Saturday, September 8, 2012

The ten thousand stories in my garage

I was just out there twisting one up. I'm twisting Kipling's organic homegrown, and I'm twisting it in a vintage Pall Mall cigarette tin that would probably fetch fifty bucks at a flea market.

That's just one of the cigarette tins I inherited from Grampa McMahon. He was the grandfather of my second wife and the great grandfather of my children.

Or at least one of them. Not one of the children... I mean he was one of their great grandfathers.

Grampa's wife was a Heintzman. She had several brothers who worked at a piano manufactury of the same name.

That would make for a few stories!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I had the farmhouse here at Falling Downs refitted with a new electrical service a couple years ago, I had a 220 welding plug installed in the garage.

I had high hopes.

Just to get in to twist something up I have to negotiate a utility trailer registered in the name of Bruno Neumann. That would probably make half a dozen stories right there.

And a snow-blower that is sitting just in front of the garage, waiting for me to replace a tire before winter comes. More stories.

And then there's an amplifier and a number of guitars before I can reach for that Pall Mall tin which is right by the poster for the fund-raiser for that kid who died in a car crash.

By God, we've got another dozen stories!

And so far I've only got five feet into the garage! Go back a little further and you've got the camping supplies. Camping. Holy shit, I could write a book just of camping stories.

We do have the workbenches that one would expect in a garage, but they are covered in clutter from one end to the other.

Miscellany from screws and screwdrivers to cordless screwdrivers to hammers and nails and saws and chainsaws and sockets and wrenches and tool accessories of all sorts.

And a bag that fits onto the last lawnmower I bought that will catch the grass clippings.

Hey, that's the very machine I sliced Stumpy with...

At least ten thousand stories...

No wonder I never get anything done.


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