Valueless things can have immense value. Our Montgomery Ward key chain is one of those objects. It resides in a desk drawer and holds the key to our neighbor’s house.   

We inherited the key chain from my late father-in-law. He was a good father, a good provider and a good neighbor. But he did have the misfortune of becoming drunk after two bottles of beer, and he rarely stopped at two. Despite a life long alcohol problem, he always showed up for work, earning top dollar as an extremely fast and skilled auto body man.

Money rolled in, but it also rolled out just as quickly. My father-in-law was generous. When his barber hit hard times and was in danger of losing his shop, it was my husband’s dad who loaned him the money that saved the business.

He worked pounding out cars into his seventies when retirement became a necessity. His nest egg was almost nonexistent.

This fact did not bother my father-in law in the least. He frequently told us how lucky he was. His small trailer and the lot it sat on were paid for. The electric bill was only $15.00 a month (some creative wiring may have been involved), and he did not have to pay any property taxes. In fact, due to his low income level, he actually got a rebate on the property tax bill.

“I’m so lucky,” he would say,”Uncle Sam sends me a check every month, and we even have money left over!” To this he would add, “And I get a free gift every month.” Each month he would go to his local “Monkey” Ward store for the free gift given to their loyal charge card customers. He was as excited as a young child awaiting Santa Claus.

So our key chain is much more than a place to park a key. It’s a reminder that some people can be extremely grateful when living on Social Security … and a monthly free gift.

I can’t think of a better Thanksgiving message.

Our son likes to get high. He is once again building a tree house. It’s his fifth tree house, and he is forty-three years old.

His first, childhood tree house was in our beloved willow tree. My husband built the structure, but young eyes were watching. By age nine, our boy wanted to be higher in the tree and was able to build an addition to the original structure by himself.

The next tree house, number three, was breathtakingly high and constructed when he was fifteen. We didn’t worry about the neighbor kids falling out of the tree, though, as no boards were nailed to the trunk for stairs. Years of tree house living had enable our kid to scale the trunk. Privacy was insured, but the squirrels did claim the platform for their nest location one year.

Twenty years later, the tradition continued and our son built a back yard tree house for his children in California. Everyone in our family seems to have a genetic throwback for preferring life in the trees.

His current tree house  is a work in progress. When completed, it will be a room in the trees set on carefully engineered beams and concrete piers. Our son’s media of choice is concrete. He is particularly proud of the spline he just completed. Since “spline” was not a word in my vocabulary, I needed to be enlightened. A spline is a curve that connects two or more specific points, or that is defined by two or more points. You will find his fine concrete spline in the following photos.

I wonder what will come next? I’m not excluding the possibility that he may someday leave land living behind and build his primary dwelling in the trees. He wouldn’t be the first to do this.

Click here for the female version of a tree house

I don’t subscribe to pity parties, nor do I favor unbridled nostalgia. But I do occasionally mourn (not wallow) for good things lost. The small pleasures that have disappeared from daily life are numerous.

In the distant past, I could drive into a filling station on a freezing, blustery day and remain in my heated car while an attendant pumped my gas and dipped the dip stick.

I did not give up this service without a protest. When full service stations started to disappear, I would pull in, look perplexed, pick up the hose and wave it aimlessly. Sadly, this ploy no longer brings an attendant running.

I miss travel agents as well. One phone call and a few days later a tidy packet of tickets, maps and itineraries would arrive in the mail. Does anyone relish the frustrating hours spent on a computer trying to be a do-it-yourself travel agent?

And then there’s the library. I always enjoyed chatting with the clerks when I checked out my books at the circulation desk. I am not fond of  interacting with a computer that may or may not allow me to check out my books. I can bypass the computer by getting a rental book, Friends of the Library sale book or having a fine. One lonely clerk will still take my money and check out the rest of my books as well. Unfortunately, she recently asked me why I don’t “run up an account”.

“Because I would like you to keep your job,” was my unspoken reply.

As of now, we don’t have to cook our own food in restaurants, but many cafes do expect their customers to bus the tables. Since we already pay a substantial part of restaurant employees’ wages (tips in America are no longer for good service, but to keep single moms from starving), not  busing one’s table might be a new, subversive simple pleasure.

Hotels have recently started the “no maid option”. Fore go maid service and get $5.00 taken off the bill.

No thank you. I’m the maid almost every day of the year, and it’s a pleasure paying for skilled housekeeper.

Click here for gas pumping insight

“Lifetime fitness” was not a phrase that had been invented when I attended a Polish, Catholic grade school in the 1950’s. Gym classes were nonexistent, but we did have Health. In Health Class we learned two things: everything is covered with vicious germs, and all boys have evil intentions.

To make matters worse, I was an only child growing up in a neighborhood of retirees. Needless to say, I never learned to kick a can, throw a ball or climb a tree.

I attended my first gym class in middle school, and agony doesn’t begin to describe that experience. Of course, nobody wanted me on their team. Who wants a kid that ducks when a ball comes her way?

Things got worse. My one and only high school gym teacher was an obese, chain smoking, ex WAC sergeant.

My chosen college required lots of physical education, and I was mortified. But then Miss Crane came into my unfit life.

From the smorgasbord of phy. ed. choices, I picked “Square and Round Dancing”. On the first day of class our instructor, Miss Crane, walked in the door and crossed the gym floor to start the class. That’s all she had to do, and I was hooked on a life of fitness. Miss Crane was about seventy years old with gray hair and a dancer’s lithe, trim body. She had a working knowledge of every one of her muscles. Wearing a simple black leotard and a long ballet skirt, she was grace personified.

From my first class with that amazing woman, I knew that fitness was not about competition, winning, being first or beating my body to a pulp.

Everyone who knows me realizes that I am not a bit graceful. But thanks to the elegant Miss Crane, I take great joy in having muscles, joints and tendons that are exercised every day.

We learn what we see.

Sandra’s seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins’ gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself.
         -Shel Silverstein

I’m in almost total agreement with Shel Silverstein. Many years ago, when I first read this poem, its truth hit me like a thunderbolt. For magic to happen, I will have to work. On the other hand, I won’t be sitting around waiting for some no-show fairy godmother to appear.

The witching time is nearing, and there is work to be done. My sleek black witch dress ( a thirty year old party gown) needs airing. I definitely must head to Goodwill to find a new witch hat. Then the perfect pumpkin has to be selected from our local pumpkin wagon which works on the honor system … money is put in the unattended cash box which sits on a hay bale. Halloween cards need to be made and treats baked. And, finally, the CD of Danse Macabre must be dusted off.

I’m hoping for a magical night. Only one ingredient is missing: luck can’t be conjured up with work. With luck, all the pieces will fall into place.

Happy Haunting.

Click here for a Halloween Treat