Tom Gauldin - RIP

In article
<9af3f2be-71fa-45db-9918-748beed06fcf@qg3g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
Luigi Zanasi <[email protected]> wrote:

<snip>

> Rest in peace Tom and thanks for the laughs
>
> Luigi

So long, Tom... And thanks for all the fish.

--
Woodworking and more at <http://www.woodenwabbits.com>

On 5/15/2012 3:53 PM, G.W. Ross wrote:
> Pat Barber wrote:
>> On 5/12/2012 9:26 AM, Luigi Zanasi wrote:
>>> I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
>>> In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
>>> the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>>
>> Yep...I think I cried at the first of many very funny stories this guy
>> came up with.
>>
>> He will be missed.
>>
>> Tom's posts were what made this list in the early years. It's sad to not
>> see anything even approaching his wit and style today.
>>
>
> Tom Watson was starting off pretty good, but then something happened.
>

Golf tournaments. ;~)

"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in
>>
> In fond memory of Tom, and all the smiles he brought to this group, I'm
> going to take the
> liberty of posting some stories that he shared with me by email in 2004,
> some of which have
> been previously posted, and some [I believe] have not. Please read all the
> way to the end;
> the last vignette is a touching example of Tom's true gift at telling a
> story.
>
> What follows is all Tom's words, not mine:
>
> This is a collection of essays and postings I've done over a period of
> time to newsgroups.
> Enjoy.
>
<Very Big Snip>

Thanks Doug. I have seen some of those stories. But a bunch of them were
new to me.

The man was a story teller wasn't he? Reminds me of some of the folks I
knew growing up. Everybody likes a good story.

On Sat, 12 May 2012 09:26:12 -0700 (PDT), Luigi Zanasi
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
>In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
>the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>
>Here are links to some of his stories:
>
>http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=58cd2f%244rm%40camel4.mindspring.com
>
>https://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/browse_thread/thread/5b973e958fd49dbc/1193cf8c5ecec9df?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Tom+Gauldin+spot#1193cf8c5ecec9df
>
>https://groups.google.com/group/triangle.general/msg/73c43bbf0078f3a0?hl=en&dmode=source
>
>you might also do a google search on these titles, somehow the links I
>had no longer work.
>
>Rest in peace Tom and thanks for the laughs
>
>Luigi


Thanks for the notice and thanks for the links. Tom will be
remembered with a smile after re-reading the stories.

On May 12, 9:26=A0am, Luigi Zanasi <[email protected]> wrote:
> I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
> In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
> the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>
> Here are links to some of his stories:
>
> http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=3D58cd2f%244rm%40camel4.mindspring.co=
m
>
> https://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/browse_thread/thread/...
>
> https://groups.google.com/group/triangle.general/msg/73c43bbf0078f3a0...
>
> you might also do a google search on these titles, somehow the links I
> had no longer work.
>
> Rest in peace Tom and thanks for the laughs
>
> Luigi

How could I forget, Tom was also the author of the plans for Jake's
Chair: and Adirondack/Muskoka/Chaise des Laurentides

http://www.jakeschair.com/history.php

Luigi

Pat Barber wrote:
> On 5/12/2012 9:26 AM, Luigi Zanasi wrote:
>> I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
>> In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
>> the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>
> Yep...I think I cried at the first of many very funny stories this guy
> came up with.
>
> He will be missed.
>
> Tom's posts were what made this list in the early years. It's sad to not
> see anything even approaching his wit and style today.
>

Tom Watson was starting off pretty good, but then something happened.

--
G.W. Ross

Never judge a book by its movie.

Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote in news:4s43r7tkbqckbrbrs02i104dvaq5bgq530@
4ax.com:

> On Sat, 12 May 2012 09:26:12 -0700 (PDT), Luigi Zanasi
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
>>In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
>>the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>>
>>Here are links to some of his stories:
>>
>>http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=58cd2f%244rm%40camel4.mindspring.com
>>
>>
https://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/browse_thread/thread/5b973e958fd49
dbc/1193cf8c5ecec9df?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Tom+Gauldin+spot#1193cf8c5ecec9df
>>
>>https://groups.google.com/group/triangle.general/msg/73c43bbf0078f3a0?
hl=en&dmode=source
>>
>>you might also do a google search on these titles, somehow the links I
>>had no longer work.
>>
>>Rest in peace Tom and thanks for the laughs
>>
>>Luigi
>
>
> Thanks for the notice and thanks for the links. Tom will be
> remembered with a smile after re-reading the stories.
>
In fond memory of Tom, and all the smiles he brought to this group, I'm going to take the
liberty of posting some stories that he shared with me by email in 2004, some of which have
been previously posted, and some [I believe] have not. Please read all the way to the end;
the last vignette is a touching example of Tom's true gift at telling a story.

What follows is all Tom's words, not mine:

This is a collection of essays and postings I've done over a period of time to newsgroups.
Enjoy.

OUR HONEYMOON. . .

Vicki and I were married in 1967 in Marshall MO, borrowing my Dad's pickup
truck to honeymoon in Montreal. That was the year of Expo '67, Montreal's World's Fair.
Being college students and 20 years old, money was very tight, so we borrowed a cap for
on the back of Dad's truck, tossed in a mattress, BBQ grill, bag of charcoal, water jug
and a cooler filled with hot dogs and Armor Chili. With $200 in our pocket, we bravely
headed out for two weeks at the World's Fair, a thousand miles from our hometown.

Vicki was insistent that our first night as a married couple should be at a hotel. This
distressed me no end, but I did make reservations at the Tiger Motor Hotel in downtown
Columbia MO for our first night. The cheapest room I could find cost $2.50 per night,
which I thought was just fine. However, when we arrived, Vicki learned that the bathroom
was down at the end of the hallway. She threw her first of many fits, and I had to ante
up an additional $1.00 for a room with a bath. It was August and we had no air conditioning.
The mattress not only smelled of urine, it was also still damp. In its own way, the
dampness of the mattress helped to cool the room. <grin>

Anyway, we then took off cross-country in the pickup. We stopped
about 6:00p each night, usually near a small town, and would park on a
country road or even in a farmer's field. I'd fire up the grill and
we'd eat chili dogs for supper. We'd also cook a few extra and would
eat them for breakfast and lunch the following day. In the beginning, this was
both fun and novel, but soon became a bit tiring.

In Montreal, we found that even the campgrounds were far more expensive
than we could afford, so we again parked along country roads in the
late afternoon and moved the truck each morning. We'd eat chili dogs
and would take a few with us to see the marvels of Expo '67.

Vicki finally tired of Expo, so we returned to MO via Niagara Falls and
the northern side of Lake Superior. The scenery was beautiful, though
by this time we were tiring of chili dogs. By the second week, I
noticed that Vicki had taken on a certain "air" about her, and
mentioned to her that she stunk. (For any of you who might not yet be
married, don't say this to your new bride. It makes them turn very nasty)
This hurt her feelings, and she mentioned that I also smelled
differently than when we'd been dating.

We finally decided that personal hygene required more than a few
swipes with a washcloth dampened in drinking water or a stream. We
began seriously looking for somewhere free to bathe. That was solved
in some little Canadian town on the north side of Lake Superior, where
we located a park's swimming pool with outdoor shower. It was cold
that afternoon, the park was deserted and the showers were cold water
only. Did I mention that it was raining?

Needless to say, two or three bars of soap later, we were back to our normal
sweet-smelling selves again. Nobody spotted us showering and we escaped nicely.

To this day, chili dogs are still banned from our home.

ON ETIQUETTE. . .
Discussion in a newsgroup about cruising occasionally turn to etiquette.
This is always a great chance to have a little fun at Vicki's or my expense,
and to point out just how silly some customs or affectations can be.

Steve's commentary on silver

Steve Crisp is a regular poster on a newsgroup that I follow. During
a discussion about waiters, I wrote a post about something I'd been recently
told regarding "signaling waiters." Steve added to my comments, and I think
they might be of general interest to others as well.

Tom...Tom...Tom...you bohemian rat...

Fork and knife, placed crossed (with the crossing in the center of the
plate,) fork handle to the left and knife handle to the right indicates
that you are merely resting and should the waiter or footman take the
plate, you will have to protest diplomatically, but firmly (a discrete
stab to the spleen of said waiter with the dessert fork is appropriate.)

Fork and knife placed together across the center of the plate, either
facing directly away or with the handles at the 5 o'clock position is an
indication that one is done. It is my personal preference that the tines
of the fork be in the down position.

One also places the fork and knife on the plate together on the right
hand side of the plate, but not nearing the center, if one is receiving
a small portion of food from a fellow diner.

Used silverware is never to be placed anywhere else but on the plate.
(Of course, none of this applies to mere flatware, the presence of same
at a fine meal which most appropriately should result in the immediate
beheading of the host (if in a private setting) or the maitre d'hotel
(if dining out.)

If, on the other hand, the food is absolutely inedible due to no fault
of the kitchen, i.e., the course was prepared properly, but there is
something about sheep penii that you just have trouble horking down (and
you really thought that when that French menu said "penis", that "penis"
could not possibly mean what it seems to say, but must be a regional
variation of gigot, or mutton leg,) then the proper way of displaying
said displeasure is to move the food around on your plate while all the
time keeping up with the pleasent table banter. It is only after a
reasonably appropriate time that one should place the silverware in the
"remove this shit now" position.

Of course, a good waiter would have noticed what now looks like a
neo-post-impressionistic painting on your plate and discretely inquired
whether something is wrong. At that point, it once again becomes
appropriate to stab the cretin in the spleen with your dessert fork.

On Barbecue. . .
A dear friend in Maryland was planning a party for a number of folks going on a cruise.
She invited us to her home for a wonderful pre-cruise party, and I decided to bring along
some NC-style of barbecue. This resulted in the following discussion of NC-barbecue
and a general comparison of barbecue to "High Tea" suffered by the British.

The Announcement
Come to the party and you can taste some of our finest BBQ. I'm
bringing along 5-6 pounds of the pulled pork and some topping sauce.
Here in the Piedmont area of NC, we benefit from all kinds of BBQ. My
own taste runs to a hog that has been cooked whole with the skin on,
for about 12 hours. The skin is brown and crisp at this point, and
the meat is literally pulled from the carcass with a fork and chopped
a bit.

This is called Eastern style BBQ, pulled pork or simply "pig," in our
area. It is served with a shaker of topping sauce made from apple
cider vinegar flavored with Texas Pete sauce, red pepper and
(sometimes) a touch of cinnamon. In the sauce I make, I also put in
clarified butter, though a properly prepared pig will actually have
its own buttery flavor.

High Pig. . .

Proper service of "pig" is on a folding table covered with brown or
white packaging paper, on a floppy paper plate with plastic tableware,
a huge glass or Mason Jar of tea or beer, slaw, fritters/dodgers,
boiled potatoes with butter and two or three other vegetables, cooked
soft and seasoned with onion and fatback. If served as a sandwich,
the pig must be topped with slaw. Only folding chairs are permitted
at High Pig.

Dessert MUST be banana pudding with meringue topping.

The waiter or waitress should be someone friendly, who will sit down
and talk to you while you eat. If you want seconds, polite folks just
get them themselves and don't bother the server.

Low pig. . .

Low pig is served to New Yorkers or other foreigners and "proper people."
Low pig is the same pulled pork and other foods, but is served on china with metallic
tableware. The tables have legs that don't fold, and neither do the
chairs. At Low Pig, a tablecloth may be used, but not one that is
checkered. The chef uses a serving spoon, and not his hands. Tea is
delivered hot, unless it is requested as iced tea. There are
vegetables, but they are undercooked and served "al dente" (whoever he
is). The server will politely take your order, deliver the food and
will remove the dishes before depositing the check on the table, but
will not sit down with you to talk. The check will be approximately
three times the cost of a High Pig check, but you can rest more
comfortable knowing that you were in a more civilized and cultured
atmosphere.

During High pig, the pinkie of the eating hand is kept submerged in
food. The other hand is kept clean so that things don't slip when
being passed.

During High pig, you MUST wear short sleeved shirts, so that the grease
can drip off your elbows. Folks dining at a Low pig service, either wear
wrist bands or eat with silverware.

On Vicki and tobacco
My wife chews at least a plug of tobacco a day. When she was a
teenager, we thought she had a mustache, but learned it was just a
"drool line" from her tobacco. Its a nasty habit, but it kept her
from getting worms.

Over the years, education, civilization and culture have taught
Vicki that is isn't polite to spit on the carpet, into potted plants
or to use the ashtray at dinner. Coffee cups are another matter-
and are a constant source of concern for those dining with us, due
to the similarity in color. Instead, she keeps to hard surfaced
flooring, any corner, trash cans and the occasional small dog or
cat, when she has to spit. Because of this, our white cat is know
known as, "Old Yellow." Experience taught our friends, relatives
and children to NEVER ride in the back seat of autos with the
rear window down, when Mom is in the front seat. Shipmates also
quickly learn to stand up wind when Vicki walks to the railing.

The Sommelier
Having been born and raised in MO, my dear wife and
I have no delusion of being what big city would call sophisticated.
We try to smooth out some of the rougher spots by observing others
and by my occasionally asking questions on the Internet.

For instance, a response to a recent dilemma about what to do with
chewing gum at the dinner table was simply wonderful, and I am
grateful to the good people who gave advice beyond just sticking it
up under the table. (I never realized that the little empty plates beside
the coffee cup were to hold gum.) Other questions concerning silver
and table service have elicited a similar generous response from many.

My purpose in writing this note is to express my deep for the insightful
and non-patronizing answer to yet another question that has perplexed
both Vicki and me since our very first cruise. Here is the background,
followed the response. It was so kind, helpful and appreciated, I thought
it might be of use to other folks who enjoy cruising, but may not
always know proper etiquette.

The question I discretely asked a couple of months ago was, "What
in the Hell is the purpose of those little cups for that hang around
the neck of the guy who takes my drink order in the dining room?
They have always worried both Vicki and me, but I've always been too
embarrassed to ask a sophisticated person what they were."

It was explained that they were called spit cups, and were there for
people to spit their tobacco juice, snuff or plugs of tobacco into
when the wine was served. This made a lot of sense to me, since I'd
noticed a certain amount of distaste on the faces of the others at our
table when Vicki would spit on the floor, and put her chew of tobacco
on the bread plate.

We were so excited with our new level of sophisticated knowledge, that
Vicki and I went to a local restaurant that had one of those guys with
the spit cup around his neck.

Sure enough, the guy came over to our table and asked if we would like
to see the wine menu. We ordered a good Muscatel, and when he brought
it, I motioned him over to Vicki.

He unscrewed the cap and poured a little of it into her glass, leaning
over her a bit as he did it. Vicki smiled, gently reached out, took the
dangling spit cup in her hand, and spit the remains of her chew of Red
Man into the cup. She then handed the cup to the fellow, who was so
shocked by her act of sophistication that all he could do was walk
away. He never even came back to pour the rest of the Muscatel.

Vicki and I both thank all of you for sharing this with us. Now, my
next question is why the guys with the spit cups around their necks
only pour a little bit of the wine in a glass and don't just fill it
up. We bought the entire bottle.


The following came up in a discussion about honor bars in hotel rooms and aboard cruise
ships.

Honor Bars
There has been much discussion about the desirability and ethics of taking a bottle of
liquor along
in your suitcase when traveling. While many do it to hold down the cost of liquor in hotels
and
aboard cruise ships, others object to violating the "honor code" of most facilities, which
prefer to sell
you individual drinks from their own bars. Handicapped travelers have an even more
difficult time
getting a drink, since it might involve having to get dressed and into a wheel chair or asking
for
assistance in finding the bar in a strange hotel or aboard a ship.

To "bridge over" the question of buying your drinks at a hotel/ship bar, or having your own
liquor
in the room, an Honor Bar is frequently an option. For those of you who have not
encountered one,
the Honor Bar is a small, locked, refrigerator or cabinet in a hotel room or ship's cabin that
is
well-stocked with individual bottles of various liquors, wines, mixers, beer, various nuts,
snacks,
candy bars and bottled water. If you desire something, you use your room key or Honor Bar
key to
open the cabinet, remove what you want, and write what you've taken down onto an
inventory
sheet of the Honor Bar. When checking out, you present the inventory sheet to the front
desk or
purser, paying for what you've consumed. The honor bar is restocked daily by room
service.

Having stayed in many places with HONOR BARS, here are a few tricks I've invented that
might
save the traveler a few dollars on the next trip or cruise.

When Vicki and I travel, two favorite things in my suitcase are brown (combine red and
green) food coloring and superglue. Then, when confronted with an Honor Bar, its very
easy to open the little
bottle and pour yourself a drink. The trick is to refill the bottle with water, add a couple of
drops of
the food coloring and place the top back on. To conceal that the lid has been opened, hold
the
broken-off part by the lid and add a drop of superglue to the tab. Nobody will ever know
that the
bottle has been "used."

I've also had success without using the superglue, by rearranging the bottles, with the
"refilled"
one back behind one that hasn't been used. Without naming names, I passed this
information on
to an anonymous friend a few months back, just before a trip. When she returned, however,
she told me that she'd followed my directions explicitly, but had the humiliation of being
caught. I asked her what had gone wrong and she replied, "I used the food coloring just
as you said, but the maid noticed the bottled water and gin had turned brown."

The moral here is that if you're blind, be sure to have a friend tell you which bottles normally
contain
a brown liquor and which contain a clear liquor.

Other creative ways to save money with the honor bar:

Drain beer from cans by using a hypodermic needle hammered in from the bottom. Refill
with water,
and seal with ear wax.

Carefully open candy bars, eat the candy, then insert a pre-cut piece of wood to simulate
the candy.
Seal with superglue or double sided tape.

Open the seal of a bottle with a razor knife. Remove it carefully and set it aside. Remove the
aluminum cap in the normal fashion (teeth) then drink the bottle. Replace the cap, reinstall
the seal, then cover up the cut with black shoe polish.

If the bottle isn't a good, fresh wine, it may have one of those darn old cork stoppers. Just
use the handle of your pocket knife to hammer it down into the bottle. Then, drink the wine
(never right out of the
bottle or you might choke on the cork) and then refill it with water. The cork will float to the top
when
the bottle is full. Then invert the bottle and whack the sucker down onto the linoleum to
"seat" the cork. Replace the seal, and use the shoe polish to conceal the cut.

Walmart sells very large cans of smoked horse meat "jerky" strips as dog treats under the
Old Roy
brand. They look and smell exactly like regular beef jerky. By taking along some on a trip,
bags of real beef jerky can be relieved of their contents, with the dog strips making a very
believable substitute.
(For those of you who are grandparents and on a limited budget, keeping a good supply of
the doggie
jerky strips at home gives you a little snack for the grandkids as well. Being kids, they
never seem to notice that it isn't real beef jerky.)

Using a razor blade, bags of nuts, popcorn, chips, Fritos and even beef jerky can be slit,
and just a small quantity removed from each bag. When the slit resealed with superglue,
the shortage is seldom noticed
by subsequent "buyers."

My personal favorite is to take a large bag of peanuts along on a cruise. Then, when I find
good nuts in the Honor Bar, such as Cashews and Macadamia Nuts in the little bags, I slit
the bag open, dump out
the nuts and refill it with peanuts. Since subsequent users are usually a bit tipsy by the time
they
get the "munchies," they fail to notice the substitution, when properly resealed with
superglue or tape.

The Brave Little Hummingbird
I had a really heart-warming experience the other day, that I thought I would share with you.
We have a dog, Klepto, who is a cross between a Rottweiler and a Labrador Retriever. She
is incredibly friendly and gentle with people, but is what most folks would consider a large
dog. We also have a deck behind out house with several hummingbird feeders and many
plants that also attract the hummingbirds.

The other night, I was seated on our deck having a drink, when Klepto came up for her
normal few minutes of being petted and scratched. As always, she tried to climb into my lap,
then went over to the side of the deck and "took a rest." Sitting there on the deck, by myself,
I watched peacefully, as a little ruby-throated humming bird approached first one of our
feeders, then another. The little bird was absolutely fearless of both Klepto and me,
zooming repeatedly to the feeder on the rail, just above the dog's head. Klepto was very
cool and reserved, taking notice of the hummingbird with only her eyes, but not even
bothering to raise here ears.

Soon, the little humming bird descended to some flowers in a pot just above Klepto's head.
Fearlessly, the little hummingbird began to feed. I was almost overcome with the irony of a
tiny hummingbird, weighing a fraction of an ounce being so unconcerned about a 100# dog
just inches away. I was equally impressed with our dog's gentle manner and patience in not
moving and scaring the tiny and welcome visitor to our deck.

Without any tensing of muscles or prior movement, Klepto raised her huge head and
swallowed the hummingbird.

There wasn't even any chewing- just one "snap," and both the hummingbird and part of the
plant disappeared. This tale could have ended on this happy note- "Power, patience and
cunning prevails." However, there's even more to this tale.

The following afternoon, I had to go to a plumbing supply house that was a good 30-minute
drive from our house. Naturally, I took Klepto along in the back of my pickup truck, since she
feels she is a co-owner of it. I had learned years earlier that Klepto wasn't an "inside the
cab" dog, when we learned that she easily became car-sick, but that's a different tale.
However, riding in the back of the truck seldom upsets her tummy. The folks at the plumbing
supply house were busy and slow that day, so Klepto had to wait in the back of "her" pickup
for almost another half hour.

As happens on occasion, the drive down and her latent motion sickness caused "nature to
call," and she had an enormous bowel movement in the back of my pickup. When I returned
from the plumbing supply store, the smell alone immediately alerted me to what had
happened.

I looked in the back of my truck, and there was a very large pile of dog sh*t right in the
center of the truck bed. Sitting on top of the pile, almost as a "garnish," was the partially
digested remains of the brave little hummingbird.

The Haircut
This was first posted to rec.woodworking during a serious discussion about shop safety. It
is perfectly true.

A little over a year ago, I had an serious accident in my shop
involving my 3 hp Jet dust collector. The recent discussion about dust
collecting has given me the "shove" necessary to write about it and the
passage of time has dulled the memory to the point where I can now discuss
it in public.

My wife is a sweetheart of a person, who I met for the first time while
attending kindergarten in our home town of Marshall MO. She beat me up
on that first day of school. We were always friends during our school years
and continued to be friends right up to the time we were married. We've
now been married for over 30 years, and she has mellowed to the point where she
seldom beats me up anymore, since it upsets the dog..

About a year ago, my wife and I decided to "reward" ourselves for the last
kid going off to college with a trip to Alaska and a leisurely cruise down
the Inside Passage to Vancouver. It was to be a vacation of a lifetime
for us. Planning for the trip went smoothly, with the only glitch being
my good wife forgetting to make an appointment at the beauty parlor for
the day before we were to leave.

I spent the day before the trip straightening up my shop so that a
burglar wouldn't trip over anything and sue me for his injuries. My wife
came downstairs in the afternoon to ask me if I would trim her hair just
a tad so that it would look better for the trip. Having been
virtually bald since my days in college, I have always cut my own
hair with an old pair of Oster clippers that I bought while in college.
There, I had learned the simple fact that food is more important than a
professional haircut.

In my shop, I have a 3-hp Jet dust collector that is fed via blast gates
from both ducts in the floor AND via a 25' 4" flex hose that connects to the
floor sweep/planer/jointer or other movable tools. Since my wife's hair
is about 3" long, I thought that it'd be nice to hold the clippers inside
the 4" flex pipe so that her hair would stand straight out from her
head. I felt this would make it easier to get a smooth cut.

**********************************************************************
note: FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MIGHT BE SENSITIVE, quit reading right here
**********************************************************************

For those of you continuing to read this tale of woe, here's what
happened. This is absolutely true and unadulterated or exaggerated.

My dear wife of 30+ years, and the mother of my children, placed her rump
on a stool I keep in the shop and proceeded to tell me exactly how much
hair she wanted removed from the top, sides and bangs. I walked over to
the DC, fired it up and closed off all but the blast gate leading to the
4" flex hose. With the old Oster clippers up inside the hose and me
grasping the cutter end of them between my thumb and forefinger, I could
hold the 4" flex hose with the other hand and maneuver both things easily.

I leaned over my wife's pretty face and made the first cut- doing her
bangs.

The hair stood out perfectly from her forehead and the results of that
first swipe was terrific. I figured that I would probably get some reward
from a beauty college for my wonderful invention. The second swipe was
from side-to-side just above and behind the bangs. It went equally well.

Then all hell broke loose.

I claim that my wife moved, but she claims that claim is merely caused by
the random firing of obviously defective neurons in my addled brain.

For the third swipe, I had walked around to the rear of my wife's head and
was beginning to make the cut across the top of her head. Regardless of
the cause (I still say it had to be her fault), the damn 4" flex hose
somehow sucked down onto the top of her dear, sweet little head. The clippers
were running full bore up inside the pipe and doing the job that Mr. Oster
had designed his clippers to do.

The suction of a DC hose isn't great, but when even the most modest
suction is spread over the area of a 4" hose (that conforms well to the
shape of a wife's head), there is a momentary and significant "grab." It
startled my good wife, who let out with a squall and tried to stand up/
kick me/ brush the 4" hose off of her head and explain how I was mentally
defective all at the same time. During all this, I was attempting to
knock the hose away from her head as well. I succeeded in
dislodging it (actually, it probably fell off on its own), but it fell to
the OTHER side of her precious little head.

The result was that my wife now had perfectly trimmed bangs, followed by
a bald stripe that went damn near from ear-to-ear across the top of her
head. Think of it as an inverted Mowhawk that has been rotated 90
degrees. This was NOT what my dear wife had in mind when she asked me to
trim a bit off of her hair.

This tale now goes from bad to worse, because I tried to remedy the
problem by tapering the hair toward the "kerf" and shortening up the rest.
Saying that my attempts to remedy the situation were unsuccessful would be
like saying that General Custer was unsuccessful at pacifying the Indians.

When that poor old woman finally got to the mirror, I knew that a personal
Hell for me was at hand. It was. Now I stand just over 6', am in pretty
good shape and tip the scales at almost 280#. My sweet wife and companion
of all those years couldn't be over 5'-4", weighs a LOT less and has
Multiple Sclerosis. However, she took one look at her new "do" and took
off after me like a rabid Doberman. She runs pretty darn well when she's
mad, I learned something else that afternoon. I also learned that the sweet
old woman had obviously been kicked out of the Marine Corps because of her
foul, potty mouth. The things that woman said, and the things that she
called me, have absolutely prevented her from EVER enjoying the pleasures
of Heaven, in my humble opinion.

I got little sleep that night, since my good wife felt the need to wake me
every ten minutes or so to further discuss the consternation and distress
I'd caused her, and to share her emotions and feelings with me. Since
Lorena Bobbit had been in the news recently, I had very real additional
reasons to remain awake and sober. We were leaving that next morning and
there was no time for her to get a wig. We simply went ahead with the
trip, with my wife looking (and acting) like a madwoman. Needless to say,
the subject of her hair came up frequently. Whenever things would get a
little boring on the cruise, I'd tell her, "Vicki, that haircut looks like
hell," and it would start all over again.

I tried to alleviate the tension by confidentially offering more rational
explanations to inquiring folks than that she was "having a bad-hair day."
I explained to our cabin steward that my wife had been in a fight with a
wildcat while knife-hunting in Colorado. I told our waiter that she had
she had almost completely overcome a terribly contagious case of head
lice. A waitress in the lounge was told that medication had almost
completely curbed my wife's terrible impulses with butcher knives.
Generally, I'd just comment to curious folks that, "She's much calmer now
that the medication is taking effect."

A year later, my good wife STILL winces whenever she hears my dust
collector winding up in the shop. The hair has grown back and is as pretty
as before my "trim," but the fleeting trust that my wife has for my ability to cut
hair is certainly diminished.

Spot's Tale.

With a hobby of woodworking, I frequent a newsgroup called rec.woodworking
on occasion. There, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I recounted a very true tale that
was both understood and appreciated by many fellow woodworkers.

Well, friends, let me recount a little tale to you that involves my new Grizzly
shaper, a panel raising bit and an old cat that used to hang around a sunny window
sill in my shop. His name was Spot.

For those of you who may not have yet played with a shaper, these are big, floor-mounted
tools
that can be likened to an 800 pound router. Most have
interchangeable spindles to handle different sized bits. Grizzly sells theirs with
a very complete compliment of extra spindles of various sizes. The spindles
have a Morse taper for alignment, but are locked in place with a draw bolt that is
inserted up from the bottom of the female Morse and into the male Morse component.
This locks it down into the socket, so to speak Because of this, the vibration of a bit will
not loosen the spindle and permit it to fly out of the socket..

One particular afternoon, I'd made all of the rail and style cuts for some
cabinet doors, and decided that it was time to see just how my new panel
raising bit from Grizzly would work. Unlike some panel raising bits, this
bit was BIG- over 5" across- and had a slight pitch to the three cutting
blades to direct airflow and chips downward. Being so big, it necessitated
me removing the 3/4" spindle from the shaper and inserting the 1".

Old Spot was my daughter's cat, and was absolutely fearless in the shop. He
would just perch on a wide window sill in the sunlight, watching outside for
birds or whatever else might catch a cat's attention. He simply ignored me.
Old Spot was an indoor "house" cat. Once my daughter went off to college,
Spot decided that he'd spend most of his days in the basement shop with me,
since that was where all the action was. He was always a welcome visitor
and companion. He always listened to me as I would "talk out" my plans for
the day.

On the particular day in question, I inserted the large spindle in the
shaper, and slid on the huge panel raising bit. Being intimidated of the
shaper in general, and panel raising bit in particular, I took good
precautions in seeing that the bit was firmly seated and that the retaining
nuts were tight.

Satisfied with my enterprise, I reached down and turned the shaper "on." At
that moment, as my fingers mashed the button, I remembered two things I'd
overlooked.

1) I hadn't switched the belt from the 10,000 RPM position to the 7,000
RPM position; and,

2) I had forgotten to insert the draw bolt to hold down the spindle.

With the sound of a jet engine, the shaper's 5-hp motor revved to full
speed. As it did, I watched in horror as the several pound- 5" panel
raising bit I had fastened so securely to the 1" spindle, rose magnificently
out of the shaper . . attached to the spindle itself. In a way, it looked
like a cross between a Frisbee designed by a madman and some "space toy"
that my kids might buy. Being of sound mind, I decided that the safest
place to be at that moment was lying on the floor with my hands over my
head. As the bit rose into the air, I dove for the ground.

Now, here's where old Spot comes into the tale-

It seems that old Spot had been "short taken" in the shop that afternoon,
and had decided that the pile of shavings beneath the shaper was superior to
running upstairs to his litter box. It had never happened before, and never
happened since, to the best of my knowledge. He had either ingested
something that didn't agree with him, or my wife may have given him one of
his pills for hairballs. It really didn't matter at that moment. . . as I
dove headfirst into the shavings and their semi-liquid content.

The shaper bit and spindle sailed slowly and magnificently over my head,
sounding like a jet engine, and crossed another 6' of shop before
crashing into a door. The door literally exploded, with one of the panels and
style of the door shattered as easily as if they'd been hit with a canon.

When I rose to take stock of the situation, it was apparent that before I
could even begin to start cleaning up the damage, that I needed to change
shirts and shower. (My good wife later suggested that I probably should have
changed my shorts- but not because of the cat)

Spot lived another 2-3 years after that adventure, but finally succumbed to
Leukemia one equally cold afternoon. Even now when I look out Spot's window, I
sometimes still think I see him there, but when I see the stain he left on
the floor of my shop, I don't miss him quite as much.


THE BIG JIM SAGAS

Big Jim is a pseudonym for one of the finest men I've ever met. Big Jim and his wife, Joan
are the kind of people everyone would like to have as a neighbor. I am telling these tales
about
Big Jim out of my belief that they are too good to just let die.

The Great Tractor Race

Years ago, my best friend in the world was a neighbor that we'll call Big Jim. Big Jim was
one of the kindest-hearted men who ever walked this earth. and was a fellow that would
come to your house at 4:00 am in an emergency, or would shovel your driveway if you
weren't home when it snowed. This very factual tale of Big Jim hails from the time that
I decided to break up and haul away a concrete parking area, so that I could install footers
and build a new garage adjoining my home.

To do this, I rented an air compressor and jack hammer- starting to work at 7:00 am on
a Saturday morning. Big Jim heard all the racket, and by 7:30, he was down at the house
with his beloved Cub Cadet garden tractor and trailer to give me a hand. Although my
own tractor/mower was a diesel John Deere 650 4-WD, we had identical trailers and
frequently worked together blowing snow, mowing empty lots and helping out the others in
the neighborhood. We quickly decided that the best place to dump the broken up concrete
slab would be along a creek behind Big Jim's home, since he had been experiencing
erosion.

By noon, the slab was just broken rubble, since Big Jim and I took turns on the jackhammer.
Big Jim grabbed some lunch while I returned the compressor and jackhammer; by 2:00 that
afternoon, we were back at work. Each trailer measured about 4' wide by 5' long and had
sides of about 16" tall, so weight was more of a factor than volume, when considering the
small tractors we had.

Years earlier, we had cut a path down the steep hillside to reach the creek
behind Big Jim's house The path was almost straight down the hillside, ending in a culvert
pipe we'd pushed into the creek and back filled with crushed stone. Unfortunately, the
culvert pipe had actually floated briefly before sinking to the bottom of the stream,
moving about six feet downstream. Since the path had already been cut and the culvert
had
been intended to align with the path, the floating downstream caused our path to take a six
foot
jog at the bottom of the hill. Big Jim's huge garden lay on the other side of the creek.
All told, I'd guess that the drop from Big Jim's lawn to the culvert pipe was at least 35'
and the water in the creek lay at least another four feet below the sides of the stream bed.

It was hotter than Hades that afternoon, and Big Jim and I treated ourselves to a number
of Old Crown beers to stave off the heat, and as a reward for doing so much work in just
one day. We loaded the trailers with the rubble until the tires began to bulge, and then
made the first of ten or twelve trips to Big Jim's and then down to the creek. After very
other load, we'd go back down to my house and sip another Old Crown while loading up the
trailers for yet another trip.

Toward evening, I have to admit that Big Jim and I had enjoyed "loading up" in another
sense as well. The "final load" we put in each of the trailers would have easily been
two loads earlier in the day. Rather than bulging slightly, the tires on our trailers
were absolutely FLAT. To celebrate the final load, we grabbed the last two beers and
headed up to Big Jim's to dump the debris.

Big Jim and I have always been a mite competitive and "racing tractors" is just a
natural extension of that competition. My John Deere 650 Diesel 4-WD tractor's owner's
manual states authoritatively that the top governed speed of the tractor is 10.56 mph.
That means the International Harvester Cub Cadet that Big Jim owned must do 10.57 mph,
since by the time we reached his yard with that final load, he had a good 4' lead on me.

We bounced across the curb at Big Jim's house, raced up his driveway and
swung wide to miss the side of his garage. The race continued across his
side yard and the tractors screamed as we continued the race behind his
house, behind his swimming pool and through the gate leading to the
hillside and trail. By the time we cleared the gate, the rear gate of Big Jim's
trailer was easily 5-6' ahead of the weights on the front of my John Deere.
Clearly, Big Jim had won the race.

The balance of that afternoon is engraved on my mind permanently in individual scenes
. . . almost as if they were a slide show. The first scene is Big Jim turning around in
the tractor seat, giving me his biggest grin and also giving me the finger as he
graciously accepted winning the race. The next scene is Big Jim screaming "Oh Shit!"
as he realizes that he has just crested the very steep hill at full throttle, pulling
approximately a ton of concrete rubble behind his little garden tractor. The third
image is of Big Jim's beer can being extruded straight upward almost 10' in the air,
as Big Jim clenches his fist and prepares for the most terrifying ride of his life.

With my own heavier tractor and 4-WD, I easily managed to slow my John Deere at the
crest of the hill, as Big Jim was setting the new land speed record for descent
toward a creek. I carefully drove down the hill and jumped off the tractor, raced to
the bridge and into the cloud of dust, fully expecting to see Big Jim in the creek-
or perhaps even trapped under the tractor.

As the dust cleared, the first sight to emerge was the churned-up trail where Big Jim
had thrown his hydrostatic transmission into full reverse in a vain attempt to slow
down. At the bottom of the hill, with two wheels on the bridge, one wheel on the trail
and one wheel over the creek bank was Big Jim- still seated on his tractor. The
trailer had jackknifed and emptied itself in the creek, after tearing loose from the
tractor.

I ran up to Big Jim shouting to see if he was OK. His response was simply, "Gauldin-
go on home. I need to get up to the house." It was then that I suspected the worst. While he
would never admit it, Big Jim had wet himself.

I awoke with a headache the next morning, but managed to drive my tractor up to Big
Jim's home. Together, we pulled his trailer out of the creek and took it up to the
house for repair. I thanked him for the help and we sat and talked for a while. Big
Jim summarized that previous afternoon with the simple statement, "You know, Gauldin,
the problem ain't in the going, its IN THE STOPPING."

The incident was never discussed again- except for whenever my good wife is around Big
Jim and his wife. Then, she always seemed to steer the conversation around to tractors,
grown men racing, too much beer, wild rides and sudden incontinence.


Big Jim's Romance

Big Jim was the type of neighbor that every person wants to have. He was
the kind of fellow who would come to your house at 4:00 in the morning, if
you needed help, would loan you any tool that he had in his shop, would go
out with you to help cut firewood and would help you stack it when you got
home. His wife and my wife were also best friends. . . with coffee in the
mornings or shopping in the afternoon. On weekends, if Big Jim wasn't down
at my house helping me do something, I could usually be found up at his
house, returning the favor. After ten years of being friends and neighbors,
you get to know folks really well- you think!

Big Jim was 6 years older than I was, and was approaching his late 40's at the time. He
had married Joan, his high school sweetheart, following his high school
graduation and had enjoyed over 30 years of marriage. The marriage had
produced a beautiful daughter, who had just graduated from high school
herself. Joan and Big Jim had made a home on the second floor of their
house for Joan's mother, who had lived with them for many, many years.
Being a kind and good-hearted man, Big Jim thought of Joan's mother as an
inseparable part of his own family. Big Jim's own mother still lived on a
farm outside of town, and we were always driving out to spend an afternoon
at her place.

My wife and I never saw any change in Big Jim, but the onset of middle age
had apparently been taking its toll. Big Jim apparently thought he was
slowing down a little in his love life at home, and I later heard that Joan
had confided to my wife that Big Jim just wasn't the man had had been ten
years earlier. Big Jim wasn't the kind of fellow who would give up anything
easily, and apparently had decided that he could regenerate things a bit by
having some extracurricular activity.

Working at a large office in town, Big Jim and one of the ladies at the
office decided that they'd meet for a "few drinks" one Saturday afternoon. I
honestly don't think that Big Jim had done anything like this in his 30+
years of marriage, but he and the "new sweetheart" decided that they'd have
an affair that fateful Saturday afternoon.

The Saturday arrived, and Big Jim told Joan that he had to go into work that
afternoon to clean up some paperwork- not at all unusual activity for him.
Instead, he drove to the appointed motel, where he met "Suzy" in the bar.
They had 3-4 drinks and then checked into a room. This was where Big Jim
made the biggest mistake in his life!

Do you remember me mentioning earlier that Big Jim and Joan had a beautiful
daughter, who had just graduated from high school? Well, Big Jim had
overlooked the simple fact that his daughter had just started a new job. . .
SHE WAS NOW THE 3:00p-11:00p ROOM CLERK AT THE SAME
MOTEL WHERE BIG JIM HAD JUST CHECKED IN WITH SUSY.

Now, my friends, here is where the sad-but-true tale becomes exciting.

Big Jim and "Suzy" had just retired to the room when his daughter came on
duty. The daughter looked over the new check-ins and saw that a person with her
own father's name had checked into the motel about a half hour earlier. As
a matter of fact, the person had used the same address as her father, had
signed the register in the same handwriting as her father and had paid with
a credit card with the same number as the one she had in her own purse!

The daughter was very concerned, and even asked the outgoing room clerk if he
remembered the arrival in question. He did, and described both Big Jim and
his "wife." Since the daughter certainly had different ideas of her mother's
description and was convinced that she only had one mother waiting for her at
home, she became skeptical of her Dad's intentions in checking into the motel.
To assuage that skepticism, she did what any evil daughter would do: she called her
mother at home and asked her, Where is Daddy?" When Daddy's itinerary he had
left with her mother failed to anticipate his checking into the hotel, both
mother and daughter came to the same unfortunate conclusion. . . and Hell was
to soon be close at hand for my best friend.

The following was assembled as a series of fractured and fragmented tales told
to both me and my wife on a number of different occasions over the weeks
following that fateful assignation. Frequently, it was necessary for my good
wife and me to compare our "notes" on the tales, since they were usually
related to us with a great deal of crying, shouting or requiring an occasional
bribe of Jack Daniel's to spark the memory.:

About an hour after checking in, Big Jim was "relaxing" in the room with Suzy
when there was a knock on the door. Thinking that it was housekeeping, he
approached the door with a towel wrapped around his waist and opened the door
part way. There, standing in the hallway, was his daughter, his wife,
his mother and his mother-in-law. The four ladies then pushed the door the
remainder of the way open and entered the room to discuss Big Jim's indiscretions.
There is a saying that, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," and I guess that
on that fateful afternoon, Big Jim learned that applied to ALL the women in his
life, and not just his wife.

The sweetheart, Suzy, sharing the room with Big Jim ran out the patio door
wearing nothing but a panicked expression, but grabbing her purse and clothes
on the way out. She got in her car and drove away, totally naked, but unharmed-
leaving poor Big Jim to try to explain to these four women what he had been doing
at the motel. Whenever I hear the old joke; "Who are you going to believe- me or
your lying eyes?", I think of poor Big Jim. Suzy's escape was of no concern to the
four women, since they had far bigger game on their minds.

The police were never called, but it was almost an hour before the four women in
Big Jim's life paused long enough for him to even get dressed. Later, my wife told
me some of the things Joan said had happened, such as Big Jim's own mother ripping
away even his towel, so that, "He had nothing to hide behind," and the four women
tossing him into the shower to "wash the sin and filth away," . . . Frankly, I
didn't even want to hear that, and the image still haunts my mind.

That evening, Joan called my wife to tell her what happened, and that she
was throwing Big Jim out. Even as they talked, Big Jim arrived, chuffing
into my garage on his Cub Cadet and towing his trailer. Big Jim's eyes were
puffy, he had a long scrape on his face and he generally looked like hell.
The trailer was absolutely loaded with every power and hand tool that Big Jim
could put in it; he wanted to know if it'd be OK to store his tools in my
garage. We ended up making 5 more trips up to Big Jim's house that night
with both of our tractors/trailers to clean out his closet and workshop of
power tools, guns and golf clubs. All the time, the four women at Big Jim's
home were outside and freely expressing their dissatisfaction with his actions
of that afternoon. I was even verbally abused because, "I was his best
friend and should have known what he was going to do." At my own home, my good
wife of many years would deride poor Big Jim whenever we were
unloading his worldly possessions into my garage.

For any of you who might be wondering, all this took place over 15 years ago.
Following the incident, Big Jim did the appropriate amount of crying, begging
and pleading, and by the following weekend, he had moved himself and his tools
back into his house. I'm happy to say that while the incident was never
forgotten, the pain and anguish eventually diminished.

From the incident, there are several things that I learned that deserve to be shared with
fellow
husbands and readers of this essay:

1) If you plan on having extracurricular marital activity, consider portable
tools, such as the Delta Contractor's saw and not a Unisaw. It is easier to
move them if you get caught

2) Always remember where your daughter is working.

TALES FROM YOUTH

Crossing Kansas

Every now and then, something arises that brings back memories so
strongly that they simply cannot be ignored or kept silent.

My wife and I celebrated the last of our children leaving home to
attend college, by taking a long, long driving trip around the country. As
the miles rolled on and our backs began to tire, we decided that it was
time to come home. The most logical way to return to Raleigh from
Colorado seemed to be Interstate 70, crossing Kansas and Missouri.

The trip began normally enough, but as the miles rolled on, my mind began
to drift back to the last time I had enjoyed such wide open spaces, where
you could see up and down the interstate for miles. My mind returned to
a family vacation with my parents that took place about 1960. . .

I was 13 at the time, and was legally too young to drive. That meant
little to Dad, who enjoyed sitting in the back seat on long trips. As a
result, by the age of 13, I already had two years of highway driving on
long trips under my belt. Mom would sit in the front, helping me follow
the scant road signs of that era, while Dad would enjoy a beer in the
back seat.

Dad's job as Business Manager at a college gave him the entire month of
August off from work. Dad never drank- except when he was on vacation.
Then, he'd buy a six-pack of Hamm's beer about 1:00 every afternoon, and
would enjoy 3-4 of them as the rest of the day passed along. He was an
older fellow, having been 45 years old when I was born, and lived a
modest, calm, collected live in a small Missouri college town.

On that fateful day in 1960, we were crossing Kansas on our way to Denver.
Dad had me stop in Topeka, so that he and Mom could use the facilities and
he could get his well-deserved six pack of beer. We left Topeka just
after lunch and as the miles rolled on, Dad had a couple of the Hamm's. Mom
even celebrated the first day of our vacation by enjoying one.

Unfortunately, towns (read that as restrooms) are few and far between in
western Kansas. Nature, age and beer took its toll on Dad's bladder and
he finally asked me if I would stop along the roadside so that he could
relieve himself. I stopped the car as Dad got out of the back seat and
looked both ways carefully. There didn't appear to be a car in sight, so
Dad began to relieve himself.

Naturally, as luck would have it, a car appeared on the horizon and bore
down on us from the front. Mom told Dad, "Don't panic- nobody can see you
there with the car in the way." This was all I needed to hear.

As the car approached, I quietly put our own car in gear. Dad was
standing there still relieving himself when I decided that the moment had
arrived. I floored our own car- pulling ahead about 200'. The result was
that Dad was now standing there alone along an Interstate highway in the
middle of the afternoon. . .urinating. The approaching car honked at him as
it passed, as did the one following it. Being an older fellow, Dad simply
couldn't turn off the flow- and his modesty demanded that he do something.
The result was that he replaced "himself" in his pants while still going,
effectively soaking his pants, socks and shoes.

Well, what can I say? Mom was hysterical; I was laughing so hard that
I couldn't breathe as Dad "waded" up to the car. He didn't even have
the courtesy to open my car door- he merely pulled me out through the
window. The only bad to come of my misadventure was that I had a great
deal of difficulty sitting for a couple of days.

Looking back as a parent myself, my only regret in the entire incident was
that Dad didn't listen to me when I suggested that he change his
pants/drawers/socks beside the car. . I assured him that I wouldn't drive
off again. . .

Following my telling of this tale on rec.woodworking, I have
received over 100 "thank you's" from friends about this very,
very true story. At the request of my own son, I am also
retelling yet another true "Gauldin family legend" that you
might enjoy. My parents are dead, now, and this tale can be told
without causing them any embarrassment.

The Peach Cans and an old House
When I was 4 years old, my Dad acquired a house that had been constructed in
1847, with a second floor being added in 1869. The house had solid brick
exterior walls that were 16" thick, but the interior was of wood beam construction.

During the 1930's, the owner had added the luxury of a bathroom to the
second floor, but this luxury was negated by the problem of the squeaks
and groans of anyone walking around upstairs. To put it simply, if you
got up in the night, anyone and everyone in the house was awakened by the
creaks and groans of your walking to the bathroom.

The solution my folks found best was very simple: Keep a large tin can
beside each side of the bed to use for the occasional call of nature.
Chamber pots could have been used, but the "peach can" sufficed. In the
morning, a single creaky trip to the restroom, carrying the can,
eliminated waking the rest of the family during the night.

When I was eight or nine years old, Mom did something to really make me
mad. Heck, I don't even have the slightest idea what it was, but I
remember being really, really mad at her. I stewed and fumed about the
injustice all day, and hit on a solution late in the afternoon.

What I did was to go to the shop with Mom's peach can. I sharpened the
point of an 8 penny nail on the grinder and used it to punch holes in the
outside lower rim of the can- just above the bottom. I probably punched
12-18 holes that afternoon, and then replaced her peach can by the bed.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by my Mom yelling for Dad and
running across the hallway toward the bathroom. You see, when she used
the can, it became a little "watering can" spouting the liquid neatly out
to the sides, down legs, soaking nightgown and creating a wet "path"
across the hall carpet that lingered even into the morning.

The following morning, Dad became actively involved in my solution to the
perceived injustice. Simply put, he spanked the Hell out of me.

This only added to the injustice, in my young mind; I vowed to retaliate.

Knowing that both Mom and Dad would be checking out their cans for a
while, I waited and planned my revenge for a couple of weeks. Then, when
things had settled down, I merely cut the entire bottom out of Dad's
peach can one afternoon, and replaced it beside the bed.

Yes, it happened. Keeping in mind my comments about older men having
difficulty stopping, I will leave most of it up to your own good
imaginations about what happened that night. Suffice to say that there
was a lot of cursing, running and yelling for "Mom" that night. The
following morning showed a trail of moisture from the bedroom to the
bathroom. . . in almost the same path Mom had taken two weeks earlier.

The next day, Dad took me to the shop to "discuss things." He
sat me up on the workbench and told me that he'd talked about what had
happened to some friends at work. While everyone agreed that I needed
the Hell beaten out of me for what I'd done, that he just couldn't bring
himself to perpetuate the battle. As Dad put it, "Sometimes it's OK to
let the kid win one."

OK, folks, this brings up yet another very true and unexaggerated tale from my younger
days.

Long ago, there was a young attorney/Mortgage Banker working for a life insurance
company. He was what we'd call a "straight arrow" type (not ME) and his employer was
even affiliated loosely with a church group (definitely not MY employer).

One day I received a loan application for an industrial property in another state that was
considerably over my own lending limit, so I called him up to see if he'd like to do what's
called a participation loan with me. We'd known each other for years, and he said, "Sure."
(Let's also remember that nowadays I'm much more civilized, now that I'm older. <grin>)

He and I jumped on a plane and headed out to see the property. That evening, he went
looking for a church while I went out to have a few drinks. He also got up at 5:00a to go play
racquetball with a person he had gone to school with, which I considered to be worse than
going to church. That next morning, while I was still feeling a bit down from the previous
evening, he lectured me on my partying and carousing, suggesting that I needed more
discipline and religion in my life; I should not do things that would embarrass my employer,
family or associates.

After a good inspection of the property, it was time to head back to the airport and our
waiting families. I was still smarting from the lecture I'd received and decided that it was
time for a little payback.

In the airport, I purchased a Hustler magazine, which I placed in my briefcase. Aboard the
plane, I was seated by the window while "Fred" was seated on the aisle. As the
announcements were made, I took out the Hustler magazine and began thumbing through it.
As I would come across a good picture of an "acrobatic" young lady, I'd lean over, tap Fred
on the shoulder and show him the picture.

At first, Fred was upset that I'd even purchased such a magazine, then I noticed that he'd let
his eyes linger on the picture a bit longer than was consistent with his "indignation." After
repeating this several times, I came to the centerfold.

The centerfold was exceptional. It was of a young lady who could put her feet behind her
head. . . the rest I leave to your imagination. I folded the picture open and HANDED the
magazine to Fred. By then, he was 'sharing' my enthusiasm for the view of the young lady.
What Fred overlooked was that being in an aisle seat, everything he was holding was
visible to the stewardesses coming up the aisle, as well as any passengers.

Fred was admiring the young lady just as a stewardess was walking up from behind,
looking to see if seatbelts were securely fastened. She noticed not only that Fred was
holding the Hustler magazine in front of him with the fold-out section fully opened, she also
couldn't help but notice that he had become "interested" in the picture of the young lady
contortionist.

I had turned in my seat so that I could watch all this, and made eye contact with the shocked
stewardess. I said, "You shouldn't let perverts like this on your airplane."

Fred heard me, realized what had happened and his predicament, and immediately
THREW the magazine at me, calling me names that a good, religious person shouldn't
say. I told him, "Payback for lecturing me this morning is Hell, isn't it, Fred?"

Fred eventually left Mortgage Banking for a long and respected career in politics.


The Amazing Aluminum Christmas Tree

Speaking of old Christmas trees sure brings back a flood of memories. One particularly
warm memory that might interest you happened back in the mid 1950's, when I was about
nine years old. That was the year of the Aluminum Christmas Tree in our house. Simply
stated, it was the greatest Christmas of my childhood. Dad had become business manager
at the local college, and one night he came home with a huge catalog of the John Plains
Company of Chicago Illinois. It was like a Sears Catalog, but was printed in color, had a
hard cover and was oriented more toward businesses. Inside was even a full color section
on Christmas decorations.

It was a cold November that year, and I was already in the mood for Christmas. Mom had
started making a few little Christmas decorations and had stated she would soon be baking
some of her wonderful Christmas cookies. I took the catalog to work with me that evening
and spent hours studying every detail of all those incredible Christmas decorations and
particularly the NEW, artificial, Christmas trees. I'd never even seen one before, and was
fascinated at how beautiful they looked.

The tree that particularly caught my attention wasn't even made to look like a Christmas
tree. Instead it was made with a metal trunk and had aluminum foil for needles on its
branches. To my nine year old mind, it was simply the finest, most beautiful, most
incredible Christmas tree that I had ever seen in my life. Mom usually waited up for me to
get home after work, and I began my quest to get that aluminum Christmas tree by pleading
with her. I begged, pleaded and even offered to pay for part of it, if she and Dad would just
PLEASE order it. The next morning, I continued this quest with my Dad, who finally agreed
to talk to my Mom about it. I had the facts of the tree memorized- its height, breadth and the
number of those amazing, sparkling branches. I'd even borrowed Dad's tape measure and
laid out a circle on our living room floor to prove to my parents that the tree would indeed fit
in the space allotted for it.

Laying that tree out on the floor apparently worked, since Dad finally agreed to order it, and
even said he'd pay entirely for it himself. Not only was I getting that wonderful, beautiful,
sparkling tree for Christmas, it wasn't costing me a cent! Dad filled out the order form, wrote
the check and then passed it all over to me to inspect. I was so enthusiastic for us to get
such an incredibly beautiful tree that I didn't even trust my own Dad to fill out the form
correctly.

Well, the next two weeks were two of the longest in my life. Finally, my calls to Mom after
school paid off and she said that a big box had arrived that afternoon. When I got home
from work that night, there it was on the living room floor- a huge box filled with that tree I'd
been dreaming about. Dad was asleep, but Mom let me open the box and look inside.

There it was in all its splendor- a genuine, totally artificial, 6' assembled height Christmas
tree with aluminized Mylar needles on 125 branches and with a base diameter of almost 5-
1/2'. Each of those sparkling branches were inserted into paper tubes to keep the foil
needles from being crimped. Each set of branches even were tipped with different colors to
show where the fit into the tree's trunk. Mom said that since it was almost Thanksgiving, she
and Dad had decided we could put the tree up that weekend! Those were long days and
long hours for a nine-year-old boy, but the weekend finally arrived and it was time to put up
that wonderful tree.

I'd read the instructions so often during that week, I even had the color codes and their
sequence memorized. First the stalk was screwed together and inserted into the aluminum
base. Then, branches were inserted from top to bottom, with the ones having a pink tip
inserted first. This was repeated with the red, blue, green, brown, yellow and other colors
until the tree was finished. Finally, the tree was up. The catalog had warned that since the
tree was metal, lights couldn't be put on it. Instead, Dad had ordered a floodlight with a
revolving wheel in front that projected red, blue, green and yellow light onto the tree. I
plugged it in and we all were amazed at how beautiful the tree looked and how the
changing lights caused the needles to sparkle.

The next day, Mom went shopping while I was in school and returned with several boxes of
pink glass ornaments for on our new tree. That night, I came home to what was surely the
finest, most sparkling and beautiful tree in our town or anywhere else, for that matter. We'd
put the revolving light behind the TV set so that it was virtually hidden from sight. Back
lighted, the tree almost looked like it was alive, as it sparkled and those soft, aluminum
needles would move in the gentle airflow from our furnace.

Mom and Dad were really proud of the tree, but Dad felt that it was somehow wrong to have
an artificial tree for Christmas. He preferred the smell and tradition of a live tree. Mom took
up my cause for the aluminum tree, and made it one of the most wonderful Christmases I
could remember. Mom would bake plates of cookies, helped me to make decorations and
we even made pine scented candles to give to neighbors as gifts and to add a tree-like
aroma to the house.

The rest of that Christmas was almost an anticlimax, and I cannot even recall any particular
Christmas gift from that year. The tree itself was what I considered to be my gift that year.
Before going to bed, I'd lie on my back and scoot under the tree to look up at those moving,
sparkling branches that changed color. It was one of the most warm and wonderful times of
my life. After Christmas, Mom had to go to Pennsylvania to care for her mother, so it
became my job to take our tree down and pack it away. It was a very sad and lonely time
for me, but I was careful to return those sparkling branches to their individual paper tubes, to
disassemble the stand and to wrap the various nuts and bolts up in foil so they wouldn't get
lost. I used masking tape to seal the box, so that no dust from our attic could get inside.

The next year, Dad said that we'd had our experiment with an artificial tree, and that now it
was time to go back to a real one. In my mind, I knew that nothing would ever top that past
Christmas with our aluminum tree, so I didn't even put up much of a fight. From then on, it
was a parade of traditional, real trees, again.

Time passes; I grew up, left home, married and began a family of my own. We kept a
tradition of always having Santa visit at our own home, but would then drive or fly to the
home townl for Christmas day to celebrate Christmas with our own parents. Dad and Mom
kept up their part of the bargain by always having Christmas decorations up and a tree in
the living room. It was always a real tree, though, and with the aging of my parents, it also
grew smaller and smaller each year.

Mom left us in 1976, after a long illness. Still, we kept up our Christmas tradition of the trek to
our home town, and my Dad always had a tree for the grandkids. Then, Dad left to be with
Mom in 1981, and it was time to settle his estate and close up that portion of our life. Dad
died in August, but it was late October by the time I had his house sold and was in the
process of getting ready for an auction to sell off the parts of his life that we had no room for
in our own home.

It was a cold and rainy October, and I had been working with the auction company that
entire day to package up so many things that had been a part of my life, so they could be
sold the following day. My wife remained at our home, with the kids; I had never been so
alone in that empty, cold house of my childhood. I cannot describe the sense of loneliness
or sadness I felt. The auctioneers had finished packaging things about six that night, and I'd
grabbed a bite to eat before returning to the house. Even the beds had been
disassembled, so I was to sleep that night on a mattress laid out on the floor. I remembered
a bottle of scotch from some long-forgotten party. Dad had kept the bottle in the cabinet
above the refrigerator, and I decided to look for it and to treat myself to a drink. Incredibly,
the auctioneers had missed it, and the bottle held at least a couple good, stiff drinks. I
poured the Scotch out into a jelly jar I'd found on the kitchen counter and started that long
climb up the stairs to my waiting mattress on the hallway floor.

As I passed the attic door on the landing, I decided I would peek inside and see if the
auctioneers had finished getting things boxed up. There, over by a side wall of the attic
floor was the box I had so remembered from my childhood.

By that time of my life, I had matured into a husband, father, and was even considered by a
few folks to be a respectable citizen. I'd paid my dues as a Mortgage Banker and by then
was even the President of the company. Some folks might even accuse me of being staid,
but if they knew what I did that night they would have had me locked up.

There, in that cold attic with the rain pelting the roof, I took a few big sips of my Scotch, and
placed the glass on a table. I walked over to that boxed Aluminum Christmas tree and
looked down at the masking tape my nine year old hands had placed on it twenty five years
earlier. Without pausing, I opened the box and began assembling that incredible, sparkling
tree right there on the attic floor. In about twenty minutes, the tree was complete. I went
searching through the boxed remains of my parents lives, and located an extension cord. I
plugged it in and hooked up the revolving light that Dad had placed beside the tree when
we packed it away in the attic following that most memorable Christmas of my life. Then, as
the red, green, blue and yellow colors flooded the tree and attic, I laid down on my back
and scooted under the tree to look up at those sparkling, changing colors of those
aluminum needles. . .as I had done as a child.

The memories of that wonderful Christmas past flooded back so intensely that I could even
still smell Mom's cookies and the scented candles we'd made in anticipation of Christmas.
My parents were alive again and were there with me in that cold, dusty attic. I lay there for
almost ten minutes, then scooted out from under the tree and began packing it carefully
away again. The tree sold the following day, but there was no regret on my part. That tree
had held those wonderful, warm memories inside its box for twenty five years, waiting for me
to open it again at one of the lowest points of my life. It had served its purpose twice, and
now it was time for the tree to go to another family and to touch another life.

On Sat, 12 May 2012 09:26:12 -0700 (PDT), Luigi Zanasi
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
>In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
>the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.
>
>Here are links to some of his stories:
>
>http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=58cd2f%244rm%40camel4.mindspring.com
>
>https://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/browse_thread/thread/5b973e958fd49dbc/1193cf8c5ecec9df?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Tom+Gauldin+spot#1193cf8c5ecec9df
>
>https://groups.google.com/group/triangle.general/msg/73c43bbf0078f3a0?hl=en&dmode=source
>
>you might also do a google search on these titles, somehow the links I
>had no longer work.
>
>Rest in peace Tom and thanks for the laughs

Yes, RIP, Tom. I remember his posts from the Wreck of old.

--
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw

On 5/12/2012 9:26 AM, Luigi Zanasi wrote:
> I got an email from a friend of Tom's telling me he just passed away.
> In the 1990s, Tom wrote some of the funniest stories ever posted on
> the rec including what was most people's all time favourite.

Yep...I think I cried at the first of many very funny stories this guy
came up with.

He will be missed.

Tom's posts were what made this list in the early years. It's sad to not
see anything even approaching his wit and style today.