It’s the final Final exam for Engineering, oddly enough taken in my high school.  Everyone taking the test is in the Brockway cafeteria; I have chosen a small table and chair just outside the cafeteria in the hallway.  At first, all is well.  I’ve the test booklet and the answer sheet on which to record the number of the correct (we hope) number to each of the 600 or more questions.  It is morning and I think I have until noon to complete this test.  Suddenly, about Question 115, I run into a query that isn’t a question at all, merely a pair of statements.  I dash to the Test Monitor Table where one of the proctors does indeed agree and deletes this question.  I’ve got the shank of the test yet to complete, yet there are students who are leaving, apparently done.  Already?  I get back to my table in the hall and it has somehow been jacked up to chin height.  I get help lowering so that I may sit, but I’ve forgotten my answer sheet back at the Proctor’s Table.  The Proctor wants to offer me some ‘advice’ but I don’t want any cheats.  After retrieving it and returning to my table, now strewn with litter, I ferret out the test book and continue, but this test book doesn’t seem to be the one I started the exam with, I try to cross-correlate earlier answers with questions in this book but cannot.  Here is Rex Boucher tearfully pleading with me to tell him the location of The Tunnel – I know the location but I don’t want to tell him and haven’t the time to explain it anyway.  Attempting to jump forward into questions toward the end of the test, I cannot locate them in what now seems to be an auto parts catalog.

Why am I being punished by my own brain?

Door on the right is square, case on the left – no goodski

Other punishments unfold as I push the limit on my knee, ski-jorning down the lava tube to The Shop.

As it turned out, the case-to-base glue up of the Spectacles Display Case was not plumb.  The door just fabricated is plumb.  Plumb + Not Plumb = No goodski.

I can think of two means, and by no means are there only two, techniques by which the case-to-base can be urged to plumb and true:

1. Gently and carefully saw the four joints at the top connecting the two case sides, re-create the dowel joints and then re-glue – This would be the approach chosen only by maniacs or model-builders.

2. Deploy the right-angle jigs and clamps (which should have been the modus operandi originally) to force the case the 2 or 3 degrees back into true and then nail/glue on the case back which will maintain the plumb.  In theory.

But before I thought of these, I embarked on a departure from the original concept, which was to have a hinged door on the thing.

Plan B – aluminum angle surrounding the front corners to form tracks for a sliding glass door.

Why not, I posited, lash onto both case sides ½” aluminum angle around to the front to form two tracks into which will slide vertically a pane of glass?  I can …. ahem, finesse the top of the glass pane and whatever finger hold might be attached to it to near-perfectly follow the slightly out-of-true edge of the case as it is.  Got as far down this approach as to cut the pair of aluminum angles and drill for nail holes before the knee wanted me to sit down.

DOCTORDAY –

I’ve an 0830 at the Drive-Thru Doctor on Duty, so naturally I am there at 0820.

I am the Red Flag

My 0830 appointment was, in the fullness of time and crush of patients, none of whom were actually spurting arterial blood, an eventual 0921 assignation, although I was escorted by the comely Nicole into in prestigious examination room #1 with a strong view of Pelican Pizza across the byway.

Just after I could glom that the exam room cabinet offers nothing useful to JohnsonKiefs, Doctor Prysi sweeps into the chamber and appraises my situation.  Happily not relying upon a trephine, and for the most relying on my anecdotes, and doesn’t offer any prognosis.  But the good news is that his firm has received the green light from the State and so now I may enjoy a consolation with the orthopaedic barber surgeon AND qualify for a limited time only bonus of two weeks physical therapy.  Therapy just across Lighthouse Avenue.

I case the joint.  In term of gear, it’s a cross between the gym you’d see at a Senior Citizen’s home and an up-market hotel.  Stacy, the owner was friendly and didn’t immediately discount my idea of working fly fishing casting into the workout, if workout there ever will be.

Now that the case has been, shall we say …. urged back into square, I’ll nail on the back.

Today’s knee workout was trundle down the coal chute to The Shop and try to right the wrongness of the Spectacles Case; specifically, lam on four right-angle assembly squares.  These seemed to true up the case, in so far as I could tell with all the clamps in the middle of the road; and so I glued and nailed on the ply ‘strongback’ with the intent that it will keep the case in true.

We shall see what we shall see.

And see we did of the golden hour into the bay plods the Pacific Responder.  Responding not to an oil spill, one hopes, but the need for a Monterey Port Call.

MIERCOLES –

I’d like to relate all the good news, but there is precious little of it.

It turns out that my ex post glue-o job on the Spectacles Case did almost return it to plumb.  Close enough that I can now mortise for the door and jim-jam shim-sham the hinges to bring the door into almost a true fit on the case.

There are 27 ways to do it wrong, and only 1 way to do it right – odds were against me….

Or almost would had I chiseled out the mortisii on the case at the same place as I did on the door.

Cripes.

Dodo-man at first thinks that all is lost, given as he has been lately to worst-case scenarios.  But it does occur to him that all that is required for a come-back is to make another door and mortise it to the spacing now irredeemably cut into the case.

Wrong mortise location? What wrong mortise location?

But I already have Plan Beta in my pocket: the aluminum angle which it turns out nicely covers over the mortisii in the case front.  So Plan Beat Me it is.

And the beat goes on and toward me as just as I had wished shows The Prof for Happy Hours on the seaview promenade.  Granted I am what could become the emblem for the Last Saturday conclave.  It’s a part of some surplus German naval flag haul of which there are many.  Except for the white chevron, it’s the Brockway Rover colors and in the form of the Greek letter delta, which in math terms means ‘change.’

CHANGEDAY –

Midnight Test Fear Dreams, second one this week – Johnson! Translate these word problems into algebraic expressions!  A task I was happy to undertake until I took in the test problems, which were written in Cow.

As I have a long-awaited re-unition with Dr. Suh (pronounced Saw) who cannot be seen under my low-budget (gratis) Medi-Cal medical program at her Monterey Office, I must voyage to Salinas.  And so the Midnight Study Hall Awake Hours were repleat with the competing desire to reach slumber and its antipode, What If I Am Late?

I’m not Late.  I take the northern course to the Natividad Medical Center via the very bottom of the Salinas River Valley this wet chill autumnal morning cloaked in as dense a fog as ever a landsman sees.  I estimated 40 minutes to make the 25 miles.  It was more like 45, but stuck behind a produce truck in the miasma on Nashua Road.

The Natividad Medical Center beams under the morning sun slashing across the valley fog like a temple on the hill, or a white bastion inviting assault.  I find Building 151 (not cited on the map of the campus) and insert myself into The Process …. Whatever that process might be.

Julia takes both my Medi-Cal card And my driver’s license while expertly playing her computer keyboard and I am left to wonder just what else I am giving over.  Am instructed to take a seat.

My 0830 appointment (made two months ago) does not occur at 0830.  At 0845 I ardently wish to ask if I should return at a time more convivial, but sit on the Bad Johnson.

Moments later Diana, the kindly (and impossibly young) Nurse’s Aid ushers me into the depths of what, if arrayed differently could be a state university set of squash courts, and into one of those courts, Exam Room 7.

Naturally, I case all the draws and cabinets for useful tools.  None found.

My interview with Dr. Suh is abrupt and, from my perspective, inconclusive.  I want a continuation of the immuno-suppressant which I’ve been taking since March which has minimized my finger joint swelling.  Instead, I am instructed to have a blood draw the results of which will guide subsequent treatments.

I’m not in charge.

Back the route I came with a stop at The Dump – 80 file cabinets available – Grocery Cheaplet to provision for tomorrow’s Last Saturday, thence peninsularward.

PM – Curtis shows just as I am forming the glass front sheet lift handle for the Spectacles Case.  He’s got a great job engineering change at D&B and he’s getting it good and hard.  In escrow on a Greenwich Village apartment.  Living the life.

Moments after he, Kathleen and the three cats (vetted by the local vet for transmission to NYC) arrive, The Prof for pre-evening, pre-weekend philosophical examinations.

Testing the Spectacles Case, and liver.

A test I am conversant to take.

WEEKENDAY –

The morning showed the promise of Poseidon’s favor, water from the sky and in the morning there was something of a strangeness in the air.  Moisture.  Heavy, colloidal particles, wind driven.  Is this ….. rain?  It’s been so long that I do not know if I’d recognize it.

The afternoon, prior to this month’s Last Saturday was given over to end game on the Spectacles Case, as the following day.

SOMEDAY –

Yes, someday I might enjoy a consultation with the until-now only legendary Doctor Kantor, ace knee diagnomatosist to The Stars, or at least to me, should the Worker’s Compensation Gods look down upon me with favor.  And it only took four weeks, three phone calls and double faxing from the Drive Through Doctor’s to arrange for Thursday’s 1045 appointment.  Poseidon Be Praised.

This is but one of three railroad boxcar sized shacks which house The Purdy Collection.

But today’s main event was the visit to Robinson Canyon and Purdy’s Tool Museum.

My objective: glom all the tools and learn their age, use, and maker.  No small task when Purdy must have thousands available to the eye.  I start small, literally, with the first display just to the left of the door.

On top of the small case containing a jeweler’s lathe and other arcane watchmaker’s tools, itself perched atop an industrial-strength shaper, are an arrangement (mostly) of luthier’s planes, like Lilliputian tools, they Are Lilliputian tools.

We thirst and so retire to the back suite for a Modelo and talk about the bargains and tools he’s missed.  The old saw goes, “You never regret what you buy, you only regret what you didn’t.”

I am blessed.

SURGEONDAY –

Dr. Kantor examines the knee and the X-rays and offers some opinions, none of which were unexpected, and the good news is that he didn’t narc me out a immediately wheel me into the OR for a knee replacement.

The treatment regime is the expected: take anti-inflammatories, maybe get a cortisone shot, enjoy some physical therapy and we’ll re-assess in three weeks time.

No improvement, maybe do an arthroscopy, have a look inside.

Those results will indicate the subsequent course.

I know I’ll have to have the knee replaced.  One day.  And one day it will be That Day.  But is That Day this month?

RIDEINTHERAINDAY –

Poseidon Be Praised – Water From The Sky!

For reasons I have not yet ascertained, I was invited, by The Prof, this month’s running of the Cavalry.  It’s been a year and a half since I was asked to attend.  But IS this The Cavalry?  Or is this a fringe sect now known as The Friends Of Rickett’s?

In any case, any chance to be in The Lab is a chance worth taking and I take the risk of walking the half mile amid the glorious sweeping rain.  Will the knee protest?

It does not.

The group is small, 18.  Here’s Joe, Carmel artist and Buckeye (less about that later).  Here’s Howard, WWII B-25 bomber pilot.   Here’s Bill, artist and jazz pianist and his accompaniment Richard on the mouth organ, renowned defense attorney.  Ed, a local chiropractor and Nam combat Marine, just to name a few worthies.

I help The Prof lay out the buffet and await such instructions as will come my way from Impresario Berkey.

Mr. Berkey has, or will, inaugurate the first (of many to follow, one hopes) ever symposium on Ed Ricketts, to be held at the Hopkins Marine Station tomorrow.  It’s a loose run affair, too loose.  We will kindly refer to it as a beta test.  And it was only due to the diligence of my fellow docent Robbie that I knew anything at all about hosting tours at The Lab.  It had been a month since Berkey broached the idea with me, and I had had no follow up.

And so, blindly, I am to do two short shows starting at noon.  Can do.

Can also walk home enjoying the drenching squalls.

Praise Poseidon!  Up the drive comes The Professor for the day’s debrief.  I put to him the first of the two Hard Questions.

The Answer: Yes.

You’ll need a chart on this if there is any need on your part.  On my part, the concise lineage is this:  The Original PBL Club, its members extending from the founding of the set in the 1950’s, extended into the ur-time of my acquaintance four years ago.  Overlapping this prior to my exposure was a parallel group founded by PBL members but younger.  This offshoot was The Cavalry which by virtue of the legacy members still enjoyed full use of The Lab at any time, and without restrictions.  Within the past three years, the legacy members ceased their involvement and so The Cavalry had to re-invent itself to meet requirements by The City to conform to the standards for any and all entities which wanted to use, nay interpret The Lab.  This third phoenix was the recently generated  Friends of Ed.  And it was in this context of the FOE I found myself welcomed this day.

SYMPOSIADAY –

Constant, intermittent rain all most of the night.  Take that sentence and diagram it.  Still raining of the morning when I set out on foot properly garbed for Cannery Row and The Lab.  I’m early for my tours because I want to pop in on the Ricketts Symposia presentations, check out the attendance, scan for hot chicks, ask for work.

Attendance: less than the 100 thought by the Impresario as the target, but maybe as The Prof pointed out, maybe less is better for this first of what we hope will be many Beta Test.

Hitch a ride with the City Historian, Dennis Copeland, to The Row and The Lab.  My first ever ride in one of those clown-car Scions, this one un-pimped but junk full of his favorite wife’s projects.

Herb – the Steinbeck expert – and his favorite wife Robbie – the Ricketts expert – are there bearing lunch.

We’ve some time before the two tours, and there will be only two, not the four originally planned, and so I’ll lead off and Robbie will bat cleanup, during which time I pose some questions toward Copeland, who is about to field the Plan For The Plan, being built by a contracting entity, on how should and could The Lab be modified, changed, restored or let alone.

Interestingly, Copeland promises to include we three in the review of the Plan For The Plan draft (and interestingly, I get the draft in the email this evening…)

My show is an abbreviated portion of the usual tour talking only to PBL the physical entity as most of the guests know more about Ricketts in one of their fingernails than I will ever know, and I’m preaching gospel to the angels.

After my show, an older gent asks “does the player piano work?”  What would you do?  At just short of the speed of light I whip out a piano roll and hand it over.  He knows what he is doing, shows me how to bust out the pump pedals, feed in the roll and adjust the play speed, and most importantly, throw the drive mechanism into Reverse to re-wind the roll.

A Break Through Moment.

Robbie’s tour dives down deep and surfaces and flies to the sky but as always her profound knowledge and affection for Ricketts shines through.

I pound home on the bad knee and through the foul weather – clear skies and warm temps – and I’m not rested enough when The Prof collects me and we enter the Hopkins Campus where the FOE (and me) is providing ….. ahem bar and music logistical services.  Me mostly setting out food and drink and eating and drinking and starting the fire pit.  I’m almost sorry when the symposia guests wander in as they will undoubtedly drink all the beer.  But not before I get my share.

I ask everyone with whom I talk for work.  They’re not hiring.