Chapter 13

Saturday the weather was good enough that I could run. Afterward, Mary was actually eating breakfast. She still wasn’t her normal bouncy self but she was doing better. Denny and Eddie were in with their Saturday morning cartoons. They would be there until lunch or they had a fight, then Mum would kick them outside to play.

Mum informed me I was babysitting tonight. She and Dad were going over to my Uncle Ross’s to play euchre. I didn’t have any plans, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Dad and I spent the day with Uncle Jim using his truck to hall trash from the duplex to the dump, or the tip as Mum called it. We got one of the garages open and behind a wall of useless mattresses, we found a household full of wooden furniture.

There was a chest of drawers, bed frames, tables, and chairs. There was also a sofa but it had mice living in it so it went straight to the dump with the mattresses.

Dad told me, “Those would go real nice in the other unit we are buying. Rick, plan on cleaning and polishing all of this furniture on Sunday. After we close on the other unit we will haul this stuff over.”

“So you had a chance to ask about Mrs. Simmons?”

“After we talked I remembered who they are, Sharon Simmons really got a raw deal from that bum she married. She has always been known as a hard worker and honest as the day is long. I plan to let her Pastor know that we have an opening and that no deposit will be required plus the place is partially furnished.”

It was a long day, but that place looked a hundred times better with both units cleaned out. Tomorrow I would clean and polish the wooden furniture. Then we could open the other garage.

Mary fell asleep early. Denny, Eddie and I played a cutthroat game of Monopoly. That is they cut my throat. They got all the properties early and refused to trade with me. After I was out they packed the game away. They watched TV until ten o’clock and then went to bed without being told.

I read about how to play one power group against another and what you should do if you inherit a kingdom when young with regents vs. taking one by conquest. This guy invented realpolitik.

Sunday morning we were up early, it wasn’t raining, so I was able to get my run in. I ran up by the airbase. I noticed they had replaced the length of fencing that had been cut. The woods across the dirt road had been trimmed back at least another fifty feet. There were also new light poles up. It looked like they were going to keep the perimeter of the base lit up all night.

Mary was much better at breakfast. Her blisters had all scabbed over so she was no longer contagious. She was actually eating. She informed me that Teddy was getting better, but that it had been a close-run thing.

Was my little sister quoting Wellington?

Dad and I went over to the new rental unit. It took longer than I thought to wrestle the furniture out of the garage. Dad helped with that since it wasn’t raining, I could clean and polish outside. Of course, after pulling all of it out of there I found more junk that needed to go to the dump.

It took me almost until lunchtime to clean the furniture and empty the garage. I stacked everything that would go to the dump outside and moved the furniture back into the garage for now. After we closed on the other duplex next week, we would then move everything to the unoccupied unit.

I opened the other garage before breaking for lunch. There was a wall of empty boxes blocking any view of the interior of the garage. A strange sight was revealed after we took the boxes out.

The garage had an oil changing pit. Before hydraulic hoists to lift cars up, they would dig a pit, narrower than the distance between most tires. It would be about twice the length of the car and a depth of about six feet.

There would be steps at one end, in this case, the garage door end. You could then drive your car all the way into the garage, walk down the steps and be under the car to perform the service. I remembered one like that in Huntsville owned by Tubby Raymond. It was a nasty place because when you took off the oil plug you would have oil everywhere.

The one in Huntsville had a dirt-packed floor that was soaked with years of oil. It must have been a fire hazard. It had been around since the 1920s. The gas pumps had the little glass windows with the ball so you could see clean gasoline flowing when pumping.