A Fridge Too Far

The only fake wood grain I've ever been
able to tolerate.

(Note: Unless you knew me in my twenties, this silliness is probably not worth your time. Consider yourself warned.)

People who knew me during my college days and early twenties know Jimmy.  Jimmy was my college dorm refrigerator. But that is like saying Lucille is some guitar B.B. King owns.

In the places I lived, Jimmy was the 4th or 5th roommate. He always greeted us at the door, happy to offer some aptly chosen beverage he had kept cold all day just for us.

When UK won its 6th and 7th national titles, he was there celebrating alongside us.

When I severed a tendon in my hand and trudged in from the emergency room at 3:30 A.M., he was there.¹

Whenever it is that we finally move to Lexington (have I mentioned recently there is a lovely home for sale on Windridge Drive?), he'll be along for the ride.

So, this morning, I headed over to GRC to pick him up from the classroom. The custodial staff had everything moved out of the rooms for floor waxing, so student desks, bookshelves, plastic totes, and television carts crowded the dark hallways.

I found the cluster of items from my room. Teacher desk. Table. 30 student desks. Three mismatched plastic chairs for those days when every student attended in my sections with 32 or 33 on the roster. My laughably jerry-built projector cart ².  I kept looking, but after 20 minutes of rifling through every pile of furniture, it was clear.

No Jimmy.

I couldn't find him.

I was certain he'd been stolen.  I rapidly went through all the stages of grief. Why hadn't I picked him up earlier? Just a few days earlier I'd glanced back at him when I picked up some books and a DVD, sure he would be untouched since waxing wasn't supposed to begin until July.

Noticed this sitting beside me as
I started writing 

Then, my sorrow turned to fury. I would review the security tapes. I would find whoever abducted him. I would tape his image to milk cartons.  I would contact his kidnappers and make them tremble with fear.  I pledged empty assurances into the ether: "Jimmy be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you!"³

I walked all the way out to my car.  Then I realized Tee (the greatest custodian/running coach on the planet) would have needed to defrost Jimmy, probably in the bathroom.

That's where I found him.

To Wendell, Dave, Kevin, Bruce, Stu, and so many others, I assure you I shall be a better protector of our dear friend. For now, Jimmy basks in the sun of the driveway, drying out, waiting for another home, another electrical outlet, another day.


  ¹  In fairness, I should also note that Andrea was also there that night as the person who drove me home from the hospital, got my medicine for me, and ran every errand for me for days, but it was Jimmy who looked at me that night and somehow let me know that Hard Ticket to Hawaii was on television to make everything better.

²

This day, I needed the power strip on the cart to run the DVD
player and coax-RCA converter box I acquired because
the school's DVD player didn't work and the TV is coax only.

To all the people railing about how you give too much of your paycheck
on education: you must be mistaking yourself for a teacher.

What I Always Think When I Read Wendell Berry

Reading over Wendell Berry's Jeffersonian lecture, I have the same experience I've had time and again with his work.

He possesses a profound passion for and comprehensive philosophy about the earth--devoid of a trace of clichéd language or reasoning.

His economic views are, by contrast, littered with false dilemmas and a desire to broadly criticize capitalism in moral judgments that often simply don't apply.

In some ways, he appears cantankerous for the sake of being cantankerous.  He seems to think his stubbornness in the face of technological advancement requires no justification; it has merit simply because it stands as a counterbalance to others' thoughtless embrace of technology.

Above all else, my repeated experience with Wendell Berry's writing is the realization that it is simply astonishing. Astonishing.  Every word manifests his craftsmanship.  For my money, nobody breathing today who is writing essays in English composes more forceful, economical, and electric prose.

Surely, he is not simply writing beautiful sentences; he as, as Mark Bittman said in his recent interview, "an inspiration" to leaders and the person considering our relationship to the world in ways far more complex than are commonly discussed.

But, even if you are diametrically opposed to his argument, you cannot help but admit it is offered so fearlessly and so brilliantly that you must appreciate the mind that created something so remarkable.