Saturday and Sunday, my mother very graciously allowed me and Chris to take over her garage so we could try to sell off some of the records and furniture.
?
?
?
?
Over the course of 2 days, we sold perhaps 100 records out of about 500, the terrible gold tea cups, and a large entertainment center Dad had been using as a wardrobe.
?
?
?
At the end of Sunday (ok, at 2 pm when we were sick of sitting in the garage) we loaded up the Home Depot rental truck and hauled everything over to Salvation Army.? And let me just pause here for a second to say THANK YOU HOME DEPOT.? Seriously, I never meant for this to be a commercial blog, but wow.? All I had to do was go to HD at 8 am, show them my ID and insurance info, and give them $70, and I got to borrow a giant F-350 for the whole day.? Way easier than trying to borrow a truck from someone, and I didn?t have to fret over it like a rental car from Enterprise or some other place, because it was a work truck.? The bed was even hinged for super easy loading and un-loading.? So Home Depot, you might think of yourself solely as a home improvement store, but now I?m going to think of you as my one-stop storage unit purging destination.
?
Onto the Origin Story
?
Disclaimer:? Names have been changed to protect the innocent from the guilty.
?
3 years ago today, I was sitting in my apartment in Lisbon, Iowa.? I called up Dad at around 8 in the evening.? I was ready to get out of Iowa, and coincidentally, Dad was ready to get out of New York.? He asked me to look into the Iowa Department of Education, specifically anything around Des Moines.? He also talked about going to Florence, Alabama, a city he had visited once for a conference over 20 years before.
?
Dad told me about the latest happenings with his mother, my grandmother Lynn.? Lynn had been running her own wildlife sanctuary since the late 70?s and had styled herself into something of a local celebrity.? After Dad returned home from Rachel?s graduation in New Orleans, he had taken Lynn to a dinner in her honor held by a nearby fire department.? The fire department had decided to make her an honorary member, in spite of the fact that one of their rubber coats weighed about as much as she did.? Grandmother Lynn had been getting rides from off-duty firemen for the last year or so to go visit her husband, my Grandfather Leonard, in his nursing home.? Apparently the fire department had just grown extremely fond of my grandmother.
?
Dad told me that during a lull in the dinner, the chief of the fire department pulled him aside to give him a special behind the scenes tour.? Behind a section of false wall, there was an extra room.? Once inside, the chief flicked on the lights and Dad saw the whole room covered in Confederate flags, with hooded white robes on hooks.
?
I didn?t believe him.? ?The Klan?? In New York?? Come on Dad.?
?
?Really,? he told me.? ?You?d be surprised at what?s going on in some of these small towns.?
?
?But we?re Jewish, Grandma Lynn is Jewish,? I argued.
?
?Ah yes, but she?s their Jew,? was Dad?s reply.? Dad often said that the reason Lynn was so universally beloved in her little world was because she and my grandfather filled a role much like the village idiot in centuries past.? Their novelty in an otherwise homogenous area is what made them the subject of such fascination and adoration.
?
It was a good enough explanation for me.? I had certainly heard stranger things about my grandparents over the years.? Dad went on to tell me that he had mailed out a bundle of magazines for me, and that he would ask Lynn to send me some money so I could make the 800 mile drive.
?
Dad needed to get his sleep that night.? He was hard at work on the annual high school fashion show, he told me.? Riker had introduced Dad to an out of work mechanic named Parker, and Parker was helping Dad build the cat-walk for his students.? This year was going to be the best year yet ? they were adding LED runway lights to the cat-walk.
?
There was so much more I wanted to say, but I figured I could lay it all out when I got to New York.? I wanted to tell Dad about Fox, about the huge mistake I had made getting involved with an engaged man.? I wanted to tell him about Danny, my dead bouncer friend, and his parents, Beth and Ben.? I wanted to tell him that in spite of everything, I was really proud of myself for finding my own apartment and making it work for 3 months.
?
We had been on the phone for an hour.? The sun was setting just outside my little window.? Dad told me he loved me and that he couldn?t wait to see me.? I told him I loved him too.? We said good night and hung up.? I was so excited.? I was going to go back to New York, back where I belonged.? I was going to get out of the mess I had made for myself and fix my life.? I just had to wait a couple more days.
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
dan marino passing record ipad 2 cases movie times serene branson matthew mcconaughey to catch a predator davenport
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.