Chapter 22

When I got home I walked over to Tom and Bill’s, my legs were killing me from the ride. Their families were up and I was welcomed. At Tom’s we talked on his front porch, when I asked him if he had a date for homecoming he said, “No, but I would love to go with Tracy Gallagher.”

“Did she say no?”

“I haven’t asked her.”

“Oh, then she probably won’t go with you.”

“I know, I am a real Melvin when it comes to girls.”

“If you found out a girl would like to go with you, would you ask her?”

“Well yeah, I would ask her if she wasn’t a skag.”

“That’s what I needed to know.”

“Wait what’s going on?”

“I am just following orders from Janet Huber, my date for Homecoming.”

“Wow, you have a date with Janet, you lucky dog.”

At Bill’s house, it was different. I was invited in by his Mom. What a change from a week ago. I think she was trying to make up. When it was apparent that she wasn’t leaving I went ahead and asked Bill if he had a date for homecoming, but before he could open his mouth.

His Mom said, “No he hasn’t, is there some girl want him to ask her to go to the dance?”

There must be a Handbook for Girls.

“Not yet Ma’am, I was supposed to find out if he had a date. I think things are in progress.”

In the way of Mom’s and Mum’s everywhere she got the details out of me in short order. She thought it would be a nice evening if it could be brought together. Poor Bill just sat there.

After his mother had decided she had all the information available I was allowed to leave. After I was out the door I realized that Bill had never said a word.

After lunch, Dad and I went to the house on Detroit Street and worked for several hours. We managed to move the bathtub to take the rotten floorboards out. Now, Dad knew what he faced. He would buy the lumber to repair the floor and new linoleum. He intended to do it tomorrow, Monday, if he didn’t get a call to work.

We had moved the bathtub an inch at a time. Those cast iron tubs must have weighed three hundred pounds. It didn’t help that the clawed feet on the tub kept catching and hanging up on the rotten floorboards. While we were moving it I thought about putting a shower attachment on the tub. It would have to attach to the current faucet. It would go straight up for about four feet then have a curved neck so the showerhead would spray out at an angle instead of straight down on your head.

There were several issues to overcome. Now there would have to be the framework to hold a shower curtain around the whole tub, like at our new home, or there would be a mess.