Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, September 10, 2011 8:32:13 AM
Knowing that I am livelier than most men who were born in 1930, most of who are buried, did not keep me from considering the cost of burial when my time comes. Since my first wife cashed in my insurance policies when she divorced me, and I know our current savings rate, I decided to check on the cost of a funeral. If you feel too happy and on top of the world for your own good, go to a funeral home and discuss the price of leaving this world. I did that this past Monday. It took all morning. It is not just the cost that contributes to your enjoyment, although it helps, it is also such matters as the selection of your coffin and pall bearers. What fun!
Today, a touch of autumn is in the air. The days are shorter and cooler, with daytime highs in the eighties and nighttime lows providing comfortable sleeping in the lower seventies and upper sixties.
This morning, tripping over a stool in the kitchen and surveying the pile of dishes drying in the sink, I began reflecting on the past. When son Bill and I lived here alone, I had two plates, two cups and glasses, two sets of knives and forks, a crock pot and a comfortable existence. It was a very comfortable existence. I had only the two dishes to wash each morning and did my laundry in town, eating breakfast afterwards at a place where two fried eggs, toast and coffee cost a dollar and I didn’t have to wash dishes.
Then Ruby Leach, living across the then unnamed road – now Leach road, talked me into buying a little used, second hand, stove for fifty dollars and a student at Austin Peay supplied me with a washing machine that her mother, who had purchased several at a military sale, didn’t want. Unfortunately, these reduced the pleasant necessity of my Saturday morning trips to town for washing.
Next my sister, Ethel, visited for a few days. When I returned from work the first evening following her arrival, she came dancing across the yard to greet me as I exited my car. “I’ve made a few changes,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind.” In fact, she had completely re-arranged my household furniture, moving my bedroom to a different room and making a “few” other changes. She also had a low opinion of my dishware: shortly after she went home I received a large box, which held a complete set of new dishes. This wasn’t too bad, I simply stored them. Life remained pleasantly simple.
Then Sheila began visiting. I tried to explain to her that the yellow stripes on my plates were paint, not egg remnants, but she didn’t listen. It didn’t help my argument when she washed off the paint, turning the plates back into pure white.
Changing the subject slightly, to the present, with my broken chest I have problems doing one armed work. It is not just the exercise, it is the way the bones re-adjust themselves in the evening when I’m trying to go to sleep. They crackle. Sometimes they even hurt. Sheila has spent some time exploring the Internet and has located a vest that is supposed to help with this problem. It is adjustable and, they warn, heavy. She telephoned several stores and could not locate anyone carrying it, so she finally telephoned the company that makes them. She was told that they have several in their inventory and would be happy to send her one without charge, provided she agreed that I would go to my doctor before wearing it. She agreed. When she told me about this I commented that it could be a way of obtaining free advertising for a vest that wasn’t selling. Anyway, one is supposed to be in the mail. Perhaps I’ll be able to wield my garden shovel again.
Have you ever noticed how women complicate a man’s life? First it was Ruby bringing cooking and washing back into my life – I did a lot of it when my older children were small, then it was Ethel with her dishes and pots, now it is Sheila bringing in clothing that I’ve never heard of so that I can do work I don’t know that I want to do. No wonder men were so happy in the Garden of Eden before women were invented.