WHEN YOU FIND A CRACK THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED

A BLUE CEILING

When my mother died it was left to my siblings and me to decide what to do with the family home. My parents had built the house back in the mid-sixties, a single level ranch with a developed lower level walk-out in a brand new development on Madison's Eastside. Back then it was still considered farmland rather than suburbia.

It was difficult to consider anyone else living in the home we had grown up in. We thought about selling it and dividing the profit. The home had been paid in full a long time ago. None of my siblings were in a position to take it over except Rick and me. We were trying to figure out where we wanted to be and the opportunity of being home owners once again drove us to the decision to be the buyers. For me it was a tough decision. I spent my adult life trying to move on carving out my own path. Coming back to buy the home I had grown up in made me feel as if I hadn't gone very far in my life. It would mean going full circle and coming back to where I had started. If we were going to take possession of my family home it was going to be imperative for me to make over the house so that it was our house and not the story of a son having to move back into his parent's house. 

That's how we began an almost complete renovation of 714 Merryturn Road. We decided to leave the footprint pretty much in tack but beyond that most everything would have to go.

Carpeting would be ripped out and replaced with five inch wide white oak floors. Flat hollow-core doors would be replaced with three panel Prairie-style solid doors and all the moldings, door and window casings would change from 3 inch "off the shelf"  stained pine to wider simpler painted ones. 

The list of "to dos" was extensive and daunting and as with most renovation lists a growing number of fixes became the equivalent of a bad case of poison ivy. Itch it and it spreads. 

One of the itches we hadn't originally thought we were going to have to scratch was the ceiling. Over the years as the house settled cracks in the ceiling had developed  in the open areas stretching from the entry across the living room past the three-faced fireplace and to the beam separating the dining room from the kitchen. We thought it would be an easy fix; patch the crack, dab on a little paint and call it done. Nothing is easy and nothing on a "to do" list in a renovation comes cheap.

Along with our contractor we investigated and researched various solutions to ceiling repairs. Just doing a drywall patch didn't seem like the way to go. Spackle or paint was only a band-aid attempt at a problem that needed real surgery. 

This needed repair that we had calculated as minor was turning into a new ceiling that would have to not just cover our crack but the entry, stairwell, living room and dining room ceilings. It was like a virus in our home that had to be treated before it spread any further.

We had been trying to convert our mid-century rambling ranch house into a cozy prairie cottage. After the thought of minor repairs got tossed out the window we toyed with the idea of adding beams to get that cottage feel. But with a relatively low ceiling we opted for a cladding of v-groove planks of  pine that we were going to stain a driftwood gray-blue. The process was pretty simple once we had worked out the right combination of stains.

Here's what we did. We bought stain grade pine v-groove lumber. We decided the more knots and imperfections the more interesting and authentic the ceiling would appear.

Next we laid out some sawhorses in the front yard in a  Beverly Hillbillies Clampett sort of way as the base for our painting stage. We used rubber gloves and had a tub of rags set at the ready.

For our stain we chose Cabot semi-transparent deck and siding stain. We chose two colors: Chesapeake blue and Fieldstone gray. It's a rare day when we can find a color that works for us all by itself. The combination of these two colors gave us the right shade of blue we were looking for.

We bought a couple of small rollers and brushes and a couple of tray liners and we were set.

We started with the blue, rolled it on one slat at a time,

went back over it with a brush to get any missed crevices but mostly to brush off any excess stain

and then went back over it with a rag wiping off a lot of the remaining stain. This took a little muscle power. We wanted the wood to be almost wiped dry. What we ended up with was a translucent stain with a lot of the original wood color showing through.

If we had left it here we would have had a very baby blue looking ceiling so we repeated the process with a coat of Fieldstone gray

This toned down the blue giving us a more sophisticated subtle blue color.

The key with the staining is to do the rolling, the brushing and the wiping without letting any time lapse between each part of the process. You don't want to let the stain set too deep. You want to preserve that translucent quality that lets some of those gold tones of the wood shine through.

Our contractor had just torn out a set of fifty-year-old rotting wrought iron porch rails and then ingeniously reconfigured it into a drying rack for us he set up in the garage. 

The ceiling is now installed and every day as I sit in the living room or lounge in the snug I have the privilege of looking up at the wooden sky we installed.  It's something you might not think would elicit any kind of an emotional response but it did. It makes me stop and appreciate. It makes me take a deep breath. It relaxes that knot in my neck. Who says interior design is frivolous? It improved my state of mind. and it helped to make me feel as if I had moved forward. We now have a home that says this is our house.

 

A LEMON'S JOURNEY

ANN'S GIFT

A year and a half ago a small bloom budded out on our friend Ann's lemon tree, a tree she had been mothering for quite some time. It was a minor miracle for a woman without a natural green thumb. For eighteen months she diligently watered her charge. She took pride when that lemon bud eventual became a full-fledged lemon, a brilliant yellow lemon large enough to be a prizewinner at any State Fair if lemons were a judgeable category. Ann's little lemon tree used all its nutrients to nourish its one offspring. Her tree refused to grow another but after a year and a half the lemon's pulpy weight was becoming too much for its little branch to handle. Ann finally picked her lemon. Without a recipe grand enough for her lemon and the realization she had developed a bond with her lemon too strong to be the knife-wielding executioner of her charge, she now had to figure out another plan. 

We have a tradition of inviting friends and family over for glazed ham, cheddar and sage biscuits and desserts on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. We only ask that everyone bring what they would like to drink. Ann decided to take a different track, she brought her lemon tied with an orange bow. With this she was transferring the demise of her lemon off of her conscience and onto ours. We were now going to have to be the villain in this story...or perhaps the hero, and that's what this story will determine.

It was immediately clear that we didn't have the heart to be the executioner even if we had the culinary aplomb to change it from a prized lemon into some dazzling tasty Lemoncello dessert. After the dishes from Wednesday night's Pre-thanksgiving had been washed and put away we huddled together to devise a plan of what to do with this magnificent citric marvel. 

The brainstorming went on into the wee hours of the night until we all agreed that the perfect end was to send the lemon on an adventure of discovery. Being a homegrown only child lemon its knowledge of its ancestry was limited. Maybe our trip could help her find her roots and community. With the Christmas season now upon us we all decided that we should take her to New York because if we can't find it in New York, well then it just doesn't exist.

With the wind in our wings we prepared our little lemon for the trip ahead. We bought her a sweater to protect against the cold and some nice warm boots to keep her feet dry and cozy. We all knew lemons don't have feet or legs but we didn't want her to feel different even before we left and pulled her into a world she had little knowledge of. We wanted her to feel special. After all, she was going to be really dependent on us for most everything and with the pandemic still out there we were going to have to set some rules and pose some questions. Would our lemon shrivel at the unknown our burst (well hopefully not literally) with the excitement of the adventure? Would our lemon balk at wearing a mask where required and accept the responsibility of protecting others? 

By this time we were all becoming a bit attached and a bit embarrassed to be continually referring to our charge as simply "The Lemon". We were also concerned about flying without The Lemon having any ID, so we gave her a name and all the documentation she would need to fly. Annie Lee Lemon was now a member of our family.

Everything about flying seemed to thrill Annie Lee Lemon. She proudly wore her mask and was as courteous as she could be about keeping her social distancing. 

New York was dazzling. She was so excited to see the sites she had only dreamed of from what she could see on Ann's TV back in Wisconsin. The tree in Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall were all exciting.

The only thing that scared her was dining out. She wasn't sure about anything that showed up with a sliced lemon on the plate. But as the trip went on she started to wonder if this was really where she might find out about where she belonged.

The feeling of not belonging hit hard when she tried on the sorting hat at the Harry Potter store to see which house might be her home. If the wizards at Hogwarts couldn't help her then who could?

Destiny seemed to be within her grasp when she saw a sign for lululemon but it turned out they were no relation. Her little smile was beginning to pucker and turn a bit sour. 

And when Santa couldn't come up with an answer about a land where lemons could roll free Annie Lee began a real downward spiral.

But then it happened. Almost out of nowhere it appeared under a cloud of rainbow lights.

There, in the middle of New York, right behind the new Moynihan Station was a whole city of lemons; big ones, small ones all basking on the snow and frolicking between icicles.

Annie Lee made a mad dash well more like an exuberant roll to join in the fun.

She made some great new friends both yellow and human. She put on her best party look posing and playing in a place especially made for her.

She found her happy place.

We left her there because we knew her life would be better with lemons. We know she's found a place where she belongs, meeting new friends from around the world. You can find her there if you look hard enough. She'll be the one with the orange bow. Say hello if you see her. Give her our best, just don't squeeze her too hard. She doesn't like that.

EMERALD ISLE

 THE MESMERIZING RHYTHM OF THE OCEAN

It was late afternoon before we finished the one-hour drive from New Bern to Emerald Isle. The scenic flavor of the area was baked with tall verdant pines and prickly scrub brush that lined the road leading to the rental where we'd be spending the next week. As with any good spatial design even in nature the approach to Emerald Isle ticked all the right boxes. The entry began through the narrow tunnel of pines and brush giving way to

the Cameron Langston bridge rising sixty-five feet above the bay and then falling as fast as the first hill on a roller coaster taking your breath away with dread on the way up and exhilaration on the way down.

The house JoHannah had rented was a duplex with five bedrooms and three baths on two levels nestled right into the dunes along the blue-green ocean. The first order of business once we arrived was deciding who got first pick of the bedrooms. It was still early enough in the vacation that we were all initially magnanimous with everyone going "Oh no, you choose first".

The prime bedrooms were the two queen-size bedrooms with sliding doors opening up to the ocean on the lower floor. The least desirable were the two bedrooms with twin beds on the opposite side of the lower floor with windows facing the street, the parking area and both regular and recyclable trashcans. The remaining fifth bedroom that was never advertised in the listing was located on the second floor isolated off the kitchen. It was without a spectacular view but had the most privacy and its own bathroom. Our twenty-five year old daughter took that one. The parents flipped a coin for the two prime bedrooms leaving JoHannah and Adam's son, Roby, to occupy both twin bedrooms simultaneously giving him four single beds to choose from each day and night. Once all this was sorted out and we had all unpacked the next big decision to be made was who would compile the grocery list and then who would go for the wine.

A good beach vacation consists of little need for major preparation, a lot of naps and the constant and most important discussions of what you're going to eat at least three meals in advance. We pretty much accomplished all three criteria. We had a full week and only one "sorta maybe well we might want to see it" thing on our list to do. Oh I almost forgot, for some of us a must do was to get the best tan we could so we could make all our friends and any strangers who crossed out path back home as jealous as possible of an October tan. Some of us would succeed others not so much.

I don't think when we planned this trip that we had really thought through the logistics of time and climate. We had picked the last week in September, not because we looked into what kind of crowds or weather to expect, but our only criteria was that it fit into our calendars. Luck sometimes seems to follow us around. This was one of those times. 

The weather couldn't have been more accommodating: Blue skies with temperatures in the upper seventies and low eighties dousing us with a perfect amount of sun and cool breezes; not too hot and not too cold, a light wind to keep the sand flies from their ability to land and bite and a few sporadic clouds to give us a bit of relief every so often. The forecast never once included that dreaded four letter word, the bane of any beach vacation: r a i n.  Not a drop of water fell from the sky. The only drops we had to contend with were from the splashing of the ocean or our own tears of joy at seven remarkable days of leisure.

The end of September also meant school was in session so the family crowds were by and large gone with only a few families of small children too young for school getting in the way of their beach vacations. Other than the local fishermen or some retired couples the beaches were peppered so sparsely you could almost get away with sunbathing in the nude if you wanted to. Fortunately none of us were of a mind to want to do that.

With a full kitchen and six people, two and a half of whom are legitimate gourmet chefs and the rest of us pretty good sous chefs willing to double as eager bus boys, eating at home was by far the best restaurant on the island. 

The sound of waves, something between a crash and a lullaby depending on the separation of your ear and the ocean can either smack you with its power or sooth like a parent's comforting nursery song. The mesmerizing rhythm of the waves carries a hypnotic ability to tune out distraction.

This is the sense I found myself most in love with on Emerald Isle. For hours I sat on the shore with nothing more to do than stare at the rolling repetition of the ocean's cresting last gasps turning into a blinding mirrored surface of the sun's reflection before becoming nothing more than wet sand.

Sometimes the quality of nothingness is just what you need.

I didn't mind leaving the scraped knees and busted lips to the rest of crew that needed to test their metal body surfing and boogie boarding in a fight with a power way greater than their own.

The sound of the ocean's tinnitus is what I liked best about Emerald Isle.

THE OUTER BANKS HERE WE COME!

The alarm went off at 4:30.  We had scheduled a Lift for 5:15 to take us to the Madison Regional Airport. We were to fly from Madison to Charlotte, North Carolina and then on to New Bern. I had never even heard of New Bern. You'd think any place with an airport big enough for a commercial plane to fly into would be a metropolis I'd at least heard of. Well, no, I hadn't. I had to confess to myself that maybe I wasn't as sophisticated a worldly traveler as I thought I was. What it did teach me is there is still a good part of the world out there to put in my travel wish book of yet to see places.

 

Air travel is stressful enough without the added issue of Covid.  Add on the Delta variant surge and traveling to places were smoking is still allowed and you have a bit of a heart beating sweaty palm situation. When it was all done we had survived the fear of a double flight, triple airport adventure without having to reprimand any maskless travelers. There were only a few times I had to restrain myself from tapping a shoulder to remind someone that a mask needs to not only cover your mouth but your nose as well. The funny thing was most of the offenders looked like Marjorie Taylor Green. Best to back off.

One of the advantages of flying into a tiny regional airport is the lack of a crowd or lines for anything you need to do. I was expecting a hefty wait at the car rental counter but when I got there the attendant was ready with the keys, a ready contract with a place to sign my name and a big toothy smile with "Hope you'all have a nice time here, ya hear"

Then we were off to meet our friends at their hotel and off to lunch in New Bern before we were all to drive to the rental on Emerald Isle.

New Bern, founded in 1710 by the Baron of Bernberg is a beautiful town, much bigger than I had expected, graced with historic brick and stone architecture and dripping in Spanish moss. After trying unsuccessfully to parallel park and having to get out of the car and let my partner, the all and powerful Rick get in and prove he was way more butch then me by getting the car in the spot a good two-feet away form the curb we had a little time to walk around before our lunch reservation. It was enough to wet our appetite for a return visit before our week on the Outer Banks was to come to an end.

After our visual taste of the town it was time for lunch. Here's where a beautiful quaint town jumped into the exceptional category. We opened the front door of Cypress Hall. It was a walk into a Caleb Carr novel.  A long narrow space, the second floor joists ripped off leaving the entry and bar soaring two stories

ending in a balcony seating area over the exposed kitchen at the end of the hall. I must have twirled in circles as I walked to our table not able to look forward but having to absorb the space in a dizzying three-dimensional three-sixty.

Once we were seated we ordered drinks. Rick ordered a Martini very dry, shaken and not stirred. Johannah went for wine, Adam had a local craft beer, I settled for sweet tea but Emmy showed us all up with a Bloody Mary that was a meal in itself. A swirl of spicy tomato juice and vodka topped with, get this, a skewer starting with a pimento olive, a wedge of Colby, an iced shrimp under a second olive then a folded slice of prosciutto all weighted down with a deviled egg hanging on for dear life. And if that wasn't enough they stuck a pickle wedge in the glass and draped a rasher of bacon seductively laid over the glass's edge. I had no idea of how she could possibly move on from here to an entre.

And now for the food...Adam went for the salmon, JoHannah, Rick and Emmy went for the cheddar biscuits, eggs any style, maple cured bacon and hollandaise sauce but I went full Southern cooking.  I'm not sure what made me choose the meal I went for. JoHannah just shook her head. Rick made a genuine stink face but I still said, "I'll have the fried chicken and waffles". 

When my plate, a gleaming white charger, was set in front of me it created a halo encircling a glisening piece of perfectly fried chicken breast resting on a bed of arugula and beet salad with a side of waffles smothered in maple syrup and cinnamon bun icing. There was little doubt I was going to enjoy every bit of this heavenly crunchy fried chicken. My eyes anticipated stabbing a succulent piece of chicken, swirling it on my fork and sliding it in the icing doing a slow drip of off the warm stack of waffles.  Then lifting the fork with bits of arugula caught in the sticky syrup up to my mouth and instantly transforming me into a sleeveless flannel shirt wearing, chewin' tobacco spitter, Waffle House regular. One bite was all it took.

Full and satisfied with only the tiniest bit of waffle stuck to my lower lip we all boarded back in our rental cars for the final journey to our destination: a week's worth of sun on the Atlantic coast on Emerald Isle

 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

 

WHAT I REMEMBER

Rick had gotten up at 4:00am to insure himself time alone in the office to prepare for the day ahead. The morning light was only beginning to bath the New York City skyline over the Hudson as he left our midtown apartment for our office in Chelsea. 

The day before, September Tenth, had been Emmy's first day of kindergarten at Friends Seminary, a Quaker School. Rick, Angelina and myself had taken her to school for that first day. She was still at an age where we could dress her up. The image of all of us standing outside the school, Emmy in a beautiful little dress, the rest of us beaming with pride, a halo of balloons in the background still float in the beautiful memory compartment of my mind. The schedule set up by the school had half of the kindergarten class showing up for a half day on Monday and then the second half of the class coming on Tuesday, September Eleventh. The full class was to meet on Wednesday. This schedule allowed for a larger teacher to student ratio for those first few days in an attempt to make for an easier and warmer transition for the kids just starting out in a new school. Since Emmy had had her half-day on Monday it meant no school for her on Tuesday. A beautiful Tuesday morning in September where the sun was shining and the sky was a rare clear blue.

Our nanny,Angelina, usually showed up between seven and seven thirty in the morning. She'd help get Emmy up and ready. Angelina was a diehard vegetarian and health nut. If it was left up to me breakfast would be a doughnut or a frozen waffle and that's what showed up on Emmy's breakfast plate during the weekends when I was in charge but every weekday morning I was assured Emmy's breakfast, prepared by Angelina, would prepare her for a healthy future. It allowed me to cheat without guilt on the days I had to deal with her morning meal. 

We were in one of our rental phases in 2001 between buying and selling either coops or condiminiums we would renovate and then sell. Our apartment was on the thirtieth floor of a new luxury building on East Twenty-nineth Street. Our view faced north towards the Empire State Building.

Every night Emmy went to sleep with the different colored lights of the Empire State Building softly filling her bedroom as her night light guiding her dreams. When Emmy woke up that morning what she saw was the midtown skyline of New York City silhouetted against that crystal clear blue sky.

Emmy woke as she always did with a smile and an eagerness to greet the day. Angelina had prepared her breakfast. I was getting ready to go into the office. Rick was by now sitting in our office on West Seventeenth Street. From different parts of the city the three of us were just putting our days in order. Angelina had planned for a trip to the park  and then it was off to one of Emmy's pre-school friend's birthday parties later in the day. I wasn't in any hurry to get into the office. It looked like such a beautiful day from outside our windows. It was about 8:50am when the phone rang. My sister back in Wisconsin was on the phone. We almost always reserved our family phone conversations for Sunday evenings. When I realized it was my sister calling outside our normal time a host of bad news scenarios began their marcch into my worrying mind. There was a knot forming in my stomach as all the possible tragedies ripped through my consciousness. The brightness in my, "Hello" dropped it's usual cheerfulness and fell on the handset with the weight of dread.

Bonnie said, "Do you have the TV on?" I told her, "No, I didn't" and I immediately walked over to the TV in our bedroom cradling the phone in between my shoulder and my ear as I picked up my work files along the way. Channel four, NBC, came on with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on the screen. One of the World Trade Towers was on fire; smoke billowing out and drifting to the south and west. I told Bonnie I would call her back.  I immediately dialed the office number as I shouted out to Angelina to come in to my room. I pointed to the TV, waiting for Rick to pick up. Angelina let out a visible gasp as she realized what she was looking at on the TV. 

Rick's voice came on with our automatic greeting,"Shaver/Melahn Studios".

"Rick, turn on the TV." I could hear him fumbling with the landline as he set down the receiver so he could get to the TV and turn it on. At this point it was still unclear what had happened. The TV anchors were debating whether it was a small plane gone astray or something else having crashed into the tower. "I'll call you back. I'm going to go up to the roof to see if we can get a better idea of what's going on."

"Angelina, we're going to go up to the roof." The building had thirty-nine floors with a roof deck circling the entire top of the building. Angelina had grabbed Emmy. The three of us boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. When we got off there were about a dozen other people who had gathered on the south side of the roof deck. A couple of people had brought up binoculars. It was as if we were all moving and reacting in a trance. There was no note of hysteria in our conversations. Everything was delivered in a monotone. We stayed only a minute or two before we returned back down to the apartment. When the second plane hit there was no longer any confusion about what was happening. The bright color of the day had been sucked out of everything we saw, Even the TV anchors had turned an ashen grey as they spoke about the numbers of people who might still be trapped in the towers. Then came the report of the pentagon. After that the grounding of all flights in and around the United States began as the nation tried to determine if there were any other planes turned into flying weapons still streaking through the skies. We heard all of this as we stood in our thirtieth floor apartment five blocks away from the Empire State Building. I called Rick again and we decided it would be safer for the three of us to come down to the studio. Even though it was closer to the World Trade Center, the beauty of our view now looked like another target with us quit possibly in the path of destruction. Once we had made a plan it was out the door. Angelina and I grabbed Emmy and we were gone.

We had to walk south to get from the apartment to the office. Every step we took was in the direction of the carnage. Every street corner was filled with people mesmerized by what we couldn't believe was happening. The billowing smoke, the concern for all our neighbors, who did we know that worked there? How many of Emmy's classmates would have a parent who wouldn't be coming home that night? Most people seemed frozen in their steps. Streetlights would go from green to red and back to green again without anyone crossing the street. Most just stood there. As we made our way down Sixth Avenue I realized what a visual anchor the towers where to our view downtown. The clear blue sky still shown behind us but in front of us the sky was being consumed by an acrid black smoke littered with tiny specks of people jumping to their deaths. When we turned the corner onto Seventeenth Street it became like any other day except for the stillness. The street was in whisper mode. The bond of family came with the unlocking of the office door. Everyone was huddled around the TV. Rick moved his arm to envelop us all and we stood there in disbelief as the towers came tumbling down. 

Like a concerned mother, Mother Nature gently blew the tiny pulverized bites of what remained of this tragedy away from our island. We stayed inside the studio waiting for what to do next. We felt safer huddled there getting our information off the tiny TV with its rabbit ears turned to the sky.  This fuzzy picture remained our protector from what was happening just outside our door. It wasn't until much later in the day, when all of the planes left circling in the sky had been accounted for and landed in safety or unfortunate terror that we felt able to return home. When we did leave and when we reached our corner at Sixth and Seventeenth I forced my eyes to look north. I didn't want to see what I knew no longer existed. It was the unreality aspect of a TV image allowing me to go on. If I didn't look south, if I forced myself to only look at the tragedy on a TV screen then I could hold onto the possibility it wasn't real. It only happened like some bad crime drama concocted by actors and writers in a land of make-believe far, far away. Being at the epicenter of this unbearable act of human cruelty branded us like the surviving Jews of Nazi Germany. Like the numbers tattooed onto their arms we bore an emotional scar only those of us at that place at that time in history can carry. The next day as the winds changed and the debris of the day before began to drift over the city. The poisonous smell began to fill our nostrils, the grit of tiny pieces of what had been now touching our tongues, and the searing ache of the misdirected actions of a segment of our brotherhood had forced us to leave for our country home, our haven in the mountains where life still smelled like fresh grass and only the buzzing of bees filled the air. We sat on our porch, our bodies' muscles tied taut with a silent tension watching Emmy play in the yard waiting for news of who we would never see again.