Tag Archives: garage

Corner

Corner: (n) the place at which two converging lines or surfaces meet.

Jerry was my friend. His dad was a conservative preacher who refused to own a television.

Jerry didn’t share his father’s convictions. When he was around his papa he was as silent as a mouse, and as soon as he walked out of the door of his home he turned into a roaring lion.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

He was fun.

But even though I was just a kid myself, I knew there was something a little bit mixed up with Jerry. There was a hidden rage which was not very well disguised. It was like a box sticking out from under your bed that you thought was put away, but everybody knew there was something beneath.

Jerry got angry easily. Matter of fact, one night we were at my house and went into the garage. We found a possum next to our freezer. (I share this with you because it was unusual. If we normally had possums next to our freezer, I would have left it out of the tale.)

The possum was a little surprised to see us. It acted like it was pursuing a normal routine and we had interrupted the process. It gave a quick snarl in our direction. It was enough to convince me to get the hell out of the way. If you’ve never seen a possum up close, it’s ugly enough to avoid without the snarl, but if you put a growl with it… Well, I was ready to head to the next county.

But not Jerry.

Jerry seemed upset that the possum had dared to emit disapproval. He ran over to a shelf in the garage and picked up a hammer. I know I probably should have said something, but honestly, it was my first time being in a garage with a man who was going to attack a possum.

The possum scurried over into the corner of the garage.

Bad maneuver—now it was trapped. It was either going to have to fight its way out, or it was going to face whatever verdict Jerry had chosen for it.

Jerry changed right in front of my eyes. He was breathing heavily, standing with his legs spread, hammer over his head, eyes bulging—and it became obvious to me that he planned on attacking the creature.

I did finally gain speech. “Jerry, let it go. We’ll just leave the door open and it’ll scurry away.”

Excellent advice—especially coming from a teenager whose frontal lobe was not yet complete.

Jerry did not hear a word I said. He was ready to “kill possum.”

He moved closer. The possum snarled even more ferociously.

And even though I liked Jerry, when I heard that possum, I got the hell out of there. So peeking through the window from outside the garage I watched as Jerry grasped the hammer tightly.

One, two, five, ten…twenty blows. With all his strength, he killed that possum.

I don’t think Jerry had anything personal against the possum. Jerry’s outburst was coming from somewhere else.

When he was done, he backed up, panting, with the bloody hammer in his hand.

As I slowly walked back into the garage he spoke, “I got the goddamn motherfucking thing.”

I was completely shocked, I had never seen anyone kill a possum. Matter of fact, I had never encountered a pissed-off possum. And I sure had never seen Jerry so out of control or heard him spew such profanity.

About that time, my mother arrived, came into the garage, looked into the corner and saw what remained of the smashed possum. She gazed carefully at Jerry, who was still clutching his weapon.

Honestly, my mother was not a sensitive or intuitive person, but in that moment, she knew that Jerry was not all right.

She put her hand on his shoulder, gradually reached over and took the hammer away, and then cupped her hands around his face and said, “Good job, Jerry. Why don’t you two boys go bury the possum while I clean up the corner?”

So we did.

We walked about a quarter of a mile down the road to the railroad tracks. Nothing was said. It was so quiet I could hear the shovel strike against the ground as we drug it along.

We dug a hole and buried the flattened creature beneath it and covered it up.

When we were done, Jerry returned to being Jerry.

That day I learned a very valuable lesson.

If you corner any of God’s creatures—and that includes the human variety—they will fuss, spit, growl and even snarl at you. At that point you have to decide whether you’re going to walk away or if you’re going to destroy them.

Let me tell you—there are a lot of “Jerrys” in the world.


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Attic

Attic: (n) a space or room just below the roof of a building.dictionary with letter A

I grew up in a two-bedroom house with a mother, father and four brothers.

If you’re wondering if the space provided failed to meet the requirements of the number suggested, you would be absolutely right.

So as a young boy, I was always looking for new places to go, which I felt provided me opportunities to escape the common cloister.

First was our garage, which was very tiny–not large enough to hold a car and a lawn mower.

We had a huge back yard, which was very nice, but my father had haphazardly planted trees, which were now growing everywhere, making it somewhat impossible to find any space for an actual playground.

There was one enclosure of solitude: our attic.

To get to this room, you had to pull down a set of wooden stairs in the ceiling of our garage, climb up carefully and wiggle through the tiny hole into a space about twice the size of the interior of a car. Our house was not insulated, so as soon as you got up into that territory, you were either freezing in the winter or boiling in the summer.

I didn’t care. I liked to go up there and look through the stuff.

Then one day I realized that I was not surrounded by treasures, but rather, rejects–items which were no longer found worthy to co-exist with the mortals.

  • Maybe they were outdated.
  • Maybe they were ugly.
  • Maybe they had worn out their usefulness.

But mostly they were abandoned.

Pictures, frames, papers and periodicals, periodically boiling and freezing.

After a while, I got depressed being up there. I had this strange sensation that someone would come, pull up the ladder and close me in, deeming it necessary to have one less person in the house and deciding that I was more suited for the rejects on high.

It spooked me.

I know that Anne Frank once found solace in an attic, but for me it was merely a reminder that when people get tired of things, deciding to hoard, they take them to a place where they’re out of the way … and soon forgotten.

 

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A-OK

dictionary with letter A

A-OK: (adj) in good order (e.g. everything will be A-OK)

Is my “A-OK” your “great” or could it be that my “fantastic” is your “mediocre?” A-OK has validity only if the people delivering the report are reliable.

This has come up many times in my life, but especially in the realm of parenting children.

I would often ask one of my sons to go down and clean up the garage, and when I inquired about the success of the project, I got the following replies:

  • “A-OK”
  • “Great.”
  • “Pretty good.”
  • “It was really a mess down there.”
  • “I did my best.”
  • And even, “Come on, Dad. It’s just a garage.”

You can see how these responses are not confidence building. The problem is, I had to filter what they said through who they were.

We now live in a time when “A-OK” is spoken too easily, with the hope that the lacking in effort will be made up for by either luck, God, or more than likely, the patient repair of other folks who follow us.

Sometimes it terrifies me to get in a car and drive along, realizing that it’s being made with the quality control of today’s corporate thinking.

Whatever happened to pride in work?

I know we have the adage of “going the second mile,” but truthfully, that statement lacks any punch if we all have not pre-determined the length of the first mile.

Because every day of my life, I meet individuals who are convinced they have done more than they needed to, never realizing they have fallen short of adequate.

I have rejected “A-OK” from my lingo.

So what I chose to do instead is to quickly explain the choices I have made in my efforts, and then allow other people to ascertain the status.

Because if we do not discover what is bare minimum, we will begin to dangerously flirt with incompetence.

So the greatest danger we face is our own sleepy attempts to cut corners … and end up cutting ourselves.

 

 

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