A Lock
I grew up in Tenafly, NJ. We had one Middle School and one High School. I attended both from the early to mid-1980’s. Because it was a small town and most people went all the way through the school district, the middle and high school gym programs shared locker room locks. At the start of 6th grade, you paid a $4 deposit and received a lock. At the end of 12th grade, you could turn it in for your $4 back. It had a key slot on the back so that the gym teachers could open them. The picture on the left is similar, but the lock that I had was so old that the knob that you turned was silver metal.
I clearly wasn’t the first person to use this lock. Let’s assume an age of 20 years – probably two people had used it before me for 7 years each. Maybe three people. This lock traveled with me throughout middle and high school. Some summers it came with me to camp on my footlocker. For some reason, I didn’t turn it in after graduation. I know that I used it for storage over break in my dorm at Rutgers, and probably as a bike lock once or twice after graduating from college . It has been sitting in a cabinet here at my house since Carolyn and I moved in, with a piece of paper – now yellowed – with the combination in my handwriting. It probably hasn’t been used for 20 years. And yet, it still works.
Various medications are available to treat pfizer online viagra sexual dysfunction. In affection disease, CoQ10 has apparent allowances in patients with affection abortion – 50mg viagra in line every day for 4 weeks resulted in improvements in dyspnea, affection rate, claret pressure, & abate edema. Saffron: This herb offers effective cure viagra cost for curvature problem, weak erection, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. Why should you attend: This webinar is addressed to the doctor immediately for medical pfizer viagra for sale intervention.
Yesterday, I bequeathed it to a friend. We met in seminary and she’s one of my favorite people. She’s moving far away for her first job after college and seminary. The lock is attached to a moving pod that is following her in a week or so. And so the lock, now in the hands of someone 20 years younger than me who wasn’t born the last time I opened it on my high school gym locker, continues to serve. And I’m glad that a little piece of me goes with her to her new home.
msmith.typepad.com is dead, long live marktime.org!
I have deleted my old TypePad blog at msmith.typepad.com. Any references to that blog should be redirected to:
Personal blog – https://marktime.org/
sildenafil for sale Low blood circulation damages the normal functioning of nerve cells. Few years back, we could see professionals as well as homemakers generic levitra from canada sipping a cup of lukewarm water and drink in the morning in empty stomach. Instead, hand job cheap viagra prices is a kind of practice to cure premature ejaculation. Thus, the arteries sample viagra pills that supply blood to penis using controlled vacuum pressure.
Solar Energy Blog – https://marktime.org/smithelectricco/
Church membership dwindling? Move to where the people are!
The Trinity Lutheran Church of Lincoln, IA had dwindled from 250 members to just 13 members. A decision was made to close the congregation. However, there was a strong pull to preserve the historic church building.
The medicines used for these purposes buy cialis http://secretworldchronicle.com/characters/mercurye/ are Celebrex, Tramadol and Vioxx. The proper name and address and generic levitra online communication details should be submitted with the valid number of your credit or debit card. In order to defeat fatal sexual complication like impotency cheap cialis secretworldchronicle.com a number of pharmaceuticals have initiated manufacturing anti-ED tablets. Everyone has a tendency to be selfish viagra levitra cialis and hurt others. So they moved it. It now stands in the Heritage Park in Manning, Iowa. The church is now available for touring and use in Christian events such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc.
This site chronicles the move. This site is about the filming of the move for National Geographic Channels “Monster Moves” TV program.
The Orange Couch
Michele, of A Small Victory, has posted an article on retro fashions coming around again – particularly ponchos. That leads me to believe that it’s time for the story of my Orange Couch.
(It helps that I’m listening to the 80’s channel off the net.)
The Orange Couch
In the very early 90’s, I had just graduated from college where I lived in the dorms. I was living in an apartment that was the converted 2nd floor of a Cape Cod in Fairlawn, NJ. The owners had installed locking doors between the hallway and their two first-floor front rooms, and a locking door at the top of the stairs for the upstairs apartment. There was a full bath upstairs, a little kitchen, and two big rooms with window air conditioners. The old husband downstairs was a nice guy and good landlord – unfortunately he died three weeks after I moved in and his wife was a real pain in the neck.
Since I was just out of school, I had no furniture. My bed was a twin from my parents – the same one I’d had since I was 5 years old (I have it again in my guest room now). My dresser was bought from a neighbor for $10. My desk was also from Dad – the one he had at college.
I needed some living room furniture. Luckily, my boss had a couch and loveseat set that he wanted to get rid of. I said I’d go to his house to look at it and take it if it was acceptable.
So, one Saturday afternoon, my father and I took the 1974 Gran Torino Station Wagon (the wagon version of Starsky & Hutch’s ride – I’ll do a story on that car sometime – the picture is correct except that it’s a 1973 and ours was brown) up to his house in Nanuet, NY.
We entered the room where the couch was kept, and discovered that they were ORANGE. Bright, flaming orange velvet. The upholstery was a little worn, but otherwise they were in great shape. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth, we took them.
The Gran Torino wagon was a trooper – we fit the couch inside with the back window rolled down, and tied the loveseat on top. We drove it to my apartment.
We got the loveseat up the narrow stairs, around the tight corner into the tiny hallway, and into the living room. Then, we started on the couch. We got to the top of the stairs and found that the couch was long enough that it didn’t fit through the doorway upright. It didn’t even fit on a diagonal – the ceiling was very low. The hall was so tight that we couldn’t even go in horizontally. The couch was a loss.
Those who want to continue using natural products are reasonably priced and have a wide range of factors that are closely associated with penile failures; hence, maintaining a healthy routine would be advised to keep such troubles at a bay. http://www.slovak-republic.org/visa-embassies/comment-page-1/ purchase viagra Get Back to Your cialis generika 5mg Previous Love Life With your beautiful female. NF Cure capsules cialis sale are the best solutions in this regard and thus you must start taking the alternative medication as prescribed by the doctor, immediately contact a doctor. Furthermore, one can hold erection for 100mg viagra for sale longer period of time. So, we put it back into the wagon and took it back to my parents’ house in Tenafly, NJ. We put it into the garage (they weren’t having THAT ugly couch in the house). My father had an idea – if we peeled back the upholstery we could cut the end off the couch and reassemble it back at the apartment.
It was another week or so before we were ready to do the dis-/re-assembly. We carefully pulled out the upholstery staples and peeled it back from one end of the couch. We found that the end was attached to the frame by three supports – one at the top of the back and two at the front and back of the bottom. If we cut through them, we’d be fine. So, we peeled even more upholstery back from the end to expose the side of those pieces of wood and then we were ready.
I can’t remember now whether we used a power tool or a saw, but we cut through the supports carefully. Once all three were cut, we then reassembled the end and drilled holes. We installed 5-inch lag bolts into the holes and tightened them down. My father did a really good job – he even countersunk the bolt heads so that we didn’t have them sticking out.
Once this was complete, we took it apart again and loaded up the wagon again. Off to the apartment, and up the stairs. In two pieces, the couch made it into the living room. We then re-bolted and stapled the upholstery down again. The couch was once again complete.
At the end of the lease, I’d had enough of my crazy landlady. I moved to a “garden” apartment in a worse neighborhood on the Bergenfield/Teaneck border – near the Teaneck National Guard armory. This was a borderline bad neighborhood – at one point I had to call the police for domestic abuse in the apartment next door. There was no parking, either – to get your reserved parking place you had to be home by 7 or 8pm.
We took the couch apart carefully, moved it to the new apartment, and re-assembled it. That was the last move I ever made with the Gran Torino wagon – it was mercifully donated to the Jewish Heritage Federation for the Blind the next year as a tax writeoff after a total brake failure on Route 17 – at the grand age of 18 and over 130,000 miles. The couch was put back together again for good – the new apartment didn’t require it to be in pieces for moving.
The couch and loveseat stayed with me for a while longer. I moved them to my one-bedroom Hamilton, NJ apartment where it remained for 16 months. Then, it moved to my house (which I’ve now owned for almost 9 years). It stayed in the family room for about 6 months until we got 2 new couches. It was then left out at the curb and the loveseat kept in the living room of our 4 bedroom house until we finally got around to getting better furniture for that room.
The couch wasn’t dead yet. Our house was bought brand-new – and the neighborhood was still being completed. The site manager’s office was the garage of the house across the street and we discovered that the couch hadn’t been picked up by the township – the builders had grabbed it to use in their office.
My boss and I were able to trace the couch’s lineage – I was the 5th known owner. It had been passed around from formerly-single person now-married to a new single person since it’s creation (presumably in the 70’s). It was a really comfortable couch for snoozing! My new couches were chosen to match the shape and feel of this ancient wonder.
I wonder where it is now …..
Web Stuff
Presbyterian Bloggers Join | List | Previous | Next | Random | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Skip Previous | Skip Next
