I shared with you our termite travails yesterday. I was a little sloppy in my descriptions, I guess, because several readers thought it was Lila’s Brother who had gone termite surfing under our house. The confusion arose, because the termite exterminator’s first name, John, was the same as B-‘n’-Law John Perry’s. Some of you said you thought you knew John, but couldn’t identify him by his feet (which weren’t his anyway).
Several other readers asked if John was in this class or that class. For the record, he was in the Central High School Class of 1970. I posted a link to a photo of John when he was down here to repair our kitchen and discovered a family of possums. living under the sink. Again, my caption must have been sloppy, because there was some confusion then, too.
Possum in the foreground
For the record, John Perry is in the background. The possom, which was released unharmed, is in the foreground.
Still no Barry Goldwater
I thought I was going to have plenty of time to wrap up the Barry Goldwater visit to Cairo photos, but things kept getting in the way.
The termite guys came bright and early to do a second treatment. Then, John started putting the wall back together.
The first step was to cut a heavy piece of treated plywood to go over and around stuff that had to stick through it.
Is it good for flamingos to wear socks?
It sounded like there were water lines, power lines, lines of credit, fog lines, pencil lines, eye liners and all kinds of stuff to make holes for
Wife Lila came in and asked, “Did you hear what he just said? He said it fits like socks on a flamingo.”
Well, I’ve spent about half my life around construction and about half my life in Florida, so I know a little bit about building things and a little about flamingos. I didn’t, however, know if a sock-clad flamingo was a good or bad thing.
From the photo, it appears to be a good thing.
John Perry in 1969
Wife Lila suggested, correctly, as always, that folks who went so school with him might recognize him as he was in those days. Here’s his junior class photo from the 1969 Girardot yearbook.
Go shut off the water!!!
Back to the present day:
After spending the afternoon visiting two hardware stores and an electrical supply dealer, John set to making more magic and I started editing Barry.
Suddenly I heard John shout, “Go shut off the water!!!” I gathered that the flamingo was in the process of getting his socks wet.
John was cutting off a piece of PVC drain pipe when the saw nicked a copper supply line. On my way to get the cut-off tool, I saw my B-‘n’-Law doing a good imitation of a small boy sticking his finger in the dike. It turned out that most of the water on the floor came from tears, because John managed to overturn his beer in the ensuing confusion. (A Facebook friend said that was a true case of alcohol abuse.)
John tried to minimize the beer spill by saying he did it on purpose. “My hammer looked thirsty,” he said. “So I poured a little on the floor to give it a drink.”
Look for the Barry Goldwater photos on Monday.