Dad's Work Clothes

Dad's winter work clothes did extra duty one summer when we used them to make a scarecrow to try to scare the crows from eating his peaches. Not sure if the scarecrow worked but it did give my sister (at right) and me a chance to show off our new matching dresses.

My mother has a house full of stuff that needs to go either to charity or (more appropriately) to a dumpster, so lately I've been asking her from time to time if there is anything she has that she would like me to get rid of. It was much to my surprise when, a few days ago, she said she had a few things.

They were my father's work clothes.

Worn, torn, spattered with paint, frayed at the collars and thinning at the knees, they were now washed and neatly folded for the Goodwill. Truth be told, they are in such bad shape, Ted Kaczynski in his living-in-the-Montana-wilderness phase would likely have rejected them as too used up.

Dad washing the car. It's raining, which is why he's wearing an old work hat and jacket with his shorts!

"Your father won't be working in the yard anymore," my practical mother said. We now realize he was out there, working in the yard and trying to please her about two years beyond his abilities to do so. It wasn't until we discovered last year that he had a fractured pelvis from an unknown fall that we knew it to be true.

All my life Dad has spent his free time working outside. When he was a young man, working at his first professional engineering job, he thought nothing of spending two years of weekends building my parents' first home.

That's my sister up there in the wood frame of our first house. Never fear, she's being held firmly from behind by the large hand of my father, the home's contractor, chief carpenter, and engineer.

He framed it in redwood. That was okay then and he knew the first rate lumber was bug resistant and would last forever--though the house has recently been torn down anyway by some rich people for a McMansion. Dad probably still has the work clothes he wore on that project. He never threw anything away. But, later, he had summer work clothes he used for hot weather duty.

Dad, looking natty in his car wash work clothes. From afar you can't see how frayed they are.

And, he had even more abbreviated versions he used for lawn mowing and fruit-pick-up duty in the heat of a Bay Area summer.

Dad, working as usual, at our first house, lawn mower in background ... the push kind.

In the spring and fall, in later years, he had jeans and an old sweatshirt he wore. They are in the pile my mom just gave me to give away.

The jeans-and-sweatshirt work clothes were used when he used to walk the neighbor's dog Sunny. The owner had cancer and he didn't want the young lab to be bored while he was ill. Sunny is old and sick now, as is my father, and they are still friends.

So, of all the junk that needs to be disposed of at my parents' home, Dad's work clothes are the junk I least want to give away. They are in the trunk of my car now. But I don't think they will go to the Goodwill. At least not yet.

I want to have them with me, just a while longer.

That's me, dressed up as Dad, having a laugh.



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Bells on a Truck

It was a curious-looking thing that sat in the church parking lot and caught my eye.

I was driving along a main artery in my hometown, on my way to the YMCA, when I passed something in the parking lot of the First Presbyterian Church of Mountain View, California that made me decide to turn around and investigate.

A closer look simply increased my curiosity.

It was a semi-truck that appeared to be packed with church bells. How many times in your life have you seen a bunch of big old church bells on a semi?

The bells are visible through the heavy glass truck windows, which also reflect the surrounding sky, giving the whole thing a very heavenly aspect.

I swung into the church parking lot and pulled out my ever-present digital camera and took a few pictures. It appeared to be a sort of a carillon-on-a-truck, with Dutch words on some places, a Web Site advertised on the side and back of the truck, and a ladder placed beside the glass enclosure so the carillon player--presumably--could mount his curious perch.(I later learned that a carillon player is known as a carillonneur.)

The stairs alongside the vehicle.

I went on with my journey and my workout and didn't get the chance to look up the bells-on-a-truck information until later in the day.

It is a carillon on wheels, sponsored by a bell making/bell selling company in Ohio called Chime Masters. The company uses a forge in the Netherlands (Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry, Asten, The Netherlands--hence the Dutch writing on the truck) to produce many of its bells. The portable carillon weighs 5.5 tons from tenor bell to treble, making it the heaviest portable bell rig in North America. (Are there any others to compare this with???)



As I further investigated I learned that the First Presbyterian Church would be holding three carillon concerts using the Chime Masters carillon on wheels and that the public is invited. I resolved to come and hear the music of the bells.

I love carillon music and wish each church had a set of bells the way all churches once did. In Florida, I lived near Rollins College and the college chapel had a wonderful set of bells. The bells played hymns on Sunday morning and many other days of the week at midday. I found myself humming the hymns I heard throughout the day.

There are many ways to spread the Word of God and the joy of music is one of the most under-utilized of those ways in the modern world. So, I say hooray for Chime Masters, hooray for the First Presbyterian Church, and hooray for the creative minds that came up with this fascinating way to spread the music of church bells around the ribbon of highways in America.



I thought it would be fun to take my father, who was raised in the Presbyterian Church, and whose mind needs focus to remember what church is all about. Then I remembered that he can't hear anything at all anymore: his deafness is such that even church bells cannot penetrate.

I'll go for him to the concert. And hope the carillonneur wears good ear protection when he plays, so he does not end up as deaf as my father.



Chime Masters Web Site

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First Presbyterian Church Web Site

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Dad Disappears and Comes Back to Us

I took this picture of Dad this spring with the mustard of Grant Road Farm behind him. His face is obscured by the shadows of late afternoon.

I was just walking into my house from my strength training class at the YMCA, when my cell phone started ringing at 7:20 on Tuesday night. It was Dad's caregiver telling me there was something wrong with Dad and they had called 911.

I discovered I could cover the 9/10 mile from my place to theirs in about two minutes. I arrived just at the EMTs were pulling in in their big white fire truck.

Dad was on the floor near his bed. His eyelids were fluttering and he wasn't aware of his surroundings. The EMTs took his blood pressure and it was really low, so they lifted him onto the bed and raised his legs. He had already begun to come around by then and waved at me when he saw me. Relief.

As they put Dad on the bed he told the firemen that he "had just returned from military service" and they smiled. "We've been here before," one said. They were three big, nice young men and the sum of their ages was likely less than Dad's total. Later two more arrived. It was a pretty large group for Dad's bedroom: five EMTs, Dad, Mom, me and his caregiver.

Dad's blood pressure began to come back. His blood oxygenation was 99% and his heart beat was strong, so we didn't take him to the hospital. After they left he looked at me and said: "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" And then he went to sleep.

It seems he had been in his wheelchair and his caregiver was removing his shoes so she could put him to bed when he just slumped over. My mother suggested--not too wisely--that she and the caregiver lift him into bed. Since neither of these women weighs much more than 100 pounds that idea didn't work. The caregiver just eased him down onto the floor and put a pillow under his head, while she screamed at my mother to "please call 911." My mom hates to do that because she thinks you only die if you go to the hospital.

Anyway, we got through this one and this morning Dad asked me "how long he'd been away."

Long enough to frighten the heck out of me, and that was too long. But he's back with us today. And that's the best we can hope for.
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