[lit-ideas] Re: On being "Better off"
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 19:57:44 -0800
While I wouldn't claim any artistic merit in the photos I took today:(
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/12/duffy-and-ridgeback-girls.html ) they do
commemorate Duffy's first river-hike off-leash. I had decided never to let
him hike off-leash, but today Duffy's energy and seeming competence
overruled that decision.
As to David's note, I enjoyed it very much. It isn't something to agree
with or disagree with necessarily; although I haven't used a bed in at least
thirty years. My back scrunches up in knots when I do; so I sleep on the
floor. Of course my Ridgeback girls, and now Duffy, think that a very
proper thing to do and curl up next to me.
There was a day when I looked for interesting odds and ends and old books in
thrift shops, but now I save up my energy for hikes on the river and buy
everything over the internet. Although I have never purchased any of the
exotic eBay offerings that David occasionally presents to us, I purchase all
my books on Amazon.com or Half.com. At one time I was buying a lot of books
from eBay but then something went wrong. Typical eBay book prices are
higher than the prices from Amazon or Half.com.
I did purchase the Olympus E-520 camera (which I learned was just shipped
today. I thought it was already shipped) on eBay, but I was pitting it
against not only other eBay offerings but "near new" cameras on Amazon.
(Half.com doesn't sell cameras) Suppose I had purchased the Olympus E-520
at David's estate sale, but when I got it home there was something wrong
with it. Would I have recourse? I have never been to an estate sale, but I
rather doubt it. But if my E-520 arrives DOA from the Georgian Pawnbroker,
I can go back through eBay or PayPal and get my money back. I might have to
ship it back to Georgia at my expense, but aside from that I would be
reimbursed.
But I do understand David's love for wood. I can't recall whether I
mentioned that I made (I would have said "make" before my increased interest
photography) hiking sticks, walking sticks, and canes. In the past, after
sitting at my desk for a bit too long and noticing my back or neck
stiffening up I would go down to the garage and work out a bit with a pulley
machine or free weights, but working on hiking sticks had the same
loosening-up effect. Of course I would have to find suitable sticks at the
river, cut them there with my small Buck camping saw, bring them home, strip
of the bark, fill in cracks and insect depravations, sand with increasingly
fine grits of sandpaper, stain them one, two, or three times and then add
polyurethane of different types, one two or three times. There were a lot
of variables and sometimes I would have to redo a stick, take it back down
to bare wood and do the sanding, staining, and finishing all over again. I
gave a few hiking sticks to relatives, several canes to relatives and
neighbors, but that seemed the end of the practical side of that enterprise.
My son thought he might sell some, but nothing has come of that, and I
rather think he has given up. People ask me what sort of wood I have used
for these sticks, but I don't know. I found a lot of it lying under leaves
beneath trees I couldn't identify. I know there are oaks at the river and
cottonwood trees, but not all the deadwood sticks came from those trees.
I did save perhaps twenty hiking sticks for my own personal use -- and then
Susan got Duffy who has made the carrying of a hiking stick impossible -- at
least I thought so until today when I finally let him walk off-leash. But
too late! I have decided to become a photographer!
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
From: David Ritchie
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 5:34 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On being "Better off"
I must say I enjoyed Lawrence's piece.
Here, by way of oblique response, is today's adventure:
The way to convince me that something is worth money is to demonstrate that
it's well made and of good materials. I'm a sucker when it comes to honed
lumps of beautiful hardwood or the wool/cashmere blend. Case in point: my
favorite thrift store sent me an e mail saying that today everything would
be half price. In a busy life and with our financial position and in the
large scheme of things, there is no convincing argument to be made that the
difference between a jacket at six dollars and a jacket at three is worth
time that could be spent writing another chapter or planning a class. It
was therefore in the absence of good sense and rationale, and simply because
the sun was shining, that I set out to make or buy metaphorical hay. I
confess I did not go the straight way. I left my tennis racket where it
could be re-strung before Sunday's match, and then detoured slightly, aiming
towards an estate sale where there were two paintings by Henk Pender, an
artist well known in these parts. Fear not you who have care for the privy
purse...I had no intention of buying; I just wanted to see what his early
work was like. Or so I told myself.
At the sale, I met our girls' pediatrician. We had a neighborly chat. And,
of course, I bought books: Teddy Roosevelt on hunting, Victorian volumes of
Byron, Scott, Burns and Tennyson. The lagniappe I discovered when I got
them home is that the fellow used old photos for bookmarks. They're not
particularly interesting photos, but in my view, taken with the books'
beauty, they are publishing's equivalent of wool/cashmere blend.
Which is what I found at the Thrift: a jacket "Made in West Germany,"
therefore not so new, reasonable fit and absolutely black. I also bought a
collection of old silk threads for a friend who loves to sew. Oh and a book
on Richard II. Who knew he was interesting?
So...honed lumps of wood? Back story (pun intended): I've been trying to
solve a mattress problem: our bed is twenty years old. Yesterday we came
very close to ordering one of these memory foam things from Costco. The
online reviews were good and that's the stopgap solution we currently have
on top of our antique: a sliver of foam. So why not a whole mattress? Well
then we found a website, themattressexpert.com <http://mattressexpert.com/>
, where people are "trained in the science of sleep." It explained exactly
why memory foam is not a good solution and, like all good arguments, the
writing re-inforced my prejudices. I think that a mattress ought to be
well-made, with heavy springs and careful stitching. It should look as if
it is serious about providing comfort. It should do the bed equivalent of
sitting up straight. The only one I'd seen which seemed to do this had been
in the very first shop we tried, so I volunteered to go back and take
another look. L. stayed home.
In the store, the mattress I liked still seemed pretty good, and here came
the sales person, knocking bits off prices as he went. I came away with a
written quote, and then went back to Mr. Mattress Man's website to see what
others pay. Ha! Several hundred dollars less than our shop's "bottom
line"...the one that caused the manager to writhe on the floor in agony
because his heart has been ripped out.
At home we read some more and concluded...we didn't have a clue what to do
next.
In the thrift store I remembered a place across town where, when we were
first in Portland, we'd bought a "re-conditioned" mattress for guests to
sleep on. How does on re-condition a mattress? Strip the cloth off, see if
the springs are still in good shape, sew another cover and spongy bit, done.
It wasn't the most comfortable mattress in the world, but it was good
enough. I wondered if they had something a bit better now, so across the
bridge I went to see what I could see of beds and springs and sealing
stitches.
They have developed a second and third line of business. They now take the
demonstration mattresses that people have, by lying down in stores, dirtied
up with their shoes. They clean said beds off, repair any rents in the
fabric...sell the result. And what, when I explained what I was looking
for, did the genial fellow show me? The very mattress I liked in the other
store at...one third of the best price on the internet. I kept asking
questions, trying to discover the catch. When was it made? Had it been
damaged? Which store had it come from? Straightforward answers to every
question. "Why," I asked, "doesn't everyone in the world come here for
mattresses?" He said, "That's what I keep asking myself. I was a customer
before I worked here." I asked him to put a hold on the thing until L. can
see it.
And then I asked about beds. Over the years L. and I have thought about
buying a bed, but we could never find one that we liked better than simply
putting the box spring on a frame, leaning our backs against the wall and
calling the whole thing done. To be right for me, a bed would have to be
made out of beautiful wood, have a small and curved headboard that fits my
back when I'm sitting up to read, no footboard. "Well," said the fellow,
"we've only got two in that size. One's cherry...got some dings and
scratches..."
As far as I was concerned it was perfect, the price extraordinary. We'll
see what L. says tomorrow.
It was with a light heart that I returned to work.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
_____
Other related posts:
