In a pandemic, household problems tend to multiply
Editor’s note: Vern Lawson is on vacation. Please enjoy these “best of” Vernacular columns. This column originally appeared Oct. 8, 2020.
After I became a married man in 1950, I found plenty of household problems that could be used as column topics.
At the time, Val, a stepdaughter, Jeanne and I lived in a rental house of Beech Avenue.
This was in the days when more residents had a swamp cooler, which required new pads every spring.
Jeanne remembers listening to my vernacular of naughty words that echoed through the house every year.
When Margie and I were married in 1975, we chose a condo for our abode.
In fact, Margie, who had a real estate license, hired some men to repair a water leak in the ceiling before we sold the house to move to the condo.
Over the past 45 years, I often bragged to friends that the best sound in the world was the landscape artists running a power mower while I was still lying in bed.
But now we are living in a deadly era of a pandemic, wildfires and hurricanes and my aging condo is developing arthritis and every other ailment known to the housing industry.
In addition, newspapers were reporting on Tuesday that California is suffering from a million-acre gigafire.
A crackling number of 12,000 lightning strikes hit California in 96 hours. In the weeks that followed, 37 of those small fires morphed or merged into what has become the largest wildfire California has ever seen: The August complex.
The hottest news came from the historic record setter: Death Valley, with 130 degrees.
I am trying to live a sheltered, quarantine existence, wearing a mask every time I venture out to pick up my mail.
In the past, I learned that picking up the phone could bring a seasoned expert to repair my residential problems. I am totally dependent on Larry, my computer-television guy.
John Hall fixed my garbage disposal, which was on strike, refusing to do its singular job.
I have a front door with no outside knob, but I am reluctant to cry for help.
The heater-air conditioner is sometime failing in its dual duties.
When I called some months ago because the big garage door was making a loud, scratchy sound with every movement, the overall repair bill was $1,600.
I have light bulbs that refuse to light. They are out-ofreach for my aging bones.
The air is filled with trillions of ash floaters and a TV reporter said that California has the worst pollution in the world.
If the pandemic ever ends, I’ll call for help. But like everyone in the country, it and the fires and hurricanes have severely crippled my abilities, except that it is providing more and more column topics.