show was back on, he told us.  Our screen hadn’t changed.

“Oh my God!  We have the same internet service as the hotel,” Michael was on the verge of panic.

My wife did a quick search on her phone and discovered that the cable was out of service for most of the Borough of Queens.  It was 9:50.  The show was nearly over.  Again, we called Samuel in Pittsburgh.

“Can you Skype it to my phone?” Michael desperately asked his brother.  Samuel started streaming the images from his television to Michael’s cell phone while my wife texted Samuel directions for how to position his phone so we could see.

Tommy Maitland said, “And here’s the last act of our show, Playing by Air!”  And there was Michael with his juggling partners.  The four of us watched them on his cell phone screen. We could barely hear the audio.  But we could see that they did great, and the judges awarded them a perfect score – three 10s!  Unfortunately, the judges had given three other acts perfect scores and awarded the top prize to one of them.

Of course in this age of electronic devices, Michael was able to post a link on Facebook to a YouTube video of his Gong Show performance by the next morning.  My wife and I had recorded the show on our DVR and watched it when we arrived back in our home the next evening.

 

But there is something special about watching your son on a show in real time as it is being broadcast on network television, even if the planets have to align, albeit imperfectly, to make that happen.

The Letter - Chapter 13

“Mrs. Henderson, you make a delicious vegetable lasagna!” I said to Liz’s mother.  I picked up my plate and silverware and set them on the kitchen counter.  Should I put these in the dishwasher?”

“No, you girls go up and do your homework.  Mr. Henderson and I will clean up,” replied Liz’s mom.

“Hey, speak for yourself, Darla,” Mr. Henderson said with a smile.  There’s a hockey game on tonight.  The Penguins are a few wins away from a guaranteed playoff spot.”

“That game doesn’t start for another hour, dear.  By then, you should have the kitchen all cleaned up,” shot back Mrs. Henderson.

“Sheesh!  Now it sounds like I’m on cleanup detail alone,” Liz’s dad made a sad face.

“I’ll help, but then again, I cooked; so if you want to see the opening face-off, you’d better get started.  You girls run along.” 

I gave a backward glance as Liz and I left the dining room and was glad to see Liz’s parents were smiling at each other.  I shuddered as I remembered the very real arguments over seemingly petty things between my parents before my mother walked out on us.  I followed my friend up the stairs to her room.  Liz sat down in front of her laptop and ran her fingers through her thick, dark hair as she turned to face me.

“OK, Nancy, have you figured this case out yet? Liz asked.

“You’re the one with the Nancy Drew Mystery collection.  I’ve never read a Nancy Drew book.”

“True confession.  Me neither.  My mom got these at a garage sale,” Liz said pointing to a row of about a dozen books on her bookshelf.  “But I’ve never read a single one of them.  I did start Nancy’s Mysterious Letter after we talked the other night.  But I’m only like five chapters into it.”

“Anything helpful to solving our mystery?”

“Not really.  The mysterious letter came from a law firm in England.  They think Nancy’s an English heiress, but she thinks they sent it to the wrong Nancy Drew.  The real mystery seems to be that the mailman’s mail pouch was stolen when he came in to Nancy’s house for a cup of cocoa.”

“That sounds pretty weird.  Why did the mailman go in for cocoa?”

“Apparently, he is a dear man who delivered the mail for years and is about to retire.  But now his reputation is shot and he’ll likely lose his pension unless Nancy finds the culprits and the missing mail.  It’s actually not a bad read. But what I found really neat is that Nancy lives with her father, who is a lawyer – just like you and your dad!”

“My dad’s a retired corporate lawyer.  Did Nancy’s mother abandon them for a filthy rich law firm lawyer?”

“I think he’s a widower.  Sorry, I think I touched a raw nerve.  Anyway, Nancy’s not provided much help for our case so far.  She does seem to have two friends – a plump one named Bess and a ‘boyish’ one named George.”  Liz pulled back her bushy locks and tied them in a ponytail.

“George? That’s strange.  So if I’m Nancy, which friend are you?  Maybe you should be Nancy since you have her books.”

“No, Nancy’s blonde like you.  See?”  Liz picked up Nancy’s Mysterious Letter and showed me the cover illustration.  “And with these hips, no one would ever accuse me of being boyish,” Liz stood up and shimmied.

“All right, but you’re not plump, I laughed.  You have a perfect figure – shapely, but not the least bit fat.  I should probably be Boy George or George Junior since that’s my dad’s name.”

“Liz laughed.  I don’t remember it saying that boyish George had perfect teeth and hair.”

“My stylist and orthodontist thank you for that,” I laughed.  “OK, enough of Nancy and her friends.  Let me show you the clues I have pulled together.”