“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’  ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the cat.  ‘I don’t much care where –‘, said Alice.  ‘Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,’ said the cat.  ‘-so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.  ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.” – Lewis Carroll

After we moved to Corvallis and I accepted the position at Oregon State University, the sale of our restaurant fell through and we were faced with choices.

“Shall I move back to Everett and try to salvage the restaurant?”, I asked Linda.  “And give up on the position at Oregon State University?  I don’t see that as a step forward.”  “Well, unless we have another buyer within the next two months, we’ll be bankrupt”, I said.  “Let it go.  We started with nothing; we can start again.”  And so we did.  I borrowed $1000 from my mom to hire a bankruptcy attorney and within three months the restaurant and equipment were auctioned off.  After pouring so much energy and time and love into our Irish café, it was emotionally draining to see it all collapse in failure.  I was exhausted.  Disheartened. Embarrassed and humiliated.  I had always felt confident in myself and my ability and for the first time in my life I experienced what it felt like to fail.  I was ashamed.  I had made commitments to suppliers but was now welching on those financial promises. 

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” – FDR

Things were changing in Mukilteo.  When Linda and I opened our restaurant we were the 6^th restaurant in town.  We filled the niche of being the primary family-oriented restaurant.  By now, six years later, there were 16 restaurants in Mukilteo and three of them were fast-food restaurants that cut into our family business.  At the same time, Reagan cancelled the defense contract with Honeywell which designed super-secret parts for atomic submarines, which resulted in the entire plant closing and 800 people being unemployed.  And Intermec Industries, another major business in the area, moved to a new location, and Boeing cut their employee lunch breaks back to 27 minutes or some ridiculous number which eliminated another major source of lunch business.  That was capped off by Kelly getting hired to a new job in Bellingham, Washington, and Bob deciding that he wanted to be an auto mechanic.  And I was getting a bit tired myself.  So, I put the restaurant up for sale.

My good friend, Murray, called one day to ask me if I would consider moving to Corvallis, Oregon and work with him as the Assistant Director of University Foodservices.  Seemed like a timely offer.  So, Linda and I traveled to Corvallis to visit the school district and the University.   We liked what we saw and decided the timing was right.  We received and accepted an offer to buy our little Irish Café and we prepared to close the restaurant, sell our house, and move to Corvallis.  Each of those changes were a bit stressful, but both Linda and I felt a sense of relief that we would no longer have the financial stress of owning a small, under-capitalized business.  And we hoped that the schools in Corvallis would be better than the schools our children were attending. 

We rented our house to the daughter of a friend until the house sold, collected the earnest money check from the restaurant buyer, packed up our goods and moved to a rental house until we could afford to buy a house in Corvallis.  We had no sooner moved to Corvallis when I was informed by the realtor that the buyer of our restaurant had backed out of the purchase agreement.  Now it was time to hang onto the knot at the end of the rope. 

“Let us now consider the human soul, which while in the body is subject to ills and suffering, a prey to griefs, lusts, fears, and evils of every kind, whose body is a “chain” or a “tomb” and the realm of sense a “cave” or a “grotto.”  That it should be thus does not go counter to the preceding; it is simply that the causes of its descent are different.”  Plotinus

After the joy of starting our own restaurant, we ran into some personnel issues with Bob, our cook, who was a key member of our restaurant work group. Bob had a history of alcohol abuse but for a couple of years he seemed to have gotten control of it.

Then one night, I received another call about Bob and this time I picked him and took him to Providence Hospital’s Detox center to have him enter a rehab program.  I committed to re-hiring him after he completed the two-month onsite program.  In the meantime, I hired Marty who was a good cook, came with good recommendations but had another type of addiction.  Marty’s work tenure seemed to be relatively short; often just a few months.  But my experience with cooks is that they tend to fluidly move from one restaurant to another often following a favorite chef.  And I really only needed him until Bob got out of rehab.

Marty was a good-looking surfer-like dude.  He was out-going, personable, and loved women.  Pretty much all women.  And, it seems, they liked Marty.  Being in the hospitality industry, I thought having a friendly persona would be a good thing.  It turns out that it’s possible to be too friendly and Marty may have demonstrated that trait.  In western society it is generally accepted, I believe, that men should only have one wife.  At least only one at a time.  I’m not sure how many wives Marty had, because there were multiple girl-friends in addition to his wives.  And as I learned, the women in his life were more likely the cause of his frequent moves.  Shortly before he resigned from my restaurant, he confided in me that he found it very hard to say no to a beautiful woman.  By the time it was time for Marty to move on, Bob was out of re-hab.

“In olden times, sacrifices were made at the altar, a practice which is still very much practiced.” – Helen Rowland

“All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.” – Red Skelton

“By all means, marry.  If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” – Socrates

It is with trepidation that I write this chapter, what with just getting married and all.  But fortunately for me, I have no chance at becoming much of a philosopher.  Having achieved marriage status during my senior year in college, I have been married nearly all of my adult life.  I should be quite proficient at husbanding by now, but it turns out there is always more to learn. 

Linda, my first wife, was a rookie.  We were young, broke, naïve, and in love.  We had no idea what we were doing but we figured that life would somehow work out.  We had boatloads of hope, but no boat.  I always wanted a boat but the best I could accomplish in that area was a very tippy aluminum row boat.  Not much of a boat, if you asked me.  But the boatloads of hope were much more tangible.  There was nothing we could not accomplish.  Our love gave us strength and we nurtured and sustained each other.  I think I required more nurturing and sustaining, but nevertheless, our bonds of marriage grew stronger over time and were tested over the years.  Surviving the tests that life threw at us made those bonds even stronger.  After Linda was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, I thought those bonds might be tested again.  It turned out that love totally dominated that disease.  But love has no limits and while life may come to a physical end, I discovered that love endures.

Husbanding comes with certain expectations.  Great expectations.  And like Dicken’s novel, those expectations are simply expressed:  affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class.  Which is a good thing because I have always been lacking in the last three.  My understanding of the responsibilities of being a husband were based on my observations of my father and grandfather. 

My grandfather was a hunter, fisher, and businessman.  He taught me how to shoot at age six and we fished together every opening day of fishing season for many years.  He was a great story teller.  He was honest and kind.  He had played football in college and a little bit after college in a semi-pro league.  He was a big man and there was a toughness about him that belied his gentleness.  He was somewhat of a handyman and engineer.  He built a rustic but spacious summer home on Camano Island and converted the kegs of nails used to build the cabin into stools for seating around the dining room table.  Interior door closers were engineered with twine and fishing weights.  Door openers were leather straps.  The sleeping porch (attic door) was a four by eight sheet of plywood, hinged on one side and held open by a rope running through a pulley and secured by a counterweight.  The used brick fireplace was the only heat source and had vents into the back hallway where the 3 bedrooms were located.

My father was a navy commander and businessman.  He inherited my grandfather’s business when my grandfather died.  My dad was active in civic affairs and was on the board of many industry non-profit organizations, and served as president of the National Exchange Club, the Arctic Club (which served businesses doing business in Alaska), the Ballard Hospital Board of Directors, and other organizations.  He believed in justice, integrity, commitment, loyalty, and honor.  He loved to play golf and fish and camp. 

While I lack my grandfather’s engineering ingenuity, the values of my father and grandfather were the models I looked to adopt and used as a measure of my success as a husband and father.  Simply stated, I had awesome role models.  And yet, being a husband and father is no easy assignment.  Like medicine, the over-riding rule seems to be, “Do no harm”.  But that leaves a ton of latitude and a hell of a lot of gray area for husbands to fumble around in.  With Linda, things were pretty clear; but only after I missed the mark.  For example, there was the time when I felt like I needed a bigger chain saw.  I had a chain saw, but it only had a 16” bar.  I had a pine tree that was 30+ inches in diameter that I wanted to cut down for firewood.  My puny little saw wasn’t up to the task.  I found a used saw with a 30” bar in the PennySaver want ads for only $150.  If new, it would have been $500.  I told Linda I wanted to buy the chainsaw and she asked how much it was and quite bluntly told me we couldn’t afford it.  Since she paid the bills, I was a bit disappointed that we couldn’t afford a $150 saw.  She put an exclamation mark on her previous statement by saying I could buy a new chain saw when she got a sewing machine. 

Now, I had never heard Linda mention she wanted a sewing machine or that she even knew how to use one.  But if the answer to getting my saw was to get her a sewing machine, then shoot, that problem was an easy one to solve.  So that afternoon I went down to Sears, opened a charge account, bought a sewing machine and called the saw owner and both problems were solved.  Linda had her sewing machine and I had my heavy duty saw.  Was Linda excitedly happy that she got this new gift?  Of course not.  She thought I was demented.  I totally failed to understand the “rules” of husbandry.  She didn’t want a sewing machine.  Where oh where did I go wrong? 

So, here’s the thing.  Wives generally aren’t looking to have problems solved.  They may state that a certain issue exists, but it doesn’t mean that they are asking their husband to solve that issue for them.  It is simply an acknowledgment of the existence of a possible problem.  My most common mistake as a husband was to assume that the issue needed immediate resolution and the role of a good husband was to solve problems and resolve identified issues.  You know, to “manage” the situation.  That, gentlemen, is a rookie mistake.  Resolution is not the issue.  I know, many of you are now asking, “then what is the issue?”  The issue, dear reader, is dialog.

Dialog.  This is another fraught term.  But before I go on; there is one other matter that I should clarify for you.  That has to do with the word “manage”.  I learned early on that wives do not like to be managed.  “Manage” apparently infers “control”.  And that was a lesson that became incredibly clear to me during the first week of marriage.  We honeymooned in Hawaii.  We had dinner at the Top Of Waikiki.  Dinner and drinks.  I had a mai tai.  Linda had a Volcano which was rum and blue curacao or something like that.  As she became a little silly and her words were slightly slurred, I helpfully suggested that perhaps we should order coffee and go for a walk on the beach.  Her response was, “waiter, I would like to have another one of these delishusss tornados”.  And so she did.  It was obvious that she ordered the beverage out of her disdain for feeling that she was being managed.  Let’s just say that the end result was not very romantic. 

So, back to dialog.  Dialog isn’t just conversation.  It is an intentional effort to achieve mutual understanding.  Linda and I had some conversation about my chainsaw, but there was no dialog despite, perhaps, Linda’s feeble (my opinion) attempt at dialog.  She apparently wanted us to have a dialog about family budget and goals and that was totally unclear to me as I was simply trying to solve a problem and not as invested in an existential conversation about the future.  This was a tough lesson for me as it required reading between the lines a bit and that is not in my natural playbook. 

You may notice that my mind tends to drift a bit as I write so I will try to get back to second marriages.  After Linda died, I had no intention of dating anyone.  I was quite comfortable in my newfound bachelorhood.  I was looking forward to playing bridge at the bridge club I had just joined, going fishing on mountain streams, and puttering.  I am a very skilled putterer.  I can putter with the best.  I am a better putterer than a fisherman even though I love being out on a stream or on the ocean.   But life has a way of playing tricks on you.  Sometimes they are not especially desired tricks but sometimes they are magical and transform your life in ways you could never expect.  And such was my experience with the lovely lady known as Virginia. 

We met at the bridge club, discovered we had a shared interest in food, wine, bridge, the outdoors, local farming, environmentalism, and politics.  We became friends.  We enjoyed each other’s company.  We had both shared great, inconsolable loss.  We had both survived.  And survived with optimism about the future.  We went wine tasting, out to dinner, and our friendship continued to grow.  More time together resulted in a desire to spend more time together.  And then there was the dinner.  The dinner that changed everything.  The dinner at Farm Food Restaurant.  The dinner with the $100 bottle of wine and lamb chops.  The dinner when Virginia invited me to visit her in New Zealand.  The dinner when I said “yes” knowing that her invitation and my acceptance could change everything.  Perhaps we would fall in love.  Perhaps we would find that we were incompatible in some way.  It was the dinner when we knew we needed to know if there was more to this relationship than good conversation and friendship.  But even if there was nothing more, the friendship we had formed was, in and of itself, worth it and sustainable, so I traveled to New Zealand with confidence that there was little possibility for a negative outcome.  We might become even better friends.  We might become lovers.  Who knew?  And in either case, we would have a wonderful adventure together.  And what an adventure it was!  I think that is all I can say about that without jeopardizing all I have learned about the rules of marriage. 

Our relationship didn’t follow a typical script.  We honeymooned in Tahiti before we got married which was a good thing, since we got married during the first week of enforced social distancing due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic which put a crimp in our travel plans.  This second marriage is only in its third week, as I write this, so there is much more to learn.  Fortunately, Virginia is an excellent professor and teacher and I know she will patiently and persistently help me in my continuing education on the proper role of husbanding.

“If life were predictable it would cease to be life and be without flavor.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

Perhaps all first-time restauranteurs experienced a similar rush of giddy anxiety. The crazy rush to buy all the necessary equipment, line up suppliers, interview potential employees, hire, train, and schedule staff. Determine menu items and pricing strategies. Design and print menus, design restaurant signage and contract with a company who could construct and install signage in two weeks. Set up inventory records and accounting/payroll systems. Plan a marketing and advertising strategy. Design and create special events to complement the marketing strategy. Sheesh. Meanwhile all of the money is going out and none is coming in. Panic. Rush, rush, rush. We need to get the restaurant open. We need cash flow. Damn, I should have listened to my old boss, who cautioned me about adequate capital. We need to get this place open and ready to operate.

But the rut of 9 to 5 was over.  No more answering to the man.  My own boss.  Damn, life was good.  We rushed to get signs made, menus printed, and staff hired.  We purchased uniforms, contacted the local papers and tourist agencies, lined up suppliers, placed our first orders, and voila, we were in business.  Six a.m. to three p.m. were our hours.  Prepare and serve breakfast and lunch and then go home.  What an awesome plan! 

Six a.m. Monday morning I flipped on the OPEN sign of Shamrock, Shilleleh, and Shenanigan’s Irish Cafe, posted the day’s breakfast special on the chalk-board, went over last minute details with the waitstaff, and headed into the kitchen to begin preparation for the day’s menu. 

Seven a.m. our first guest arrived and ordered a cup of coffee and burnt toast.

Eight a.m. our second customer arrived.  He ordered a Spanish omelet, juice and coffee.  I thanked him for coming in and introduced myself.  He was the owner of the barbershop next door and said he was glad that the restaurant had reopened.  Slowly but surely customers began to trickle in.  I was ecstatic.  We were in business!  By the end of the week we had served 350 guests, banked $2450, spent $1176 in wages and $980 in food for a gross profit of $294.  After factoring in the cost of the lease and the bank loan we were headed toward losing $270 for our first month of operation.  No worries, I thought.  This is our first week and business will continue to grow.  And it did.  But after three months, it was clear that just serving breakfast and lunch was not going to create a successful business.  So, I created a dinner menu and recruited for a dinner cook.

“Hello, Bob.  It’s nice to meet you.  Tell me about your previous cooking jobs.”

“My most recent job was at Barnaby’s Fish and Steakhouse in Bothell.”

“Why did you leave that position?”

“Well, you see, I had an auto accident and missed a few days of work and they let me go.”

“I will need to do a reference check with them, Bob.  Are you ok with that?”

“Sure.  They will just confirm what I told you.  The manager’s name is Jim.”

“Hello, I’d like to speak to Jim, please.  Hi Jim, this is Rich Turnbull at Shamrock, Shillelleh, and Shenanigans, I’d like to get a reference on a past employee named Bob.”

“Bob was a very talented cook; especially when he was sober.  He had perfect attendance up until his auto accident.  His clam chowder is to die for.  My customers are sad that he had to leave.”

“So, Bob, Jim tells me that you are a very good cook, but I’m concerned about your drinking and if that will interfere with your job.”

“Nah.  It’s not that big of a problem.  I screwed up and that’s all behind me now.”

Okay, that may have been a sketchy interview, but I needed a cook as soon as possible and so I hired Bob and he was grateful for the opportunity.  He had some good menu ideas and pretty soon we were in business from 6 am to 10 pm six days a week and 8am to 3pm on Sundays. 

Bob could handle busy dinner rushes and never complained.  The food he prepared was consistently good and in keeping with our casual family dining venue.

The business was exciting.  I’d get up at 5am, shower, dress, drive to work, and open the restaurant for business by 6am.  I would prep everything for breakfast and begin preparation for the soup of the day, beef stew, and chili which were on the lunch menu.  The chili was served in a pie crust, topped with grated cheddar and garnished with sour cream, a green pepper ring, and a sprig of cilantro.  It was a popular item on the menu and required that I prepare the pate brisee dough and pre-bake it.  All of this prep work for lunch and dinner happened between breakfast orders.  The pace was busy. 

Linda would get the kids off to school and then come in to prepare desserts for the day. 

Bob would arrive at 2pm and work until 10:30pm prepping and cooking dinner.  He worked Wednesday through Sunday.  Monday and Tuesday were my hardest days because I was cooking from 6am until 10pm.  By the time we got the restaurant cleaned up, did the book keeping, prepared the bank deposit, dropped the deposit off in the bank’s night deposit drop, it would be well after 11pm.  Then I’d drive home, sleep for a few hours and pop back up at 5am to do it again.  The first few months I was fueled by adrenaline.  While Bob was cooking, I had time to meet our customers and our customer base continued to grow.  Many of our menu additions came from suggestions and recipes from our customers.  

“Rich, here is a recipe from my great grandma Bertha Mae.  It’s been in our family for years.  It’s a family favorite.  You should give it a try.”  And so we would, and if Bertha Mae’s recipe sold, it became a feature on the menu. 

Cole Sullivan, one of our regular’s, came in one Friday evening and ordered a beef pastie.  “Cole, I don’t have pasties on the menu.”  “Why not?  How can you call this an Irish Café if you don’t serve beef pasties?”  “Forgive me, but I have no idea what a pastie is.  This isn’t a strip club.”  And for the next half hour Cole told me how he left home at age 14 and got a job in the mines in Butte, Montana, and how he would get a pastie from the Boarding House he lived in to take with him to the mines that would sustain him all day.  And that any self-respecting Irishman would have pasties on the menu of an Irish restaurant.  And so, for the next several Friday’s, Cole would come in and try my take on pasties and then critique them and tell me what was wrong and then I’d go back in the kitchen to make adjustments and present him with another pastie the next Friday until, finally he gave up and said, “I guess that will have to do.  It’s pretty damn close to the real thing.”  And so from then on we had beef pasties every Friday as a dinner special. 

Each month we would print new menus, adjust prices, cull slow moving items from the menu and add new things to keep the menu fresh.  Despite a steadily growing customer base, our monthly profit margin remained slim and pulling money out of the business for our owner’s salary was challenging.  George’s advice on holding a cash reserve of one year’s expenses was beginning to sound like very sage advice.  Just as soon as we would build up a little bit of a cash cushion, the ice machine would break down, or the sandwich cooler’s compressor would fail, or the freezer would stop freezing.  I hadn’t budgeted enough for equipment failure and replacement.  Employees wanted raises and insurance, Linda wanted more take home pay for ourselves, I just wanted a good night’s sleep.  I got sick but still had to work.  I got pneumonia and still had to work, hoping I wasn’t making others sick in the process.  The luster and promise of entrepreneurship were beginning to fade.

And then along came Kelly.  Kelly worked with me at WSU as a dietetic intern.  She had put herself through college by catering.  She was smart and energetic and I called her out of the blue and asked her if she would be interested in working for me as an assistant manager and catering manager and surprisingly she said yes.  I offered her a base salary and 25% of all catering revenue.  I knew that the additional salary would be a bit of a challenge, but if the catering business took off, it would help offset the additional labor expense and contribute to the restaurant’s bottom-line.

We began advertising our catering business, Klassic Katering by Kelly and business began to come in.  One morning we received a call from a company called Fliteline Services that serviced private jets coming into nearby Paine Field by the Boeing 747 plant.  They asked if we could do an upscale Northwest Style Fare lunch for the President of GTE and a staff of 25 and have it delivered to the airplane by 12:30 pm.  That gave us 2 hours to prepare and deliver lunch.  I checked with Kelly.  She said, “Yes, let’s do it.”  We had just gotten in some fresh coho salmon, we had some Dungeness crabs, so we poached the salmon in champagne, quickly chilled it, stuffed mushroom caps with bacon, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and crab and baked them in the oven.  We placed the fish, the crab stuffed mushrooms, slices of fresh fruit, and a raspberry cream cheese tart on a silvered plastic tray and garnished the tray with lemon rosettes, and fresh pansies from our patio garden.  After we loaded the trays into our van, we rushed them to the airfield and personally placed them in each of the luxury seats on this Dornier Jet.

Our quick response received rave reviews and just like that, we were in the private jet catering business.  We served meals to politicians, executives, musicians, movie stars, and others with the wealth to own and travel by private jet.  This led to catering contracts with local motel groups specializing in corporate meetings, and corporate catering for companies like Viacom and Honeywell.  One of our restaurant customers, Mike, was the Commodore of the local yacht club and one evening while he and his family were dining, Mike asked if I would be interested in catering their next banquet at the yacht club and soon we were the yacht club’s regular caterer, not that I honestly appreciated their business that much.  For a bunch of millionaires they were the cheapest, most miserly group of people I have ever met.  They would think nothing of drinking scotch at $100 a bottle but would cringe at the thought of spending $20 for a full-service meal.  Cheap bastards!  But other business morphed from the yacht club connection and soon we were catering meetings at Scott Paper Company, weddings for the children of Boeing Company execs, and others.

And Bob was a real trooper.  He picked up the lion’s share of cooking responsibilities as Kelly and I devoted more time to the catering business.  After one very busy Friday night, one of my waitresses asked me if I wanted to join them for a refreshing, adult beverage at a nearby bar.  I was exhausted but having a drink sounded good.  By the time I finished the books and joined the crew at the Seahorse lounge, they were well into their second or third round of drinks.  Bob seemed to be having an especially good time and I began being concerned about his ability to drive home.   I needed to get home and I asked Bob if he wanted a ride.  He declined.  I didn’t insist.  Bad judgment for both of us.  Rinnnng!  Rinnnng!  Jesus!  What time is it?  2:30am?  What the hell?  Hello?  Who is this?  Bob’s girlfriend?  Huh?  Why are you calling?  You kicked him out and he’s headed to my house?  Huh? Oh, gawd.  Ok.

Knock, knock.  “Dude, you’re a mess.  Come in.  Here’s a blanket and a pillow.  You can sleep on the sofa downstairs.  Try not to puke on the carpet.”  “Oh man, you’re the best, boss.  Thank you.  I love you, man.”  “Shut up and go to sleep.  We’ll talk tomorrow.”  I went back to bed and thought, shit, we’re going to have to burn that sofa.  I’ve been drunk; but I’ve never been that drunk.  Just when business was beginning to boom I was now terribly afraid I was going to need to hire a new cook and I doubted I could find one who would work as hard as Bob.  

“My fashion philosophy is, if you’re not covered in dog hair, your life is empty.” – Elayne Boosler

I was going to title this, “Pets I Have Known”, but seriously, other animals don’t count as pets.  With cats, they own you, so you are actually a pet for your cat.  With birds, they really don’t give a shit, they’re just a squawky, messy nuisance, and rodents, and snakes, and other critters?  They are more like curios than pets.  Okay, I may have just pissed off half the planet, but really, dogs are the only animals that are truly devoted to humans and thusly deserve the label of pet.

Now, you may be asking, what do pets have to do with being a husband?  Well, pets are part of the family.  And as I will show you, require a husband’s gentle but firm touch to maintain family harmony.

My first dog was a collie named Revel Tan Susan or “Susie”.  She was a smallish collie but like Lassie, she was a hero.  My parents got Susie before they begot me.  We lived in Rainier Vista in Seattle.  Rainier Vista was developed as surplus housing during World War 2 and many returning vets, including my parents, lived temporarily in this exceptionally cheap and cheaply built public housing.  When my older brother, Eddie, was about two, he was playing with Junior, the neighbor boy and chased a ball out onto the street.  Just before the oncoming car was about to hit him, Susie grabbed Eddie by the seat of his pants and dragged him to safety. 

Shortly after that incident I was born, and in 1950 my family moved out into the country on a little lake half way between Issaquah and Renton.  Our bungalow was built on a hill which sloped down to our dock and the lake.  One winter when my younger brother, Doug, was about three and stuffed into a snowsuit, we were sledding down the hill and then bailing out before the sled slid into the icy lake.  Doug, wanted to do it himself, and so he did.  And when the sled hit the water it stopped and Doug did not.  Into the icy water he went, face down, floating in his snowsuit.  Susie, who chased everything that moved, (great herding instincts), was the first one to get to Doug.  She jumped into the frigid water, swam to him, and dragged him back to shore. 

She was a wonder dog who was my best friend.  We could sit together for hours contemplating the state of the universe, the nature of God, why I didn’t get to lick the frosting off the beaters, and other powerful wonderings of a shy six year-old.  When I was eight, we moved back into Seattle and by that time Susie was getting old and was not in good health and my dad decided that this move would be too hard for Susie to endure, so Susie went to sleep one day and went off to dog heaven or wherever dogs go.

After months of pleading and promises to feed and care for it, my dad caved, and came home with a Brittany spaniel puppy.  I think my dad thought that he might take up hunting and Brittany’s were supposedly good bird dogs.  We cleverly came up with the name, Brit, and Brit became our new pet. 

Brit, must have had a troubled puppyhood because he was a thief.  He would break-in to our neighbors’ homes and steal stuff.  If a window was open, just a crack, Brit could push it far enough open to where he could sneak through.  He would grab his loot, sneak back out and haul his booty back to our house where he would destroy the evidence by chewing it into unrecognizable bits.  This became such a problem that the neighbors began complaining.  My mom, had fielded all the complaints and she encouraged our neighbors to secure their homes.  That is, until, one day she went into the basement and discovered that Brit had discovered the feather pillows that were stored in the basement.  Brit had chewed the corners off several of them and delighted in running and jumping onto the pillows.  Feathers exploded into the air with each ballet-style leap the dog made.  The basement was covered in feathers.  My mom, made a couple of phone calls and by noon, Brit was shipped off to a farm somewhere. No pleas from a nine year-old were going to save Brit from his farm-bound destiny.

When I was ten, we moved again.  One day this scrawny, black mutt, part Scottish Terrier, part Tasmanian devil limped onto our porch.  He was a mess.  Dirty, slightly bloody, and possibly the most forlorn looking creature I had ever seen.  He was obviously hurt so my mom drove him to the vet. He had some nasty bite marks on his neck, his right ear was torn, and his tail (what was left of it) was chewed up.  With a couple of stitches and a shot of antibiotic, the vet sent him home.  We fed him and named him Mac.  Mac lived with us off and on until he didn’t.  He was never our dog.  He just ate with us and hung out when he chose to.  He was more like a cat than a dog that way.  But he had personality plus.  He had no conception of his size.  He imagined himself to be a rottweiler, perhaps.  He was fearless and a street fighter.  He was all attitude and walked with a swagger.  He had a smile that went from ear to ear.  When he wasn’t fighting, he was one crazy happy little dog.  Every year he would take off for a week or two.  And then he would return, hungry, dirty and often scarred.  When things got bad enough for him, he always returned home.  Until one day he didn’t.

Linda and I got married our senior year in college.  We spent the first semester together and then her student teaching assignment for second semester was in Spokane which separated us by about 90 miles.  We had one car, a VW bug, that she used to commute from her rental house to school.  We spent our weekends together.  On a whim, we stopped by a pet store, and there was the cutest darn puppy we had ever seen.  Linda said she thought we should get a dog.  I wasn’t so sure.  My husbanding days were very few and the responsibility of a dog, a long-distance marriage, work, and school seemed a bit overwhelming.  The next week we went back to the same pet store.  The same puppy was there and I’m pretty sure it talked to us and said, “Please take me home with you.”  It was a cross between a shih tzu and a terrier maybe.  So, it went home that afternoon with Linda.  We named him Brutus.  He was a charmer.  He loved people.  All people. 

One day I got a call from Linda who, in tears, told me she lost Brutus.  She let him out to pee and he disappeared.  She wanted me to come to Spokane right away to help her find him.  I don’t remember how I got to Spokane, but somehow or another I arrived, and we spent all afternoon scouring the neighborhood calling for Brutus.  Just when we were about to give up and go make posters to staple onto telephone poles, we saw a little girl with a little dog on a new purple leash.  “Brutus”, I called.  Brutus turned and looked at us.  Barked.  And then, seemingly happy, trotted along with the girl.  “Wait!”, I called out to the girl.  She stopped and smiled and said, “Do you want to pet my dog?”  “Yes”, I replied.  “He looks just like my dog.  When did you get him?”  “Oh, he’s a stray”, she said.  “I found him yesterday.”  “I’m so glad you found him”, I said.  “We were worried sick about him.”  “You can’t have him”, said the girl quite firmly.  “I found him.  He’s mine.”  Oh dear.  What now?  “Maybe we should discuss this with your parents”, I said.  “My dad will kick your butt”, said the sweet little girl.  “Well, I think we should have a chat with your dad.  I’m sure we can arrive at a reasonable agreement.”  “No.  You just want to take Sparky away from me.”  “No, I just want Brutus, or Sparky to be happy.  Let’s go talk with your dad.”

Three houses later, Brutus and the little girl walked up a sidewalk, she opened the door and then slammed it shut.  I knocked.  No answer.  I could hear the girl talking to someone.  I knocked again.  This time the door opened.  A giant of a man with a tank top t-shirt, holding a can of Rainier beer, opened the door.  “My daughter says you are trying to steal her dog.  Is that right?”  Linda, who was barely 5 feet tall, stepped forward, stared directly into the man’s face and said, “No!  Our dog was kidnapped yesterday.  We have been looking all over for him.  Now we have found him and want him returned to us.  Do you have any questions?”  “How do we know he is your dog”, the burly man asked?  “Check his collar.  His dog license is on it and a tag with my phone number.  You could have called me unless you were trying to steal my dog.”  Linda turned to me and said, “Let’s go call the police.  They can arrest this guy for dognapping.  Let the police sort it out.  I’m done here.”  I had never seen this side of Linda before.  She was fearless.  It was a quality I got to know well over our lifetime together.

Brutus came home with us.  Two weeks later, Linda and Brutus returned to Pullman and two weeks after that Brutus disappeared again.  And that’s that.  He was too cute for his own good.

We went years without a dog.  We were poor.  We worked long hours.  We lived in apartments and didn’t have the time or energy to devote to a dog.  All our energy went into building a husband/wife relationship.  And then, during a difficult transition in life, we found Sarah.  Sarah was a dark red, silky Irish setter puppy.  She was beautiful.  She and Linda bonded instantly.  Wherever Linda went, Sarah was right behind or underfoot.  She grew into a magnificent creature.  She was smart, learned quickly and was the perfect dog; warm, cuddly, quiet, and ridiculously happy.  She exuded joy.  We had moved back to Pullman, Washington surrounded by thousands of acres of wheat fields.  An idyllic spot for a bird dog. 

The problem with pets and, I suppose the problem with life, is the ending.  When dogs die, they leave an enormous void.  One day before we started building our house on the mountain, Linda, Sarah and I drove out to our property to plant some trees and clear some brush.  We worked for a little while and then Linda needed to leave to run an errand in town.  Sarah and I stayed behind to finish our project.  A few minutes after Linda drove off, Sarah looked up at me, turned her head in the direction that Linda had driven and all of a sudden just bolted down the gravel road.  I called out after her, but she was a bit headstrong and continued to gallop after Linda.  I ran after her but she was much faster than I.  When she reached the highway, she was in full stride and neither saw nor heard the truck coming over the rise in the hill.  The truck struck her at 60 miles per hour, she flew into the air and landed in the field beside the road.  She was killed instantly.  I held her bloody body in my arms and wept.  My mind flooded with “what ifs”.  What if Sarah had gone with Linda?  I should have known she would try to follow her.  What if I had spent more time training her so that she would have stopped on my command? 

Linda would be back in an hour or two.  What could I possibly say to her?  Linda left Sarah in my care and I had failed to keep her safe.  I felt sorrow, guilt and anger.  I was angry with Sarah for running out onto the highway.  I was angry with the truck driver who hit her.  I was angry with myself for not keeping Sarah safe and I was even angry with Linda for not taking Sarah with her.  And I was overwhelmed with a deep, deep sadness that I could not explain and even today don’t fully understand.

Gwen Flowers said this about grief:

“I had my own notion of grief.  I thought it was the sad time that followed the death of someone you love.   And you had to push through it to get to the other side.  But I’m learning there is no other side.  There is no pushing through.  But rather, there is absorption, adjustment, acceptance.  And grief is not something you endure.  Grief is not a task to finish and move on, but an element of yourself – an alteration of your being.  A new way of seeing.  A new dimension of self.”

And so, with the death of Sarah, I began to understand the concept of grief.  And for those who think grieving for a dog is a bit over-the-top, losing Sarah taught me much about loss, coping with loss, and dealing with sadness.  As life goes on, we all face the death of someone we love and then, eventually our own death.  There is a lot to learn from death.  And a lot we can do to prepare for that eventuality.

A few months later, Linda spied two ads in the local paper; both advertising a litter of Irish Setter puppies.  We responded to both ads, went to both addresses and came home with a male setter and a female setter.  Both were bred from hunting stock, not show stock.  So, they were a little bit blockier and a little bit saner.  We named the male, Clancy and the female, Brandy. 

Clancy like Sarah grew a beautiful deep, dark burgundy, silky coat.  He was solidly built with a big chest.  He could plant his front paws on my shoulders and with one gigantic lick, smear my face from chin to forehead.  He knew when he was in trouble and would hang his head, cock it slightly to the side and his eyes would roll up to look at you asking for forgiveness.  But in general, he was a very happy bird dog.  He had a great nose for game birds.  I would take him chuckar hunting on the breaks of the Snake River.  Brandy would come along also, but she didn’t like guns or loud noises and could care less about birds.  But she seemed to like our hikes through the canyons.  There was one time, however.  I was walking along a narrow ledge, watching the ground carefully so as not to misstep and fall hundreds of feet down the cliff face.  Up ahead there was an outcropping of rock and I looked up and Clancy was on point.  Brandy was just behind him and backing up his point.  Both dogs were rigid.  It was textbook, and a beautiful thing to see.  I quietly, stealthily, carefully inched closer.  I eased the safety off the 12 gauge Wingmaster.  Raised the shotgun to my shoulder.  Peered along the ventilated rib expecting to see a covey of birds.  But no, directly in front of us, about 50 yards away was a herd of mule deer.  I explained to them that it wasn’t deer season but they remained locked into their point. 

Clancy went on to provide me with magnificent sets and while I only remember shooting one chukar, we were successful hunting Hungarian partridge and pheasants that populated the surrounding farmland.  On one expedition, Clancy and I were hunting on my friend Tom’s ranch near Palouse.  The Palouse country is noted for its rich soil and rolling hills.  As Clancy and I crested a hill, a flock of maybe 50 birds flew.  Their flight was in tight formation and they flew straight ahead and in unison dove to the right into a heavy grassy, brushy area.  Clancy was now on high alert.  He was visibly excited and his nose was pointed up as if to search the air currents for the scent of the birds.  We went together.  With Clancy at my side, we walked to the bottom of the hill and slowly entered the tall grassy area where we had last seen the birds.  We knew they were quite aways ahead of us by now but step by slow step we moved deeper into the brush.  Suddenly, Clancey went stiff.  Tail straight out.  Right front leg raised off the ground.  Frozen in place.  Normally Clancy would creep forward, pausing in point after each step.  He remained frozen and I was confused.  Were the birds really right there in front of us?  I used the barrel of the shotgun to slowly lift a branch up out of our way and there, three feet in front of us was no bird.  But what the hell?  A porcupine.  Just as Clancy started to make a move, I shot the poor damn creature before Clancy got a nose full of quills.  I felt really bad about shooting him. 

 Linda and I went for a hiking/fishing outing deep into the St. Joe National Forest.  There was a stream that flowed into the St. Joe River that I wanted to check out.  We took one washboard gravel forest service road after another until we came to a left fork that went steep up the side of the mountain.  We broke into a clearing that had been logged maybe twenty years ago.  The stream, whose name I no longer remember, was flowing on one side of the clearing before it cascaded into a series of rapids and flowed down the side of the mountain until it eventually ran smack dab into the St. Joe.  The water was crystal clear.  The stream was maybe ten feet across and fairly shallow.  We got out of our 1967 blue and white Chevy pick-up truck, let the dogs out and wandered over to the stream to scout for fish and whatever else we might see.  The dogs had been cooped up in the back of the truck for a couple of hours and were anxious to do what dogs do.  Mostly run around and sniff and pee.  As I stood on the bank of the stream looking for trout movement and insect hatches, Clancy came over beside me and suddenly went into a point.  Tail ramrod straight.  Right paw up. Nose in perfect alignment with the tail.  I thought, “what the hell?”  And then I saw it.  A fish.  Maybe 12 inches or so.  And then another and another.  Son-of-a-gun, I now had a fishing and hunting dog. 

Clancy was such a good hunter that it eventually was his undoing.  One wet, soggy afternoon, I let Clancy out of his kennel and for whatever reason, I went into the house and left him outside.  We lived way out in the country, but not far off a busy highway.  I heard the squealing of brakes and looked out to see one of the neighboring farmers get out of his flatbed truck, pick up Clancy and carry him toward the house.  He told me that Clancy had flushed a pheasant and had charged across the highway and there was nothing he could do.  He stood there holding my 80 pound hunting/fishing partner and had a tear coming off his eyes as he apologized for hitting him.  I was devastated.  I loved that damn goofy dog.  I wrapped him in an old blanket and buried him alongside the house.

Brandy was probably the sweetest dog I ever had.  She was a pleaser.  She just wanted to love and be loved.  She was totally mellow.  Despite my attempts at making her a hunting dog, she just wasn’t interested.  She would accompany me on my wanderings through fields and woods but we were both better hikers than we were hunters. 

After Linda and I built our house on the mountain, I had hundreds of acres of grassland and brushy ravines just out my back door.  I could stand on our deck and hear the rooster pheasants calling; taunting me.  And I began wishing I had another hunting partner.  My friend Dave, had a German shorthair named Megan who was an exceptional bird dog.  A little high-strung perhaps, but definitely had a great nose for birds.  One Christmas eve as I was beginning to do my Christmas shopping at the local hardware store, there was a little girl out front with a basket of puppies.  German shorthair puppies.  Eight weeks old.  Wow!  What luck!  What a perfect Christmas present for Linda!  A new puppy!  Now Linda may not have asked for a puppy but puppies are so damn cute, I just knew she would love him.  So, I chose the biggest, fattest, roly-poly puppy in the basket.  The girl was giving them away but I gave her ten bucks.  Hell, it was Christmas for crying out loud.  She was happy.  I was happy.  I knew Linda would be happy.

“Welcome home.  How was your shopping trip?”, Linda asked as I walked in the front door.  “It was awesome”, I said.  “I got the kids big-wheels, and I found the absolutely perfect gift for you.  It’s in the truck.  Since it is Christmas Eve, I think you should open it right away.”  “No.  That’s okay.  I can wait until morning.”  “Wait, what if everyone opens one gift tonight and the rest in the morning?”  “Okay, Mr. Eager Beaver.  Kids!!  It’s Christmas Eve.  Time to open a present.”  The running, shouting, cries of glee could be heard throughout all of North America.  We let each child pick one present from under the tree and open it.  Then I opened a present.  And then I said, I need to go out to the truck to get mom’s present.  Linda said, “Don’t I get to choose?  You each got to choose your gift.  I think I should get to choose.”  “Okay”, I said.  “But the present in the truck is getting cold and I think I should bring it inside.”  “Huh?  Oh, god.  What did you do?”  “Wait and see”, I said.  “You will love it.” 

“You got a puppy?”  “Yep. Isn’t he adorable?  He’s 8 weeks old.  He still needs his shots but isn’t he a beauty? I knew you would be happy.”  “What kind of dog is he?”, asked my lovely wife.  “He’s a German shorthair”, I exclaimed.  “A hunting dog”, said my wife.  “Well, son-of-a-gun, I guess they do hunt”, I replied.  “I can’t adequately express how surprised I am”, said Linda.  She seemed to be containing her joy quite admirably. 

I had forgotten how much effort it takes to train a dog.  And I had forgotten how much they need to chew stuff.  It would be an understatement to describe the bonding that took place between Linda and her new puppy.  She had made it quite clear to me that with her teaching, coaching, and parenting load that she did not have time to train a puppy and that it was implicit in the giving of such a gift that the training of the dog was included in the gift.  I don’t remember what we named this beautiful creature.  He didn’t live with us for very long.

Shortly after my magnanimous gift, a German shepherd, wandered in with a bad limp in his left front leg.  He was a miserable mess.  “Whatever you do”, I said to Linda, “don’t feed this animal or he will stay.  He probably lives nearby and wandered off.  He’ll probably find his way home in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, the German shorthair had chewed up the kids toys, Linda’s favorite shoes, my leather work boots, and one leg of the dining room table.  I started tying him up outside when I left for work so that he wouldn’t do any more damage.  

Linda fed the German shepherd.  He stayed.  He was the saddest, most forlorn looking creature I had ever seen.  And the next day he was worse.  He could hardly get up.  “You need to take him to the vet”, Linda told me.  “Crap”, I said.  “The last thing we need is another damn dog.”  “He’s hurt”, she said.  “And he is getting weaker.”  “Okay.  Okay.  I’ll take him to the WSU vet school.  Maybe they won’t charge us too much since he’s not our dog and we’re just being good humans.”  I opened the passenger door to the pickup and thought I would have to lift the shepherd into the cab, but he leapt in by himself and sat perched on the bench seat beside me.  He looked happy.  In fact, I think he was grinning.  It was obvious that his previous owner allowed him to sit up front with him.  The dog looked completely at home and at ease. 

I drove him to the vet school, explained the circumstances with him wandering onto our property and asked if they could check him out.  I made a point of asking if they could keep their fee down since he was not my dog and I was just doing the humane thing.  The vet said they would x-ray his leg to see what was going on and asked if I could leave him overnight.  I said, “Sure.  And if you know someone who needs a good dog, I’d like to find a good home for him.”

The next day I received a call from the Vet School’s Small Animal Clinic.  “You can come pick up your dog, Mr. Turnbull, he is ready to go home.”  “Well, he’s not my dog, but I’ll come get him”, I said.  I drove over to the Vet School and sat in the waiting area while the aide went to get the dog.  The veterinarian came over to talk with me.  “Your dog has as 22 caliber bullet in his right front leg.  It is not going anywhere, so I didn’t operate to remove it.  It won’t harm him.  The wound was badly infected and we cleaned it up and gave him some antibiotics.  He perked right up.  Here’s the prescription for the antibiotics.  Just follow the directions for the next ten days.”  I thought to myself, “He’s not my dog.  I won’t have him for ten days.  I need to find his owner.”  As I was thinking these thoughts, the aide brought the injured animal out, whose legs were spinning on the slippery tile floor as his momentum carried him directly to myself.  He planted his front feet on my lap and licked my face and had the goofiest, most grateful grin on his face.  I thought, “oh crap.  The vet is going to think I made up this whole story just to get out of paying the bill.  The dog was beside himself with joy.  I sheepishly paid the vet bill who only charged me for the antibiotics.  I thanked the vet who clearly didn’t believe the story that I had told him about finding the dog.  

I returned home and discovered that the German shorthair had chewed up a newly planted pear tree, one of the front steps and had started chewing on the siding of the house.  Okay, that’s it.  I had had it.  “You need a new home.”  In this rural area, it didn’t take long to find a new home for a German shorthair.  We were back down to two adult dogs; Brandy and our new best friend, the German shepherd we named Roscoe.  Linda loved Roscoe. 

Both Brandy and Roscoe were endeared members of our family for many years until they died of old age infirmities.  We remained dogless for many years until my son, Eric, acquired Jazz, an adorable black lab puppy.  Jazz was a typical lab.  She never really outgrew her puppyhood.  She had boundless energy and an almost always happy disposition.  She adored Eric and I’m quite sure the feeling was mutual.  Jazz died from cancer at age nine.

Linda was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease at age 59.   While visiting her sister in Los Angeles a few years after her diagnosis, Linda bonded with my niece’s Yorkie.  The little dog would snuggle up on Linda’s lap and the dog seemed to calm Linda.  The disease had progressed to a point where it was often a challenge for Linda to find the right word which was terribly frustrating.  The little dog seemed to be good therapy.  When we returned home, I asked Linda if she wanted a dog and she said she did.  We went to the local animal shelter and there were many dogs in kennels and lots of barking.  In one large kennel was a little white dog; part chihuahua and part something else, maybe Jack Russell.  The little dog sat calmly in the middle of the kennel.  Linda took a step closer.  The dog took a step closer and sat down and looked at Linda.  Linda said without hesitation, “I want that one.”  I’m not crazy about little yappy dogs.  I’m especially not crazy about chihuahuas.  But a little dog made sense for Linda and so we left with the little white dog named Cyrus by the volunteers at the shelter.  Cyrus grew attached to Linda and I was grateful that she could pour out her love even as the disease robbed her of expression and eventually her life. Cyrus and I are still together.

“How many squares of tissue are you using?  We need to cut it down to 3 squares per flush.”  RLT

“We live in a linear world and the pandemic is exponential.”  VMW

The wisdom of Camus vs Trump

“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well.  It helps men to rise above themselves.  All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you’d need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague.” 

“What’s natural is the microbe.  All the rest – health, integrity, purity (if you like) – is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter.  The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.”  Albert Camus, The Plague

“We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.  It’s going to be fine.”

“We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

“One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

“And this is their new hoax.”

“It will go away.  Just stay calm.  It will go away.” 

“I’ve always known this is a real, this is a pandemic.”  Donald J. Trump

Chaos versus Love

All of our major life decisions are made at Farmfood Restaurant in Adair Village, Oregon.  This tiny, chef-owned farm-to-table restaurant features wonderful food in a casual atmosphere and apparently lends itself to romance.  At least for us it does.  In November 2019, one of us asked the other person if we wanted to get married.  We had been living together for a year and that decision was made right there at Farmfood Restaurant.  Look, it really doesn’t matter who asked who.  Let it go! 

But, Virginia and I decided right then and there to tie the knot.  Neither of us wanted a big wedding.  Or any wedding for that matter.  The idea of a wedding seemed almost goofy.  So, we decided to elope.  We wanted to formally acknowledge that we were committed to sharing the rest of our lives together and eloping seemed to be the best option.  No muss.  No fuss. Exchange rings. Kiss. Champagne toast.  And voila, we were married.  On our deck.  With celebrant and witnesses standing six feet apart.  In the midst of a pandemic.  With all but the beautiful bride, in the high-risk group.  It doesn’t matter how much younger she is.  Let it go! 

In this period of time, with the world as we know it, essentially shut down; with news reports changing hourly; with social distancing; with de-densification; in an atmosphere of fear and isolation; love wins.  Love wins.  Our love rules.  Coronavirus be damned.  We got married.  With the beginning of spring, we got married.  With daffodils and cherry trees blooming, we got married.  There is hope.  There is love and no matter how screwed up the rest of the world is, we have each other and that is enough.  We are sufficient.  We are whole.

But even though we are sheltered together, life still goes on.  We still need wine.  And maybe food. 

“I’m going to the store.  Do you need anything”, I ask my bride?  “Maybe some toilet paper”, she calmly replied.  “Ok. Got it”, I said as I headed for the door.  “Don’t forget you are in the high-risk group and stay at least six feet away from people”, she hollers after me.  What she’s really saying is; “dude, you’re old.”

I don’t feel particularly old, except when I get up in the morning and every part of my body screams that I am ancient.  But on this day, even as the news proclaims that the number of Coronavirus cases has doubled in the last week, I feel invincible.  No damn little blob of nucleic acid wrapped in protein is going to keep me from my food supply.  I am an expert forager.  I know the contents of every Safeway aisle by heart.  Look, I think to myself, whole pallets of toilet paper in aisle 6.  Could there be a run on toilet paper, I ask myself?  It is a good thing Virginia  asked me to put it on the list.  I calmly finish my shopping, carefully keeping my cart six feet from anyone else, causing the checkout line to back up and blockade the main traffic aisle.  I don’t care.  I’m old.  People need to respect that. 

“Hi honey, I’m home”, I declare as I burst in from the garage.  “We need to move into a bigger house”, I say.  “I bought 37 pallets of toilet paper and we need a bigger house to store it all.”  “You did what?”, she asks in a rather demanding tone of voice.  “You asked for toilet paper.  I bought some.  During these difficult days of being stranded together for who knows how long, who knows when the next shipment of tissue may arrive?  Remember, a few months ago, you asked me to take charge of planning and arranging our disaster supplies?  Consider this the beginning.”  “I meant stuff like a first aid kit and water and basic foodstuffs; not a warehouse quantity of T-P.”  “Look”, I said, “we are in a lock-down state of emergency.  We need to take care of critical functions first.  24 cases of wine and 37 pallets of toilet paper should do it.”  “What about vegetables”, she asked?  “Doggone it.  I’m pretty sure they were out of kale.  I bought some bananas.” So much for the first day of marriage.  And we don’t need a larger house.  We have an attic and a basement and a little creativity.  Did you know that toilet tissue when stacked properly can make a very comfy sofa?  Life is beautiful.

“Like stones skipping across the still water, the circles of our lives expand ever outward as our energy reaches out to those on the opposite shore.” – RL Turnbull

Walking along the edge of the Snake River in the heat of July, I picked a flat stone off the beach and skipped it out into the calmish water flowing by.  The stone skipped maybe ten feet, then five, then three, then two, then one, then in quick succession with ever smaller circles it finally dove into the river.  Ten, maybe fifteen skips before it sank with the ripples of each landing expanding across the surface of the river.  The sky was blue with puffy white clouds; the river greenish. The sound of ski boats and laughter echoing against the canyon walls. 

Eric, age six, picked up a rock and tossed it into the river.  Plop.  It sank.  “Try it again”, I said.  “Bring your arm down close to the water and flip the stone horizontal to the river.”  I demonstrated.  Skip, skip, skip, plop.  Eric picked up another stone.  I examined the stone to ensure it qualified as a genuine skipping stone.  It was fairly flat with rounded edges.  It looked like a good candidate.  Eric drew his arm back and in a side-arm motion released the stone toward the river.  It gently kissed the surface of the water and leapt again for another kiss before it sank.  His brilliant success was met with much jumping, hooting and hollering.  As the afternoon wore on, the number of rocks on the beach diminished and the river became shallower.

Like the circles created by skipped stones, the impact of our interactions with each other deftly and joyously expand ever outward as their waves of happiness touch those we love.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”  Soren Kierkegaard

I love Kierkegaard.  This quote could be my own personal motto.  As a husband, though, there are some issues (problems) that do need to be solved.  And the consequence of solving those problems leads to the aforementioned reality.  For example, when do you fix the leaky faucet?  Right away?  After the drip…drip…drip keeps you awake all night?  After your significant other calmly mentions that the water bill has doubled and there might possibly be an inexpensive fix to solving that and in so doing may save some poor salmon that isn’t swimming in sufficient water due to a certain home owner’s massive use of water?  As easy as the answer to that problem sounds, I would rather buy a new house and move than fix a plumbing problem. 

For goodness sake.  How many different types of faucets can there be?  The answer is lots and none of the “O” rings or spare faucet parts for any faucet I have owned are stocked in any hardware store within a hundred miles.  I know, because it takes an average of four trips to the hardware store to fix any minor plumbing problem.  First trip – I bought a small plastic package that said ‘Repair parts for Delta faucets’, (which lists 10 different Delta model numbers.)  Surely my faucet is covered.  But once I’m home none of the parts seem to fit.  Where oh where is the model number for my faucet? 

Second trip – Back to the store I went to wait in line for “Returns”.  I calmly explained to the customer service attendant that the bag of spare parts I purchased didn’t fit my faucet and so I needed to return it and get the correct one.  I asked for assistance.  The customer service attendant cheerfully called someone and informed me to go to aisle 8 and there would be someone to assist me.  I went to aisle 8.  No one was there.  I waited.  And waited.  Then returned to the customer service counter to let them know that no one was there to assist me.  They explained that Mel was on a break and should return shortly and to return to aisle 8.  I did.  And I waited.  And soon, along came Mel chewing on something and brightly asked what I needed.  I told him I had a leaky faucet and needed a repair kit.  He smiled knowingly and asked me for the model number.  I explained I couldn’t find a model number but that it was a Delta model that looked just like the one on the display rack above his left shoulder.  Mel looked.  “This one?”, he asked.  “Yes”, I said.  “We don’t stock parts for that model”, said Mel.  “I’m not surprised”, I replied.  “Would you like to buy a new faucet?”, asked Mel.   “Not particularly”, I responded.  “I would prefer to keep the one I have and fix it.”  “Ok”, said Mel.  “This here’s a universal repair kit made for nearly every model. It’s a little more expensive, but there’s a chance the correct parts are in there.”  I felt a headache coming on but bravely decided to give it a try.  The universal repair kit was $24.99.  A new faucet was $54.95.  My wife would be proud of how I saved us so much money.

After disassembling the faucet, I removed the slightly disintegrated “O” ring, cleaned everything up, slipped on the new “O” ring and hooked the faucet back up.  Feeling victorious and the desire for a cold beer, I turned the water shut-off valve back on and turned on the faucet.  Water started shooting everywhere.  I scrambled back under the sink and slammed the shut-off valve to the left to shut off the water supply, smacked my head on the edge of the counter, said a few rather unholy words and looked up to see my wife who gently asked me, if I thought it might be time to call the plumber.  But here is where husbands excel.  “Hell no!”, I said.  I was bound and determined to fix this damn thing.  No damn faucet is going to be smarter than me.  I removed the upper part of the faucet once again and looked at the new “O” ring.  It was mangled.  I had no idea why it would be mangled and decided that there must be something else wrong with the faucet that I didn’t diagnose.  I looked long and hard at the faucet and decided it was an ugly faucet anyway and a new faucet wouldn’t have all these problems and $54.95 wasn’t such a bad price for a faucet after all. 

So, back to the hardware store and aisle 8.  Was that a smirk I saw on Mel’s face?  “Back again?”, asked Mel.  “Yes”, I said.  “I decided we could use a faucet upgrade.  I want the best darn faucet you have.”  “Good choice”, said Mel.  “This one here is just $129.00 and it’s a dandy.”  “Fine”, I said.  Now, feeling slightly ripped off and knowing I had to face my wife after now investing $153.95 trying to fix a leaky faucet. 

“Look, dear.  I bought a new faucet for the sink.  It’s quite an upgrade from that cheap, ugly faucet we used to have.  Now we have all new parts and won’t ever have to worry about a leaky faucet again.”  “How much?”, she asked.  “Only $129.00.  It’s the top of the line.  We deserve only the best.”  “You deserve something significantly less”, she said.  And she said it with a bit of an attitude.

This whole day just wasn’t quite going as planned.  If you have ever changed a kitchen sink faucet, you are no doubt aware that the space between the sink and the back wall is about 3 inches; not wide enough for a ham-handed handyman like myself to reach up behind the sink with a wrench to loosen the nut that holds the thin copper pipe from the water supply to the faucet.  To remove the entire faucet from the sink, I needed a wrench that could reach the distance from the bottom of the sink to the nut.  I had accumulated quite a few tools during our house building adventure and surely there must be a tool in the tool box that could accomplish this task.  But no.  I had nothing that size.

Hardware store trip number 4 was going to be quick.  I headed back to aisle 8, quickly located Mel who was helping another customer, interrupted him to ask about the proper wrench and he pointed me in the right direction.  I bought the wrench, hurried home, lay on my back with my shoulder blades resting on the sharp edge of the sill and tried to see the nut that I was going to remove.  I needed a flashlight.  I scooted back out into the kitchen, banging my head on the edge of the counter, said a few holy words, grabbed the flashlight and headed back under the sink.  With the flashlight I could see a little bit better, but the tight quarters still made it awkward and difficult to see what I was doing.  I twisted the nut to no avail.  It was stuck.  I grabbed the wrench with both hands, twisted it hard and it jumped off the nut, crashed into the soft copper pipe, mangling it in the process. This time, unholy words were said.  My wife, who had carefully escorted the children to a different area of the house, asked if I was okay.  Nice to know she was thinking loving thoughts about me. 

I calmly, and proudly said, as if I had planned this all along, “I think it might be a good idea to call a plumber.  This job is technically more challenging than it initially appeared.”

“Brilliant”, Linda says.  “You might not be Bob Villa, but you know when to call in the experts.” 

“Is this Bill from Bill’s Plumbing?  Well, hi Bill.  I have a minor plumbing problem.  I need you to install a new faucet in my kitchen.  Can you do this today?  You can?  Great!  Oh, by the way, you may need to bring a little copper pipe with you.  Can you give me an estimate?  $250?!  Seriously?!  But Bill, I don’t need to buy a new faucet from you, I have the faucet.  That’s just the labor?  Parts are extra?”  Dang, Bill, that seems like quite a lot for just changing a faucet. No, no, I would like for you to do this.  Just a bit of a price shock, you know.  Ok, see you soon.”

“How much”, asked my bride?  “It’s a deal”, I replied.  “Only $250 bucks.”  “Say what?”  “It’s like my car repair experiences”, I said.  “The cost of towing is always greater than the sum of the parts.”

“You can’t always get what you want.  But if you try sometimes, you find you get what you need…” – Rolling Stones

The fine, delicate art of husbandry is not as easy as it looks.  Consider the challenge of fashion choices.  “Are you ready to go?”, asks my bride.  “Almost.  I just need to brush my teeth”, I say.  “Wait.  You’re not wearing the same clothes you were wearing when you were working in that manure patch you call a garden?”  I thought you were in a hurry?”  “I am.  But you aren’t coming dressed like that.”  “Fine, I’ll change out of my boots.”  “Try wearing what you wear to church.”  “Should I wear that napkin thing on my head, like you do?”  “It’s not a napkin, it’s a mantilla.  And no, it’s not for men.  Women are supposed to cover their heads.”  “So, God likes men’s heads better?  Is that why men are supposed to take their hats off in church?”  “It’s just a custom and I haven’t worn a mantilla in years.  Stop being a smart-ass and go get dressed.”  “Why would God care what we wear?”  “It’s a sign of respect.  Go get ready.  He probably doesn’t care that much about what you wear.”  “Wait.  Are you saying God is a man?”  “Huh?”  “You said, ‘he’.”  “Jesus was a man, therefore God is a man.”  “But if God is a spirit, how do you know he has gender?”  “Go get changed.  The Bible refers to God as a male.”  “Does God have man-parts, then?”  “You know?  You are sick and twisted.  Go get ready.”  “Ok.  I’m going to put my man-parts in a pair of clean jeans.”  “Don’t be playing with those man-parts.  Let’s go.”  “I like my man-parts.”  “You like your man-parts way too much.  Hurry up!”