Stitched Together

by Bob Thompson

  Bob Kehrer and his wife, Maud, hosted the conclave at their big-decked, big-windowed house on the side of a mountain looking up to the long spine of the Blue Ridge and down over a picturesque valley. As we cruised toward the mountains, in my handed-down but still luxurious old Lincoln Town Car, we talked about a house concert or maybe going into Asheville one night to find a place with an open mic for John to play a song or me to tell a story. The agenda was as flexible as our attitudes.

  But once we were inside the house, all plans evaporated, floating away in clouds of smoke; we never made it into town. We told stories, sang songs, drank wine, and marveled at our survival of past adventures. We’d all been old friends since time began, reconnected for the first time in this life. We explored the universe, puzzling over our collective place in it. We levitated around the spacious house, collecting often at the kitchen’s big volcanic-rock island and on the panoramic deck, gazing out over the rest of our lives.

  Then came the call. It was the absentee owner of the mansion next door to the Kehrers’, who was presently in Miami but had just received an urgent message, relayed from his security system to his cell phone. He texted the security code and asked if Kehrer would investigate.

  The Marrakesh Express came to a sudden stop as our Woodstock Weekend instantly transformed into a Barney Fife, elder-posse SWAT team. Each of us flipped our safeties off and entered combat-berserker mode. Searching for any weapons or shield, Kehrer grabbed a hunting knife and I clutched my opened Swiss Army knife, praying that the blade would not fold across my fingers. Larry said he didn’t need anything—as a former Marine his entire body was a lethal weapon. John reviewed the process for calling 911 from a locked phone.

  With razor-sharp senses finely honed over six or seven decades, Kehrer led us marching single file along the slick wooded path as we circled behind the violated house like a Keystone Cops parade of targets in an arcade game.

  Except for John, who’d stopped along the way to adjust his hearing aid down to a level where it wouldn’t keep sending warning signals to his pacemaker, we paused to regroup in the driveway on the far side of the house. Kehrer would scout the front; Larry and I would test the locks on the back and keep an eye out for John.

  John, huffing and puffing, finally shuffled up to sit on a bench at the edge of the lot, catching his breath as Kehrer appeared at the corner of the house and motioned for us to come with him. John stayed as lookout as the rest of us, weapons at the ready, went down a series of steps to the lower deck before charging up three flights of stairs, in full Braveheart mode, to the top level, where we found the big French double doors standing wide open. Through the opening we could see dry leaves scattered across the hardwood floor and under the grand piano; the lights and fan in the Great Room were on! We checked the door frame, which showed no signs of a forced entry; someone had a key! With adrenaline pulsing, we rushed inside, yelling in our scariest bear-cult voices, each of us disappearing into a different area of the big house. Downstairs, I opened the back door to let John in.

  After a thorough search that yielded nothing in the rest of the house, we gathered in the kitchen, where we found further clues that something was amiss. It looked like a party had been interrupted; the counters were cluttered with empty whiskey and beer bottles and cold, overflowing ashtrays. I folded my knife, a little disappointed with the long-vacant crime scene but mostly thankful not to have stumbled onto any warm-blooded criminals.

  I silenced the beeping security panel by the back door with the security code while Kehrer called the owner and put him on FaceTime. Panning the camera around the room, he said, “So I assume it wasn’t you that had a party here?”

  “No, of course not. I’ve been in Miami for a month. My wife was there till last week, but she’d never leave the house like that! Hold on, guys. Honey, honey, come look at this!”

  There was a long pregnant pause on the phone before we heard, “Uh, guys …” Obviously, there was a lot of nonverbal communication going on in Miami. “Uh, hold on,” he said, putting the phone on mute. Snickering, rolling eyes, and snide remarks filled the kitchen as we waited. When he came back on the phone, his voice had lost its edge. He said hesitantly, “Uh, thank you, guys. I really appreciate it. Uh, would you guys mind just turning things off and closing up the place? I’ll get back with you!”

  Silently walking back to our sanctuary, we each tried to shed our warrior’s rage. In the safety of Kehrer’s house, we riotously debriefed, adjusted insulin pumps, retrieved our wineglasses, and started trying to put things in perspective. Finally, I reminded everyone, “I promised you an adventure, didn’t I?”

  Traveling Lite

  It was my once-a-year turn to pick up the tab at the monthly Old Farts’ lunch and, according to this year’s rules, also to make a short presentation, with the only stipulation that it must be “of mutual benefit and interest.”

  I knew that the dozen retired or semi-retired guys, all neighbors of multiple decades, would be a tough audience. I also knew the bar was not high for the presentation; previous lunches had featured riveting lectures with titles like “Different Types of Arbitration,” “Purchasing Cemetery Lots,” and “Long-Term Care Insurance.” The subject matter tended to be indicative of the age and past careers of the presenters. I felt the need to lighten things up. Freshly back from another European adventure, I decided to expound on what I’d learned in a lifetime of foreign travel.

  As a storyteller and presenter, I knew that all you can do is emphasize certain main ideas and hope the audience picks up a point or two. You can’t hope to make them understand … everything.

  A couple of days before the event, I started listing the bullet points for my presentation: transportation, lodging, language, culture, and cost. The process was good for me. I’d never written about my travel habits, and doing so made me dig deeply into my psyche. Gradually my travel philosophy began to emerge on the page. The main point I would try to make my audience understand was that enjoyable travel depends entirely on attitude.

  There was not an empty chair in our private room at the restaurant as we placed our orders and I began to speak. I explained that Americans have a distinct attitude when they travel to foreign lands. We live in a big country with big resources. We have big houses, big lawns, big vehicles, and big commutes. We buy things in big-box stores, and throw it away in big landfills. We tend to travel big as well. We’re used to putting big suitcases into big car trunks, strapping what’s left on the roof, and heading out to big Hiltons, Marriotts, or Holiday Inns. I tried to emphasize that “traveling big” overseas is an encumbrance that sets the agenda for everything else. It determines what transportation you take, where you stay, and how much everything costs.

  I explained that European countries don’t have large land areas for landfills, so they’ve adapted by reusing and recycling much more than Americans. They have learned how to consume far fewer resources and live much more sustainably. The typical European family doesn’t have two or three cars; they ride motor scooters, bicycles, streetcars, busses, and trains, and they pack lightly. Nothing makes one stand out as a tourist more than a huge suitcase and an American college logo on your shirt. I counseled my audience that packing lightly would help them fit in—they would both feel and be treated more like a local. I told them that I typically pack a single carry-on bag with enough clothes to last seven or eight days. That means doing laundry every week, but even that chore is part of the adventure, providing an opportunity to meet and understand how locals live.

  I gave out a six-page handout organized around my bullet points. I could tell it was going well because of the lack of side conversations. I had everyone’s attention.

  As I finished and sat down to my food, there were many questions and comments. Finally, a never-to-be-outdone and moderately traveled neighbor said the presentation was “very informative,” and that he too had a clever travel tip that he’d like to share. He explained that before he left on a trip, he calculated how
many days he would be gone, then bought a pair of underwear for each day. Every morning before his shower, he lightened his load by tossing the previous day’s undergarment into the trash. That way he made room to bring back all the new stuff he’d bought.

  After a pause, I said, “How clever. How’d that work for you?”

  “Great,” he said, “except every day when I’d come back to the room, my freshly washed underwear would be hanging there drying in the bathroom. I just couldn’t make them understand!”

  “No, Jerry,” I said, “sometimes you just can’t.”

  Going Down

  A close friend and longtime neighbor passed at the end of the year, just before his scheduled heart transplant. At the visitation on the evening before the funeral, his widow Judy asked me to speak at the service. “Okay,” I agreed hesitantly. “You know I’m a storyteller, so what would you like me to do?”

  “Make me laugh again,” she answered.

  I stayed up most of the night contemplating my remarks. The next afternoon, in a church packed with friends and family, the minister asked if anyone had any stories to tell about Bill. Determined to be last, I listened as a relative and a business associate each related interactions with their fun-loving friend. Finally, as the minister was about to conclude the service, I raised my hand.

  Standing beside the coffin staring out at the familiar faces, I told this story.

  No one at the party had lived in the neighborhood less than twenty years. We had golfed, partied, and vacationed together; we had taken one another’s kids to soccer games, band concerts, little league games, and emergency rooms. There were few secrets among us.

  Now, we were at a stage in our lives where the kids were gone, where there was too much room in our houses and not enough in our medicine cabinets. Predictably, our conversations revolved around grandkids, bypasses, joint replacements, overactive bladders, hot flashes, and appalling memories. In ten minutes, things would disappear from our minds: names of people we had just met, where our cell phone, keys, or glasses were, and whatever in the heck we’d gone to the basement or garage to get.

  The usual gender stratification of such parties had slowly taken place, and I found myself at a table in the yard with my wife, four women, and Bill, who was uncharacteristically quiet and immobile after the most recent of a long series of heart attacks. The state of my wineglass and the predominately feminine nature of the conversation led me to abandon Bill and head up to the patio for a refill and more male-oriented conversation—basketball, football, prostate, and the latest erectile dysfunction drugs.

  In my absence, the conversation at the table had turned to the fragile health of various neighbors and spouses. One lady described a harrowing experience with her diabetic husband, who had been standing beside her in the mall one second, when suddenly “he just went down” with a hypoglycemic reaction. I rejoined the conversation at the table just as Judy, finishing a story about one of Bill’s many health-related episodes, said, “Well, you know, Bill’s never gone down on me!”

  Immediately, this noncontextualized statement started a furious internal dialogue/debate. The angel on my left shoulder yelled, “Keep your mouth shut! You don’t know the context of the conversation and whatever you say will be inappropriate and your wife won’t like it!” A deeper voice on my other shoulder piped in, “Dude, that’s a high-hanging curveball. You’ve got to take a swing at that one!”

  I looked over at Bill for guidance. The old Bill, a rotund, funloving guy, always good in front of a crowd, would have jumped on that with both feet and had everybody at the table roaring with laughter for ten minutes. But the present Bill had knees that would buckle easier than his belt and dialing long distance was as much exercise as he could handle. Bill still had a little bit of the old twinkle in his eyes, but his expression said, “I’m too tired, Bob—you take this one.” So, still looking at him, I said, “Bill! That doesn’t square with the stories you’ve been telling the guys on our golf trips.”

  The party table burst into extended riotous laughter and no one was offended. As the conversation turned elsewhere, I realized that I needn’t have been so worried. It didn’t matter what I said—in ten minutes no one at the table would remember it anyway.

  Our short-term memory may be going, but one thing we will always remember, is what a sweetheart of a guy Bill was, a good-humored, good-natured good guy. Rest in peace, Bill.

  The congregation sat wide-eyed, not knowing how to react as the minister quickly concluded the service. In the front row, Judy was doubled over in laughter.

  Garages

  There are places I don’t go much anymore, places where several leap years and Olympics pass without me visiting. New-car dealerships and their wallet-thinning service centers are high on that list, but this visit wasn’t on my dime, it was a factory recall.

  When I turned into the dealership lot, large signs put me on the glide path to “Service World.” As I neared, multiple sensors picked up my approach and the glass overhead door automatically started opening. I imagined a tractor beam had locked on and was pulling me into the hangar deck of the Toyota mother ship, full of uniformed crewmembers in color-coded uniforms purposely moving about.

  A young service advisor scanned my serial number through the windshield, and after studying the resultant data on his ruggedized iPad, he said, “Good morning, Mr. Thompson. I see you’re here for the airbag recall. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It should take about two hours. Will you be staying with us or will you need a ride back to work?”

  “I’ll be staying,” I said.

  “Excellent, you can relax in the customer lounge just over there through those double doors. We’ll send for you when your vehicle is ready.”

  I walked across the polished floor of the triage bay, as shiny and buffed as any basketball court. The massive glass sliding doors opened, and I went through a time warp into another dimension. For a moment, I thought I had been transported to New York City and was in the Plaza Hotel or at least the Sheraton Midtown. I bet the dealership had used the same interior design firm.

  The chairs all looked new, soft, and comfortable. There was interesting wall art and sculptures on chairside tables. As I surveyed the well-conceived space, I realized I was the only man present. Several women were leafing through the most current Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly magazines while others watched one of the several large flat-screen TVs.

  I located what appeared to be the concierge desk and went over to ask where the coffee machine was. The female attendant pointed around the corner. What I discovered was not a coffee machine; it was a high-end hot-beverage-dispensing computer with endless possibilities. I could get a White Skinny Mocha or a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I chose a Double Cappuccino Wet and went back to a comfortable chair near the concierge desk and settled down to survey the scene.

  Others had come in, but I was still the only man. I had just noticed the curious bottles on the concierge desk when a woman approached and asked if she could get a manicure before her workout at the complimentary fitness center. That’s when it hit me—the world had changed in the years since I’d been in one of these places; it had become a comfortable place for women. What a smart marketing concept!

  I marveled that at no time did any customer ever interface with a mechanic in greasy overalls who might be condescending to female customers. All interface was with a handsome, neatly dressed customer service advisor.

  At near the two-hour mark, the neatly dressed service manager came walking over to me, holding a clipboard. He told me the work was nearing completion, but he wanted to go over with me the results of their complimentary diagnostics of my vehicle. He explained a soon-to-be-deficient tread-depth reading in millimeters and asked if I’d like a price on replacement tires. Determined not to buy anything from a place with this much overhead, I declined. He continued with the oil and fluid levels and windshield wiper efficiency rating, trying to sell me something w
ith every piece of information. There was no pressure, just concern for my safety and the longevity of my car. I imagined his soft sell and cautions worked well with many of my fellow customers, but I resisted.

  I took the paperwork to the checkout counter and was directed into the intake bay again, where I got the keys from my original point-of-contact advisor, who frowned at the service sheet and made a last effort to sell me some tires.

  I left with a renewed sense of the progress of human evolution and of cutting-edge marketing.

  The next day, armed with the data from the dealership, I pulled into the jumbled lot of my local garage. The difference was stark; here the décor had not been upgraded since the Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, freshly back from the Frozen Chosin, had decorated the former Gulf station lobby in the early 1950s. This was not a mother ship—it was more of a grass landing strip with a Quonset hut.

  I was much more comfortable here. The wall art consisted of a “Rigid Tool” calendar featuring half-naked women caressing the company’s namesake products and a collection of dusty 1950s radios. An interesting camshaft, a spark-plug display, and well-worn Hot Rod magazines decorated the counter. Three of the four unmatched fiberglass chairs were stacked with parts boxes, and the vacant one needed an oil change. A TV with rabbit ears sat on the dented filing cabinet, and a coffee machine, tastefully plastered with NASCAR stickers, completed the décor.

  When it came time for me to step up to the Genius bar, I told the service manager I was looking to get a price for a set of medium-grade P195 XR15 tires. While he figured my price, I realized that my father and grandfather might have been comfortable here too, but not my mom or wife.

  “Have you guys ever thought of getting a cappuccino machine?” I asked.

  He paused, looked up at me thoughtfully, and said, “You think I should get rid of the calendar, don’t you?”