Library Notes
October 9, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
My new Sable had a wee windshield problem. When you looked through it from certain positions, it looked kinda’ wavy. If you looked very long, you could start feeling nauseous. And you remember ‘ole nauseous me. I can turn green at the drop of a hat, especially if that hat is spinning around some.
My nice, lady salesperson, had noticed it when she drove the car down to fill the gas tank, when I bought it. She told her boss and he said they would put a new windshield in the car if it bothered me. Then she called me a few days later and asked about it. When I told her it was bothering me some, that my daughter had ridden on the passenger side and it was really bad, she made a appointment for me to bring it to Denison for a new windshield. I asked her how long it would take and she said about two hours. I assured her that I could read a book for two hours. I have no problem spending two hours in a book.
So, on Monday morning, I took off bright and early for Denison. Arriving at my appointment time of 10: AM, I learned that Christie was out of town on a family matter and her boss was all informed that I was coming. The thing they had forgotten to tell me was that after the windshield was installed, my Sable would have to set for four or five hours, in order for the glue to set up. That meant I would be there until four or five o’clock. After some discussion I decided to stay in town and wait, rather than making another 100 mile round trip to pick it up. That also meant that this being my day off, there were numerous jobs that I would not get done at home that needed doing. Nothing to do about it, but steam a little and put those jobs off – again – for another time.
Boss Man had already offered me a car to drive. I told him I’d take the car and do some shopping I had meant to do along the way.
For some strange reason, the day I got my car, I only got one rear floor mat. So, I was able to pick up its’ mate that day.
The next thing on my list that I had prepared , was a rattle under the car. I told Boss-Man that it sounded like a tail-pipe rattling. His face expression did not show it, but I could just hear him thinking to himself., "Yeah, tail-pipe indeed! It’s probably some lil’ ‘ole somin that is just jingling. Probably something in the glove-box."
You might say that I’m a mite sensitive to men discounting what a woman might know – just a mite! I could not imagine why a tail-pipe would be rattling on a new car. But rattle it did.
That Ford Boss Man put me in a Nissan, a little ‘ole dinky car that would not even have left a greasy spot if an 18-wheeler had run me over. He would have thought he hit a bug or a small bump in the road. So, that meant I had to be extra careful. I felt like a rabbit, trying to run with the big dogs. Never drove such a foreign animal as a Nissan before. But I have now. I wondered if I might have to put my foot out now and then and push like Fred Flintstone. But, that ‘lil ole’ feller was pretty peppy. I just stuck my nose up in the air and acted like I was driving a car, like everybody else.
That feller what designed that vehicle put buttons in all sort of places without telling what they were for, snickering as he did, I know, as people searched everywhere for the correct thing to push to get that rubber-band car to do what it was supposed to. I never did figure out how to get the windshield wipers to stop working completely. It had about quit raining too. And, there I went, ever so often those wipers swiped across that windshield and I just acted like I meant for them to.
That foreign animal had a floor shift, of course, just as I was getting used to not having one and not groping out there in the air for it all the time. But, it was the strangest one I ever saw. It was kinda’ like my riding lawnmower, in that you pulled that gear shift into a notch, just like my mower does. Reckon I was driving a glorified mower and I didn’t realize it??
That Ford feller pointed me to that loan car and I wondered again (sensitive Pansy) if he and his cronies were laughing as that woman figured out the floor shift and tried to adjust the seat. I finally did get that contraption in gear and took off. I had not figured out the seat yet. So, I just politely took off, stretching for the accelerator and sitting on the edge of the seat that was scooted back for a man’s long legs. I just politely looked for a place down the road to pull over. I sat there and figured out how to get the seat moved, how to get the mirrors right, looked at that lawnmower gear-shift and acquainted myself with it. Then I felt a little more comfortable getting back out in the traffic again.
So, here I am in this dinky little ‘ole car and I have run out of room. And, not just in the car either, but in the newspaper too. We shall have to leave me right here and let you hear "The rest of the story" next week. You should hope that I will not get close to an 18-wheeler while we are waiting.
Our book this week was written by Katherine Stone, who has written many others. This one is entitled "Another Man’s Son" and here’s the low-down on it.
"Sam was a wanderer for years. Now he’s finally settled down in small-town Oregon where he’s bought an apple orchard and is living a peaceful life --- until the day he hears the shocking news: Ian Collier, the man who abandoned him when he was four, has died.
Unsettled and uncomfortable, Sam returns to Ian’s house in Seattle – a place he hasn’t seen in thirty-two years – and to make matters much worse, he encounters Dr. Kathleen Cahill, the woman Ian had planned to marry. In no time at all, Sam has fallen in love with Kathleen. But when she tells him she’s pregnant, he has to wonder: Is it his baby – or Ian Collier’s?
In the shadow of Mount Rainier, Sam discovers the truth about his family. And in the arms of Kathleen Cahill, he finds the love he’s wanted all his life."