The Harriette Carter Lamp Day
by Bill Russo
I had just finished two
carvings..The Boy Scout and High Noon, I painted them and waxed them and I
polished them too. I carried them over to the table where Ed and Dan were
working away on something or other..
“These are coming along nicely,” said Ed
“Yeah..They’re going to be
beautiful when you’re done”, said Dan.
“They are done”, I said.
“Oh” said Ed..
“Oh” said Dan.
“Bastards” I thought…and then
I sat down and had a good laugh along with a few guys who heard the exchange..Mel,
in particular, enjoyed it.
And that’s one of the things
to expect when you are showing your work to really, really good carvers…They’re
honest…. Still, Things are improving with each piece…I think.
Just then
Howie entered the
room, “Here they are fellas..The new super bright Wonder Lamps from Harriett
Carter..Just like I promised…$12 with the shipping yet…Who owes me money?”
All the guys who ordered the
Wonder Lamp came up with the money and
most of them just put them aside to open later. But Eli opened his.
Howie had a supply of four batterys on hand..”Here….Take the batterys..Try it
out.” Said Howie.
Someone said they had trouble
getting theirs to work and that lead to a ten minute discussion as to who
didn’t know how to put the batteries in correctly and who did. Eli said he was
an excellent battery installer and when he turned on his Wonder Light it worked
nicely…Very bright.
I looked at the label on the
box..”Lights are good for at least 100,000 hours”…I read aloud.
“These bulbs will outlive all
of us”, said one
“Maybe, but the batteries
might last only a few hours…They get you no matter what,” said another.
Someone, good at math, was
busy calculating the number of carving hours left in a seventy seven year old
man and would he use up the bulbs that were good for 100,000 hours. He never
shared the answer with us.
Big ED started telling a joke. He has some great jokes but they are often a
bit lengthy…convoluted and need to be followed to their conclusion. Those who
do often enjoy the joke.
About three quarters of the
way through and with the punch line within range, Howie said,”So who’s going fishing?” …Awesome…Howie struggles with his hearing and he had no idea that Big ED was telling a joke…That was actually as funny as the joke turned out to
be…A few of us laughed a long time.. Especially because the same thing
happened earlier…
Bob from Whitestone and I
really enjoyed the whole thing…Here we see Bob with his newly purchased from
the Dollar Store, Panama hat..he looks positively South American in it.
And that’s a typical day in
Merrick..at the senior center, where the people are supposed to be old…mature…and serious……Ha!
