home about Mark programs audio testimonials booking journal contact 
|
Journal 1 Page 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 March, 2009 Up on the Housetop When I was a kid, I had a secret hide-a-way, with a slanted floor, but it wasn't the "fun-house." It was the kitchen roof outside my bedroom window. I would climb out and pretend to be Captain Video. Oh, the carefree daydreaming allowed me then! Now, I'm a homeowner, taking care of a square millimeter on the satellite map, an awesome responsibility. I must check for holes in the roof and clean the gutters. Until recently, it wasn't a chore I looked forward to, especially since I had to use a ladder that perched precariously, and I fell once. But the job had to be done. I certainly wasn't going to pay someone to do it; so, every two or three months, I'd put on my kneepads and rubber gloves. My father called it "getting the cows up." He would check around and head off problems before it was too late, like rousing his livestock each day to make sure they were healthy. Then one day an incredible thing happened after we replaced our old, stuck-all-the-time windows. I discovered that I could now open the window just above our roof! Glory be! With a quick limbo move, I was out on the housetop in no time. No more ladder. Time for shingle inspection? What a great feeling to just "open the hatch." With roof access so much easier and safer, I now find myself on the roof more frequently, where I do other inspections. I pretend I'm riding in a hot-air balloon and look down over the neighborhood. "Hey, that's where that nuisance, the barking dog lives!" The overhanging branches take me back to my childhood tree house; and when I muse, "The air is thinner up here," I trudge on to base camp. Wait a minute. Get serious, Mark! Look at those cracks in the chimney! Onerous duties aside, sometimes I just want to sit and relax on my ethereal porch. Lawn chair in hand, I push through the window to watch the July 4th fireworks, and, in December, the Christmas lights gradually coming on, up and down the street. I can sit with the full moon or catch the space station floating high overhead in the night sky. When I'm brave and foolish, I go right to the edge, Icarus-like. Wouldn't it be fun to be a base jumper or hang-glider pilot? As I look down, though, I see enemy soldiers climbing up rope ladders to my castle, and I throw "flaming pots" on them. I am the king! December, 2006 The Push It was a couple of days before Christmas. I'd already made about four crowd-jostling stops and I needed to make one more, the final push to get all my shopping done. I noticed this discount department store nearby. “Why not stop in here,” I thought, “it's on my way home.” I hesitated because I avoided this place whenever possible. Fate led me through those smudgy front doors, however, one last time and I would have an encounter there that would stay with me for a long time. This store always has a half-empty parking lot. Even when the traveling carnival sets up its ferris wheel in the spring, there's still plenty of parking. It has cheaper prices, but their socks start unraveling before they're out of the bag; their alarm clocks go off only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Looking for a salesperson? Always on break. The place has a smell like bad carpet. The shelves so high you can't see from one end of the store to the other. In fact, they caused my only bout with claustrophobia. Normally, I'm not bothered by closed-in spaces. Put me through a MRI machine and I'll fall asleep inside the tunnel. But once, in this store, I completely lost my bearings, not knowing where I was or how to get out. Scary. I brushed this thought aside, however, because I was tired and weary of driving on. Sure enough, after I'd reluctantly entered and picked up some items, I discovered that, as usual, only one check-out line was open and the cashier so slow she must have been pulled off the street and put on her “trainee” tag only that morning. I could swear that she inspected each item for cracks or dust before she'd scan it. Finally, there was only one lady ahead of me. She was in her mid-seventies or so. And, of course, there was a problem with her coupon, and the manager had to be called. He must have been on break too, because he was in no hurry to make an appearance. I was about to bolt the place, but there was a line behind me and I was hemmed in on either side by fingernail clippers, gum, candy, and other trinkets enticing me into one last purchase. As the white-haired lady was fumbling with her checkbook, I tried to reach the conveyor line to start putting down my purchases, but I couldn't because she hadn't pulled her empty cart forward. In total frustration, I gave the cart a push and it rolled forward, nudging her in the side. She looked back at me, aghast. “That's not very polite,” she blurted out in a soft, but firm voice. I couldn't believe I had done this. I remembered that scene in Seinfeld when George runs out of the burning kitchen and tramples the lady in a walker so he can get to the door first. By gosh, I was as bad as George! My head hanging lower than a dog's at the vet's door, I returned to the parking lot, only to see the white-haired lady trying to lift a big package from her cart into the trunk of her car. As I approached, I could see her tighten up. “Ma'am, I'm really sorry for what happened inside. I guess the pressure of the season got to me. I shouldn't have done that.” She relaxed a little. “Can I help you with that package?” And I quickly hefted it into the back of her car. A slight smile brightened her face. “Don't worry about it,” she said, “I've felt the same way myself at times.” I wanted to hug her, but thought I better not push my luck. I took her hand in both of mine. “Merry Christmas,” I whispered. “Same to you, Sonny.” I waved as she drove off; and, as I departed, I happened to look back, and there, in the middle of the lot, alone, was her shopping cart. July, 2006 The Sacred Pot Recently I wanted to dip some debris from our pond out back, and I found just the right pot to do the job. It was from my stash in the garage where I keep all our "retired" pots and pans. I can always find a use for old pots and pans, whether for holding nails or as a water-catch for house plants, for example. But as I bent to dip, I looked carefully at the pot again, and thought, "No. I can't do this, not with this pot." And the memories flooded back. Mom gave the pot to Mary Jo and me when we got married in 1970. We had used it through three house moves, but it had become so dented on the bottom that it wouldn't sit evenly on the stove anymore. So I sent it to the garage. This was a special pot that brought joy into our home in Huron, Ohio, on Lake Erie, when we were kids, especially on Saturday nights, when we all needed a treat. I'd be upstairs in the room where we four brothers slept, and the smell would waft up, and all was right with the world. Mom was popping corn! We kids had shucked the popcorn and cracked hickory nuts as winter chores. Mom would make several batches in the pot, then pour it into a bigger pan which Dad always kept on his lap, as we watched Jackie Gleason. He refilled our bowls out of that pan. We could even have a bottle of pop when we had corn! This scene with us seated around Dad's easy-chair, our bowls extended up to him, is right out of a Norman Rockwell album. Later, we five kids all did a stint in the Army, and popcorn at the Army Service Clubs around the world was always a taste of home. Our sister Cathy was an Army nurse in Vietnam and found that popping corn for the injured soldiers on her ward was an instant picker-upper. She contacted our town newspaper, became known as "the popcorn girl," and had over 200 pounds of bulk popcorn donated to her hospital in Vietnam for the troops. Recently Mary Jo and I stayed at a hotel in Michigan. I wasn't too pleased with the arrangements we'd been able to make at this place; but when I got inside and smelled the corn popping in an old-fashioned popper with the sign "help yourself" attached, I knew everything would be all right and it was. Finding the old pot has prompted me to start popping corn the old-fashioned way, on the stove top. The sound of the corn falling into the bottom of my new teflon pan sounds like beads falling on a hard-wood floor. Oil sizzles and steam escapes as I feverishly shake the pan back and forth over the burner grates (you'd think a train were passing by, on wobbly tracks). Then, those first kernels bursting upwards into the lid. Is it a hailstorm? I don't melt butter and pour over the corn as Mom did; I just spray it with my non-fat "butter" bottle, add salt, and mmmm' good! So much better than those microwave bags. I still have Mom's old pot in the garage, but it's in a place of honor now. As I was writing this journal entry, I held it in my hands again, and happened to turn it over; and there on the bottom, around the company logo, were the words "Happy Home."
© 2009 Mark the Storyteller Reynoldsburg, Ohio |