Free Haircut in Middleton

I swear this guy looks familiar.

Another surprise visit from Eddie. He stopped by the house just as I was getting ready to run a few errands – groceries for supper, primarily. (I’d grown tired of leftover turkey loaf and beef stew, the entrees I prepared for JoAnna and me on Monday and Tuesday.)

“What brings you home?” I asked, pleased to have him interrupt my solitary day.

“Haircut,” he said, pointing to his head.

I thought he looked a few weeks away from one, but Eddie does like to keep his hair cropped short.

“Where are the clippers?” he asked.

“In the cabinet above the dryer,” I said.

When he packed to move into his dorm two weeks ago, I suggested that he bring them along, but he chose to leave them at home.

He also grabbed a chair and placed it on the driveway just beyond the open garage door. I rounded up an extension cord.

“Which attached should I use?” I asked.

“Didn’t you use the ‘4’ last time?”

“I thought it was the ‘5’. You don’t want to look like your junior year picture.”

During a football camp that kicked off the practice schedule, Eddie volunteered, or so he has always claimed, to have his hair cut Mohawk-style. He didn’t like the results and ended up with a shaved head.

He insisted on the ‘4’ attachment, so I went to work. As I glided the clippers around the contours of his head, I was surprised by how much hair fell to the driveway. Eddie’s thick mane is courtesy of the Richard side of the family. Andy was blessed (cursed?) with the thin, wispy, and oftentimes disappearing Nelson hair.

Once I’d finished the haircut to Eddie’s precise specifications – he’s particularly fussy about the stray hairs along the back of his neck – he inspected the refrigerator and heated up a bowl of beef stew.

“It’s good,” he commented, “but it could be a little bit thicker.”

I feigned indignation at this critique, but actually I had thought the same thing after the first spoonful.

At the end of his two-hour visit, I gave Eddie a ride back to his dorm, which is located in an area of the campus that has lot of open space, plus tennis courts and at least one set-up for sand volleyball. As it was a perfect September day, the area was alive with activity. It made me recall the excitement I always felt at the start of each of my years at Buffalo. And for a brief moment, I even wanted to go back in time. But then I’d have to live the last 40 years of my life all over again. I’m very happy being where I am!

Tiedeman Pond Sunset

The Sectional Method of Housepainting

Our neighbor Dave crossed the street for a visit while I was priming the north (bedroom) side of the house earlier this afternoon.

“Painting the house a different color?” he asked.

“No, I just putting on a coat of primer right now,” I replied.

“Why are you doing that?” he returned.

Painting is Dave’s second job. From the sound of it, though, he hires himself out for mostly interior jobs. Nevertheless, his follow-up question made me feel as though I was going about things all wrong.

“That’s how I learned to do it from JoAnna’s dad,” I explained.

Until he was hired by the City of Two Rivers Public Works Department in the mid-1970s, Larry worked as a painter’s assistant on a regular basis. In fact, the same summer that he retired (1992), he and Alice spent a week in Middleton while JoAnna and the boys and I were on vacation so he could paint the house. I recall his insistence that a coat of primer was one of the key steps of the process. And I’ve followed suit every since.

I use a different method for scheduling this chore, however. I don’t have the time or inclination to give it my full attention, so I take a piecemeal approach – one small section at a time. I figure that the last time I painted the side of the house I worked on today was at least ten years ago. We had cable installed in Andy’s bedroom around the time he turned 13. If I had tackled this section of the house after the installation, the coaxial wire would have been painted to match the house color. Boy, it doesn’t seem that long, though. And since this area receives no direct sunlight, it’s held up quite well. (It is, unfortunately, very prone to mildew blooms.)

Dull Blades

Not so bad on second look.

I couldn’t put it off any longer; the grass was getting too long and shaggy. And so for the first time since mid-May, I pushed the lawnmower around the front and back yards. No sons around to delegate this chore to. I would have preferred to take a bike ride, but then the pangs of guilt would have limited my enjoyment of it.

I’m not particularly happy with the results. The mower’s blades need to be sharpened. The mower itself, a Sears Craftsman model which we purchased 8 or so years ago, has received minimal maintenance. The motor always starts like clockwork after a few presses of the primer bulb, even after the unit has sat in the shed all winter, and runs just fine. Now the question is: Do you tackle this sharpening chore myself (the instructions I found online are more complicated that I would have guessed) or take it into our neighborhood hardware store.

I used to do this when we had a manual push mower. It worked beautifully the first two times, but after that it became difficult to tell where it had made a cut. The boys absolutely hated using it – oh, did they complain about it! – and at the end of a second season of less-than-adequate service, I gave up on it. The spring sharpening didn’t seem to have made a bit of difference – probably because I purchased one of the cheapest models.

'Can you spell relief?'

It's the same old song,
but with a different meaning since.....

...I now associate it with tires or deodorant or yogurt.



According to Advertising Age, original music for commercials is in (let's welcome back the 'jingle') and licensing pop tunes is out.