Cloyce cards

So I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.
The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.
He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.
Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.
That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the five of a kind.

Getting gas tanked

We all know enough about cars to know that they break down. The starter gets fried, the transmission goes out, and we have to from time to time deal with nuisances such as flat tires. But sometimes truly unusual things happen to our vehicles.

Back in the Seventies we had a tan Chevy Suburban. With Mom and Dad and seven of us kids, you had to have a car large enough to transport everyone around, and Suburbans fit the bill. One day, I was 13 or 14, Mom and I were going to or coming back from somewhere and were just tooling along the street. Suddenly there was a loud and emphatic 'ker-thump!" and a terrible dragging sound. Mom eased the car to the curb. "Get out and see what's wrong," she instructed me.

I wasn't sure what she thought I would know to look for, but fortunately the trouble was obvious. When I got to the back of the Suburban, I saw the gas tank plain as day laying on the asphalt. It was held on by only the gas line.

I went back and said to Mom, "The gas tank fell off."

"Oh, come on," she responded. The tone in her voice and the look on her face told me she didn't believe that could possibly be the case.

"Ma, it's laying on the ground," I replied, incredulous myself really.

She got out, walked around the car, the looked at me and laughed. "You're right, the gas tank's fell off," she concurred. Thanks for the vote of confidence Mother.

Back then there weren't cell phones but pay phones were still all over. We found one only a block away and we weren't far from home either. So me Pops and me Uncle John came, disconnected the tank, and towed us home. The straps holding the tank in place had rusted through, and it turned out an easy fix. And though I'm sure the story is out there, I've yet to hear a car trouble tale quite so bizarre as dropping the gas tank.

Thirteen thirteen

I'm not sure the reasons behind it, but Amos whom I spoke of yesterday once went through a spell where he needed many surgeries. For whatever other reasons of which I am also unsure, me Pops ended up the contact person for him. Amos had no children and what family he had were all living in Kentucky.
I should mention here that Amos was extremely, indeed fervently, superstitious.
One day during the course of all Amos' health issues he had to have a surgery fast. It was a we need to know this instant, don't dwell on the answer, we'll lose him if don't operate immediately situations. Yet Amos himself was in a coma and could offer no instructions. Pops happened to be in the hospital and was approached about what to do. Operate, he of course told the doctors.
The surgery was done, and Amos came out in flying colors.
Well past any danger a couple of weeks later, Amos still lay in the hospital recuperating. Me Pops went to pay a visit. As they talked, Pops could see that Amos was calculating. Eventually he asked, in a fit of pique, "That was my thirteenth operation. Why'd you let them do it?" he demanded of Pops.
"What was I supposed to do?" Dad responded incredulously.
"When was the surgery?" Amos then demanded.
"I dunno. Two Fridays ago I guess."
"That was the Thirteenth!" Amos exclaimed. "You let them operate on me for the thirteenth time on Friday the 13th?"
"You're made it, didn't you?" Dad said with a wave of his hands. But I suppose when superstition gets a hold on you, it grabs tight.

Five years

Hey Pops, how are you today?

It looks like they finally finished the Logan County courthouse down in Bellfontaine. How long have they been working on it, maybe six, seven years? It's been awhile I know. I gather that 2018 is Bellefontaine's bicentennial and they wanted it ready by the Fourth this year. They got in under the wire.

I took in a Model R on trade last week for ten eight foot cables. Not a bad deal, I don't think. It all depends on what it sells for though, huh? We'll do all right with it.

Mom's doing okay physically but her mind ain't what it used to be. She talks about you all the time, saying that's she's glad we boys took after you. I fancy that by and large we have but that's flattery. I see a lot of you in your grandsons though. The apple doesn't fall too far from the grandtree, maybe?

The Tigers are doing well despite a rebuilding year. They play a home game at 3:15 this afternoon, and who knows why? I can't recall them ever playing at such a time, even on a weekend or holiday let alone on a normal end of June Monday. I'm almost tempted to go...

It's busy at work, so I guess I should go. Five years, eh? Sure don't seem like it.

Until next time,

Marty

Pops makes the lineup

Me Pops had some minor adventures in his life. Why, once he was actually in a police lineup as an older teen. Really.
Pops was lanky and redheaded when he was younger, though his hair turned black as he aged. Still, many of his longtime friends called him Red, and I remember when the name on his work shirts was Red rather than Bill. Anyway, it was his slight build and red hair which got him into the lineup.
The custom among his friends in the early 1950s was to go to a park and play baseball on summer Sunday afternoons. Well, one such Sunday unbeknownst to them a robbery had occurred nearby. The suspect was a lanky older redheaded teen, and the police were able to nab him. Yet with his Constitutional rights and all, the DPD needed for the victim to identify the guy.
Yet you couldn't have a fair lineup consisting of one person, could you? As it was, a patrol car spotted Pops and his buddies playing ball. And besides Pops, 5 or 6 of the other guys roughly met the suspect's description. So the nice officers (they were very nice about it, Pops said) asked if they wouldn't mind coming to the local station to stand in the lineup along with the actual suspect. So they did. It was almost seventy years ago; you cooperated with the cops as a matter of course. The boys were promised they'd be let go without a word if one of them did get pegged, especially as they had one another as alibis and even the police saw them playing baseball.
Needless to say none of them were identified by the victim. A fellow none of Pops or his friends knew was pointed out as the delinquent and they knew nothing more about it. Still, that group of red haired friends teased each other for years about whether they'd vouch for any of them had they been accused of being the culprits.

Grandpa Joe

I always knew Joe would be the last of my grandparents to take the final journey. He didn't take care of himself. He smoked like a chimney, as the saying goes. He took chances that would have surely killed any other man yet he, somehow, survived. Exercise? What was that?
He was the perfect candidate to outlive the other three.
He was not easy to get along with. But damn it, you could get along with him. If you wanted to. If you tried. We hear so much anymore about just getting along. Well, it took more than just getting along to get along with Joe. Yet he could be got along with. If you let go of your predispositions and tried.
He was tender. Yes, I know that those of you among my friends and relatives are laughing right now. Yet he was. He made me a simple little toy out of string and a button. He grinned as I played with it, laughed a bit, happy at the gift, happy at my glee. It lead to the only time I saw me Pops jealous, when he saw me playing with what his father had made for me. That's okay, I get it. The relationships between grandson and grandfather are different from that of father and son. The dynamics aren't the same.
But if I could have anything more human right now beyond my own father, I wish I had that string and button.

See Sherman. See Sherman burn his hand

Sherman used to clean drains. That means that we saw him a lot back in the day; he worked until about 1990. Sherman also used to preface every sentence with the word, see. 'See, I'm doing fine,' he would answer when you asked how he was.

One morning Pops was welding an end on Sherman's cable. When Dad finished he noticed Sherman reaching for the cable as he turned off the welder. "Don't touch that, it's hot!" he warned.

"See, I know it's hot," Sherman answered.

A minute later Dad heard him yelp. He turned to see Sherman rubbing his hand; he had grabbed the hot cable full palm. "Sherman, I just told you that was hot!" Dad admonished him.

"See, I didn't know it was that hot."

Pops went and got the burn ointment from our first aid kit. Squeezing some out of the tube onto the wound, Dad said as Sherman worked the goo into his palm, "Are you going to be okay?"

"See, I'll be fine, Bill. See, I didn't burn it that bad. See, I didn't hold it very long."

I imagine not.

The big race between Pop and Tall Glass

Pop Turner lived near the Shop with his brother in law, who we called Tall Glass. Pop's real name was Frank; I don't recall what Tall Glass was actually named. Okay, some people called him Goldie because his last name was Goldsmith. We called him Tall Glass because me Grandpa Joe stuck that monitor on him. He drank from a long, tall glass, Joe always said with a smile.
Pop and Tall Glass got along well, but as with many families sometimes a little animosity would break out. Usually this was just a shouting match, and usually when they'd both been drinking. Yet it was rarely more than that.
One such rare day occurred while me Pops (not to be confused here with Pop Turner of course) and I were the only two in the Shop and were having a coffee. As it was a warm summer day we had the big truck doors open, sitting by them to catch a breeze. After a minute or two we heard the ruckus. Pop and Tall Glass were at it; the gist was that Pop wanted chicken but he wanted his brother in law to go get it. Tall Glass resolutely would not.
Soon Tall Glass appeared, staggering down the alley in drunk fashion. He was yelling, "Come on man, no. Stop it," as he stumbled along in slow motion. Next Pop appeared, likewise speed and balance challenged. He was yelling at Tall Glass to go to the store for him, and was in slo-mo function as well. Only Pop was brandishing a shovel, holding it uncertainly above his head like a bat, ready to beat Tall Glass into doing his will.
If he caught him. The guys made their way down the alley, probably the slowest, most serpentine chase scene on record anywhere. Dad and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. Eventually Tall Glass fell, allowing Pop to get with maybe 15 feet of him. He begged his brother in law for mercy.
Dad sighed, "I better go do something before one of them gets hurt." He went out and gently took the shovel from Pop, explained firmly that wanting chicken wasn't reason enough to bust a family member's head open, helped Tall Glass off the cement, and escorted the two to their respective homes, making them promise to behave.
Ah, memories.

Cloyce and my used Model C

I remember a time when I was 16 or 17 that Pops handed over to me a used Electric Eel Model C drain cleaning machine which he had taken in on trade, and told me to clean it up for sale. With it, for honestly the first time in my life, I went all out on a work project. I really put my heart into the job.

I took the motor off the frame, and washed all the grime off both. I painted the motor gray and the frame royal blue, just as they painted them at the Eel factory. I rewired it and installed new wheels. When I was finished with it that baby looked sharp. She was dressed to the nines. I was truly proud of my work. Pops was too. That made me feel very good.

A few days later a regular customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, came by. I was busied at some project at a work bench in the middle of the Shop, the old barn where I still work. "Bill,' I heard Cloyce say to my father, "Have you got any used Models Cs?"

My heart sank right to floor. It went right through my boots.

You see, Cloyce was a great guy and a good customer. He never debated nor asked for better prices. He just bought what he wanted and said thank you. But man oh man, he was one lousy drain cleaner. He lost more cables in more sewers than you might think it possible for any one man to lose. I think he lost more snake cable in a given year than entire companies would. He abused his equipment in ways and manners worse than any person I've ever, ever known. In the museum of incompetent plumbers, yes, I mean this, is a solid gold, life size statue of Cloyce. He was simply not good at his job. It remains a wonder to me how he ever got work. Who would refer this guy?

And Pops was going to sell him my Model C.

He couldn't not not sell the man the machine. I get that. We were, are still, in the business of selling new and used drain snakes, and Cloyce's money was as good as anyone else's. Plus, his poor skills weren't our fault. He had to sell the unit. As he took Cloyce's money Pops, for the only time in his life, looked over at me with a sheepish, embarrassed, pained look which plainly said, 'I'm sorry, son'.

Cloyce wheeled that Eel out the door with a bright smile, while I was truly morose. You know those classic theater masks, the grinning one which represents comedy and the crying one which spoke tragedy? I learned that moment how tragedy felt.

Within a month Cloyce brought that Model C into the Shop for a switch or something. The front swivel caster was gone and the frame broken off so that the drive shaft had no support. The paint was scratched and grime covered my first child. I swear it looked up at me in despair and whispered pathetically, "Shoot me."

Zeke

As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, I gotta confess something.

I don't know why Pops called Uncle John Zeke.

He did, you (now) know. Dad called his youngest brother Zeke. I still hear Dad's voice saying it. Hey Zeke, I still hear him say, as Uncle John would come in off a run. But why, I dunno.

But hey Zeke. I miss golfing with ya.

The way to express an opinion

My dad and my Grandpa Joe got along well, despite the fact that Grandpa could be difficult to deal with (something which I will attest to from years of personal experience, and I really loved the old coot). Dad explained to me once that both he and his father had poor tempers, something I would never have accused Dad of having, but as Joe was here first, Pops had made up his mind early on that he would be the one to hold his tongue whenever he didn't see eye to eye with his old man. However, that didn't mean he couldn't get his point across when necessary.

Joe rented welding equipment and Pops worked for him. This was back in 1940s through the 1980s, before prefabrication, when a lot of fabrication had to be done right on construction sites. So Grandpa had for rent arc welders, torches, and things which I think were called buzz boxes. As that's good enough for the point of this tale, we'll leave it at that.

These buzz boxes were intended to make instant welds. As I recall, you would hold the thing up to a rivet on a steel girder and it was supposed to make three quick welds to secure the rivet in place. Supposed is the operative word here. The boxes were notoriously finicky, and it was Dad's job to go out to work sites to repair the them when they didn't work.

Pops hated them. They were as difficult to repair as they were to operate. Over a few years Dad learned to fully and completely despise them.

One day as he came in from a particularly tough repair on one of the buzz boxes, Joe could see that his son was not in a good mood. Pops could tell his father thought that maybe he could lighten things. He remarked with a slight chuckle, apparently trying to make a joke of it, "Those buzz boxes are tough to deal with, eh?"

As Dad told it, he replied quietly, firmly, and without looking up at his pops, "Old man, when you die, I'm selling those buzz boxes. Then I'll bury you." It's an old line, but used rightly, an effective one. Perhaps Dad had been holding it back, waiting for the teachable moment.

Joe laughed at it, but kind of nervously. The next day he began selling the buzz boxes.

Pops could let Joe know what he felt when he had to, and without the arguments Joe often had with others. And I think they respected each other because of it.

The gift

Mom has told on herself a few times in her life. One time it amused Dad quite succinctly.

As Dad told it, they were sitting at the kitchen table. He was doing the Sunday crossword puzzle. She was sorting out her money, laying it in piles as she counted it out. A few dollars here, a few dollars there. But she was counting it all out loud.

This for the kids: Bill's book, Marty's baseball game, Susan's doll, this and that as she mentally but aloud went through her Christmas list. She ended with, 'And this for Bill's chair'. And Dad began to laugh out loud.

Mother was buying a recliner on layaway for the old man. She had let out the secret.

It was maybe the best Christmas gift Pops had ever gotten. But only because Mom had given it away a few days before December 25th.

All stove up

There are things which folks say which I never understood. Pops used to say, when disgusted at some tool or whatever, "Whoever invented that ought to be beat through Hell with a beefheart". O-kay.
Grandpa Joe used to talk about being all 'stove up' I never got that one either. Until recently.
What he meant, speaking in general terms, was that when you had been active for a while and then sat for a while, your muscles tightened up. You became stiff and sore; achy. It might take a few steps before you were walking comfortably because your joints weren't limber.
Well, after curling the last two days I came to realize exactly what Grandpa meant. Immediately after each game I felt okay, but well after each game as I stood up from the table after a pint and a bit to eat, my back was tight, my shoulders sore, my knees aching, and it took about 15 steps to walk fully upright comfortably. I was all stove up.
Sometimes you just have to experience something to get it.

Protesting Joe Cosgriff

As I made mention yesterday, me Grandpa Joe rented welding equipment. As I made mention also yesterday, in so very many words, me Uncle John toiled for him. So too did me old dad.

Detroit, being a union town (to its debit or credit however ya happen ta see the question) required some soul with a union card on any job requirin' such which, in the humble opinion of the union, a not rather humble opinion if I may say, union affiliation there, me Grandpa had an issue. Still, he could not rent his wares on a union site without a union guy on hand. So he pays me father's dues to the Teamsters, so's that a union guy might magically appear on a job site where his equipment may happen to be, to satisfy those certain requirements.

Now, I'm not recalling something here to provoke a fight about unionism. Truly I'm not. But what I found fascinating about the whole hullabaloo was in seein' the business agent from Teamsters Local 247 comin' out every three years t' negotiate with me Grandad me Pops' own contract. They, the Teamsters, held this general contract ye see with all companies in their realm, the generalities within all companies bein' applied to all, with the particulars up for debate. Joe and me Pops fell in between such lines.

O'course, Pops and Joe always agreed on them particulars. Yet me, I always imagined me old Dad marchin' along 12th Street in Detroit with a sign assertin', JOE COSGRIFF UNFAIR. It woulda been a sight.

It woulda been a sight. From this distance, I think them boys may have agreed on the lunacy. Them boys bein' Grandpa Joe and me Pops. Because Joe Cosgriff, he woulda' never been unfair to me Pops. They loved each other too much to have allowed that.

The old barn

I drove by that old barn last night, late, when I was coming back from curling in Windsor, Ontario. I needed to be sure she was secure, and she was.

That old barn means a lot to me. Me Grandpa Joe, he rented it first, back in 1960, the year I was born. Later, he bought it outright. It had been a stable back when actual horsepower still drove the world. It had then been a mechanic shop, then an auto detailing shop. Then a place to store welding equipment and pipe threaders, things necessary for fabrication in an era before prefabrication. Things me old grandfather owned and rented.

There was many folk what worked there. Some was relatives. Some were neighborhood friends, some were folk who needed one more week of work to make their full Social Security. Me Grandad, he did that for an old friend from Illinois who for whatever reason needed one week of work to qualify for a whole Social Security check. Miles Fitzpatrick his name was. Grandad helped his old friend from Jacksonville earn his full Social Security with the one more week of work he needed to collect before earning his whole Social Security.

Me Dad, he brought me in there when I was 13 and expecting a whole summer off schoolwork. Baseball and all, you know, what kids then wanted to play. I still remember Pops knocking on me door at 7:30 on that Monday morning after seventh grade let out and saying simply, 'Marty'. I was up straight off, and soon into clothes I didn't mind ruining, and went to work. I can honestly say I have 42 years experience in the business. It was me Pops what saw to that.

It was in that old barn wheres I learned to appreciate them folks around me. Grandpa Joe, we lost him in Nineteen Ninety One, two days before his eighty sixth birthday. We lost Pops in Twenty Thirteen, on the Twenty Fifth of June. I learned what great guys they were whiles workin' in that old barn. Now, that old barn, it's mine and me brother Phil's.

And it's secure. And I'll go to sleep being secure myself tonight now.