While cleaning up the kitchen this afternoon, Kathy came across a slip of paper from early in the summer which had a list of the things we needed to try and take care of around the house: Bathroom Door, Patio Door, Front Door, Garage Door Opener, Ceiling Fan Installation, Closet Light Replaced, Fix Hardwood Floors, Service Lawn Mower. When she offered to show it to me, I at first refused – thinking that it would be a dispiriting list of intentions unfulfilled. But wonder of wonders, we have taken care of all but one item on the list . . . which for the Bergs is an achievement of staggering proportions.
The latest phase in the Greg & Kathy Berg Home Improvement Project was completed last night, thanks to the help of one of my Carthage voice students, Andrew Spinelli. It was a case of propitious timing: Andrew really needed some extra money for school – and we had an electrical project that we couldn’t possibly do ourselves- not without either electrocuting ourselves, burning down the house, or both. But Andrew happens to be the son of an electrician and this was something he was capable of doing for us. . . so the stage was set.
Andrew was both the brains and the brawn of this project, and his dad was the expert consultant (Andrew phoned him at several points during the evening just to get certain questions answered) . . . and I of all people ended up being the right hand man. My assistance (fortunately) was limited to fetching the pliers from the toolbox (believe it or not, I know what pliers look like, and I even have a vague idea of what they’re used for) and at one point getting on a step ladder to help hold a fixture in place while Andrew wrestled with the screws. Perhaps the most essential function I played all night was in braving the mountains of stuff in our basement in order to reach the circuit breaker box and turn off the power to our bedroom. (If Andrew had gone down there, he would have either passed out from shock, tripped and broken his leg, or gotten lost on his way back and never been heard from again. This was definitely a job for me.) I also made a positive difference at one point when Andrew , while struggling with something, quietly muttered that he wished he had his dad’s magnetic screw driver. I can’t quite fathom why, but in the dusty recesses of my memory I had a vague recollection of us actually owning a magnetic screwdriver, and lo and behold I was right! And I was even able to dig it out of the toolbox (with some help from Kathy.)
Otherwise, I mostly stayed in the background, reading a Dean Kootz book that just came in the mail (I get to record an interview with him on Monday) but reminding Andrew every so often that I was there in case he needed anything. Wisely, he probably opted to limit my hands-on participation to the barest minimum necessary. (It was scary enough for me to be throwing that circuit breaker- I had visions of the whole upper midwest power grid going out just because of me.)
The main project of the night was for Andrew to install the ceiling fan which Kathy received a year and a half ago but which we had not gotten around to installing. (We are famous for such procrastination.) I can’t tell you what a delight it was when the thing was finally installed and Kathy threw the switch and the thing turned on – just like it was supposed to! (Had we tried to do it ourselves, we would have thrown that switch and heard our electric can opener whirring downstairs in the kitchen. Trust me on that.) It worked like a dream. . . and then in an even more welcome development, Andrew removed the piece of crap florescent light in our bedroom closet, which has not worked right from the moment we moved in. (The closet is directly below an unheated attic, and we’ve been told that it’s too cold for a florescent light to function well. So 99% of the time we are fumbling around in an un-lit closet, which would account for some of the strange outfits I’ve been seen wearing.) The florescent is gone and a normal light is in its place and now when we walk in there and flip the switch, the light comes on just like that. It’s amazing and wonderful – and we have Andrew to thank for it.
I’m thankful not only for Andrew and his expertise as well as the great care he took with this project (he took the ceiling fan instructions with him last weekend and looked them over so he would be fully prepared for the job) . . . but I’m also glad that this gives me a new appreciation for something which otherwise is so easy to take for granted. You walk into a room, you flip a switch, and a light comes on. But how? Why? For those of us who have done nothing more than change light bulbs, this should be an amazing mystery but instead becomes something to which we scarcely give it a thought. But now I find myself newly aware (or more accurately, I find myself aware for the first time) that there are wires behind these walls that connect with other wires in other walls… and that when you’ve got someone like Andrew or his dad on hand, you can make some great stuff happen.