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In addition to
dresser, we had taken Mom’s cherry wood buffet. My mother had stored her tablecloths and what she referred to as her “good dishes" in buffet. Randy and I were also bringing home chest-of-drawers that I’d had since I was a little girl. Although middle drawer looks like two separate drawers, it is actually one big drawer. When I was growing up, I had been fascinated by design and had used big drawer for storing my sweaters.
But now, after we had so carefully loaded furniture and strapped it into back of truck, it was raining, which meant everything was all going to end up ruined.
No, wait a minute. The furniture was not going to get wet. We had put a tarp over load.
“Well, at least we’ve got a tarp,” I said to my husband. By this time, it was raining so hard windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, even on high.
Randy shook his head. “The tarp won’t help much unless we tie it down better.”
A few minutes later, my husband pulled off at a gas station.
“But what are we going to tie it down WITH?” I asked, as truck swayed in a gust of wind that hit it broadside. We hadn’t counted on wind and rain or that we would need more rope.
Randy smiled. “These,” he said, bending down to pull laces out of his work boots. “If I cut them into pieces, I should have enough to go around.”
It was still raining when we arrived home several hours later, so Randy put truck in garage. The next day I could hardly believe my eyes when we discovered that furniture had suffered only a few wet spots here and there, but that nothing had gotten completely soaked.
“What would I do without you?” I said to my husband as I ran my hand over Mom and Dad's dresser. “I never would have thought of shoelaces. Not in a million years.”
Randy shrugged. “I couldn’t let your mom and dad’s furniture get ruined, could I? What kind of a person would I be if I let that happen?”
And just then it dawned on me that even though it had seemed like my worst Thanksgiving ever, I actually had quite a few things to be thankful for. And my husband was right at top of list.
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LeAnn R. Ralph is the editor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer (the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Regional Writers' Assoc.) and is the author of the book: Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm) ( August 2003). Share the view from Rural Route 2 and celebrate Christmas during a simpler time. Click here to read sample chapters and other Rural Route 2 stories — http://ruralroute2.com mailto:bigpines@ruralroute2.com
