Ken,  I just came upon this piece of ancient history that I had saved, most
likely to respond to and never got to it.  That's good because it means
even more to me now that we have been living with Dad for a while.  He has
the garage crammed full of this sort of stuff and if he can't find
something it's not because it's such a hodge podge, it's because somebody
took it to the auction or sold it in a yard sale.  Someday I AM going to go
out and straighten that place up--if I live that long.  First it's the
house. Dad has nearly always lived here.  He and Mom bought a house in
Putney but we only lived there about 5 years before my grandfather died and
we moved back here to live with my grandmother.

Dad is always putting things in peculiar places.  I found tools in the
bathroom cabinet, I think he had been tinkering with the heat pipes in the
bathroom.

Thanks for the insight into what's to come.  Ruth





At 4:03 PM -0400 10/18/00, Ken Follett wrote:
>In a message dated 10/18/00 7:02:35 AM Central Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
>writes:
>
><< let's all chip in a pound of brass (or a ton of granite) >>
>
>When my grandfather, the master finish carpenter, loaded up the little mobile
>trailer to move to Florida on retirement, the damn thing was weighed down to
>the point of flattening the springs and wobbled when test dragged across the
>pavement. Seems he had stuffed the little compartments where spare emergency
>tools were supposed to go with boxes of assorted springs of all sizes and
>descriptions, just in case you never know when you will need a good spring,
>and plastic Metemucil jars full of salvaged brass gas fittings. The brass was
>his emergency fund lest there be another depression sneaking up real quick to
>ruin his sunny days.
>
>Later... in the throes of his diabetes, alzheimers and parkinson's I visited
>in Florida and while he was hiding behind a stuffed chair, crouched on the
>floor and shivering in fear, he complained about the witch that was
>threatening to throw away his brass collection... requesting that I grab it
>and keep it safe.
>
>One time we were sent out to help him buy winter rubber boots and we picked
>up a pair of fluffy pink slippers along the way. He had a real good time
>showing up at the door of their apartment and asking grandmother if she liked
>his new boots. One of our last jokes together.
>
>Toward the end he spent a lot of time down near the baseboard fiddling with
>trying to pick out incorrectly nailed finishing nails with a walnut shell
>pick and toenail clippers and complaining that the boss had gone crazy.
>
>][<en

--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Westminster, VT

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>