TIME MARCHES ON... changes (Part 122h)

TIME MARCHES ON... changes (Part 122h)

As energized about creating the panties as I was there were other things that had to be addressed before taking the time to start on that project. One that was almost upon me was Elle’s birthday. I’d already given her the present that I'd bought for her birthday as an anniversary present and now didn’t have any idea of what to get her. For a change I wasn’t constricted by the lack of money. After depositing the loan money in the bank and paying off outstanding bills I actually did have some ”mad money’. It wasn’t much but at least I wasn’t in the position of having to put something off that needed to be done. The question was... what did Elle want. I checked our want/need list and there wasn’t anything of a personal nature on it for Elle.

The answer came to me in an unexpected way. When my father cleaned out my grandfathers house I picked up an old high wooden stool to be used at the counter that acted as a partition between the kitchen and the dining area. The problem in using it was that there wasn’t any place to put your knees so you actually had to sit sideways to the counter. So it sat, unused, in a corner. One of the guys at the party had asked why, when tending bar, I hadn’t used the stool. I showed him and he asked why I didn’t cut the area out under the counter. Elle was actually the one who had wanted the stool so she could sit while working on some of her projects but had found it difficult to sit sideways on it. Eating breakfast I stared at the space and wondered if what had been suggested was doable so I opened the cabinet on the other side and saw that Elle was only using the front area and there appeared to be plenty of room.

A second cousin was the foreman at the local lumber yard. On the way to work I stopped and asked if he could give me the name of a local handyman. I explained the project and he smiled and said he had the man for the job... his neighbor. He told me he’d have him call me that night. When I answered the phone all I heard was “Jonesey here!” Elle was right around the corner in the kitchen so I had to whisper. I needed him to look at what I wanted to do but didn’t want Elle to know until I knew if it could be done and how much it would cost. Elle had been called in to teach for the next day and usually left by 7:30am. I explained that to him and asked if he could stop by. He was more than willing and the next morning I got my introduction to “Jonesey“ at 8am, sharp.

Every town has a ”character“ or two and he, for sure, qualified as one. A cabinetmaker by trade, he also did handyman type work and this was right up his alley. $20 for the labor and he’d put the wood necessary to finish the job on my tab at the lumber yard. What blew me away was that he’d do it that day. Elle’s mother arrived to pick up daughter Kaye and I pleaded with her to stay at the house so Jonesey could do the work. Once I told her it was a present for Elle she agreed. As I left for work all I could do was hope that Elle would like it.

I couldn’t wait to get home and to see Elle’s reaction but I did stop to pick up the mail. There was a post card (remember them?) from my boarding school friend, Fred. It didn’t say much other than he and Liz had made the move to Connecticut and gave his new address and telephone number. I decided to give him a call after supper to see how things were going with his new business. Walking in the kitchen door I couldn't readily see what the new knee hole space looked like but when Elle saw me I immediately knew that she liked it. I was attacked with a big hug and kiss. I also knew that if the kids weren’t there I would’ve gotten even more.

Fred’s favorite word when under stress was “dissipated” going all the way back to boarding school. What he meant was that he was at his wits end and I’d known that for as long as I'd known him. I told him I didn’t want to bother him but it was clear that he wanted to talk. When we’d last seen he and his wife had taken us to a new indoor tennis facility that was being run by his sister-in-law. He told me the official grand opening was coming up that weekend and there was to be a tennis exhibition by two up and coming women players. He said that he and his wife were coming and asked if we wanted to go. It was a perfect additional present for Elle especially with Elle’s love of tennis.

The weekend of the party was also the weekend that Laura made the move from her aunt’s house to Peggy’s parents house. Even though I wasn’t involved in the physical move I was involved in putting it together and had a vested interest in how things went and would go in the future. I’d spoken to her upon her arrival at work that Monday and she was apprehensive about what it would be like actually living with, for all intents and purposes, strangers. I encouraged her the best I could advising her that she could always call Trish, her cousin . Before leaving that night I did confirm that last part with Trish though.

The fact that I haven’t mentioned much, if anything, about Celia in recent posts doesn’t mean that I wasn’t involved in her trials and tribulations. The last mention was about her concern over the low valuation she’d gotten from the real estate agent. The in house bank appraiser also lived in the same town as we did. But, it was more of a technical nature (post office) than physical. His house was far closer to the next village to the East so, other than for mail, he rarely came into town. Right after Celia had come to me concerning the valuation I ran into Robert at the post office and asked if he could/would do me a favor. I explained the situation and asked if he could do a casual “sidewalk” appraisal as I really wanted to help my neighbor. He was a very private person and hard to read. When we parted I wasn’t sure if he was going to do it or not. I’d not been consciously avoiding Celia and Elle had said that she had seen her a few times but hadn’t spoken to her so we didn’t know if anything had changed.

That all changed that week. I’m not sure which morning it was but on my chair when I arrived at my desk was a sealed manilla envelope. My name, hand written, was across the front. I unclasped it and pulled out what turned out to be much more than a casual appraisal. There was a total of eight pages, all typed, along with pictures. I quickly flipped through it looking for a dollar amount. What Robert had done was to look at the property as if the bank was going to make a mortgage on it. When I got to the page with numbers it confirmed what Vic, the real estate agent, had come up with. In it’s present condition the most money the bank would loan was $8,000. That meant the maximum value was $10,000, pretty much what Celia’d been told. I held the papers in my hand and felt really bad for her. I wasn’t looking forward to giving her the bad news.

To be continued...