The New York Times has a reporter named Jennifer 8 Lee. I was intrigued by that name and asked Ms. Lee how it came about. Ms. Lee was very gracious and explained to me that she was of Chinese ancestry and her forbearers considered 8 to be a very lucky number. That seemed to be a very cogent reason for the Lee family to name their daughter after the numeral 8. In my own case, while it is young, the vital signs for the year 2008 look fairly favorable. Consider some of the following.
At the end of the year, our telephone was returning busy signals to anyone who called. When we reported the problem to the Verizon Corporation, they promised to send a repair man at a specific time to fix the trouble. The repair man showed up just as he was scheduled to and worked on our phone. When he was finished, he said that he was going to write a work order to have a new cable installed. I assumed that in this big corporation the work order would get lost and that we would never hear of the work being done. That was not the way it worked. The following day, a workman showed up to install a new cable. When he departed, he said that he was going to send a splicer to make some adjustments in the cable. Again, I assumed that the splicer might never show up. But on the following day, the splicer showed up and went to work on the cable. On top of all of that, our cable box is located about 8 or 10 blocks from this house. When the Verizon repairmen went to the cable box, they called us to tell us that they were not leaving but that they were simply going up to the cable box. All things being equal, I have never had more considerate treatment for our telephone travails.
Then over the holidays there was a problem with our stationary bike in our gymnasium in the basement. The bicycle when pumped made threatening noises that reverberated through the aluminum frame, which was most distracting. We called Gymsource to speak to Steve Spiegel, who is really a salesman, but who does repair work in the evenings and on weekends. I had assumed that it would be some time before we could get the bicycle repaired. But that is not the way it worked. I spoke to Steve around 1 PM and he said, “I will be there this evening.” Steve showed up on time and the work was done. That is another sign that things seem to be going spectacularly well.
Then there was a case over the weekend where we wanted to get my essays out to Howard Davis in New York City, who was having difficulty in trying to kill the long weekend. Howard is an avid reader who also critiques my prose. On Monday, December 31, Judy took the essays first to the Short Hills Post Office, which was closed, and to the Summit Post Office, which was closed also but had a machine in the lobby. I am not familiar with the mysterious ways of post office machines but the package was mailed with the hope that it would be delivered at least by Wednesday, January 2. In point of fact, however, the package was delivered to the Davis apartment in the Yorkville section of New York City the following morning on New Year’s Day at 10:30 AM. Again, the vital signs for 2008 continue to look pretty good.
You may recall that there are two young boys, aged 9 and 7, who have adopted me as their “Grandpa in America”. These boys are the children of a woman, Jenny, who helps Judy with housework here and who also does some office work. These are the same kids who have given me the medals they won because of their proficiency in soccer. Esteban is the nine-year-old who has started to learn to play the violin. We knew that Esteban planned to come with his mother over the holidays to give us a concert.
We had sometime earlier placed an order with a computer outfit that had promised to deliver computers to disadvantaged kids around the world. The offer was that if we contributed $400, they would deliver a computer to a disadvantaged child somewhere in the world and would also send us one. I thought that if the computer was delivered here some time before St. Patrick’s Day, we would be lucky. But as it turned out, the computer was delivered here on the Saturday before Christmas, 2007. Thus, we were able to present Esteban and his brother Fabian with the computer as a Christmas present.
Over that weekend, the two boys showed up with their parents and their new little sister, Melissa. Esteban had brought his violin. He played for us two selections which were followed by thunderous applause from his parents and ourselves. The applause was so great that he decided to play an encore. It was “Jingle Bells”, which he also sang. Again, there was thunderous applause. This was followed by Judy’s serving ice cream to all of us, together with special Costa Rican cookies that Jenny had brought as a gift.
On his way out the door, Ronald, the father of the two boys, hugged me and then hugged Judy and said in his newly-acquired English language skills, “Thank you for being so good to my family.” Under those circumstances, it was very hard to hold back the tears. Ronald meant every word that he had uttered in the English language.
Finally there were two other developments. For several days we had been plagued by ice on our driveway, particularly where the driveway is shaded by the house on the north side. Over that weekend, miraculously the ice and snow started to go away. I regarded this as a glorious sign for the incoming year.
During the end of July, 2007, it was my fortune to spend a week in the Overlook Hospital where I received a blood transfusion. The transfusion came with a notice that it is possible, but not probably, that the transfused blood may have contained the HIV virus. A week ago, a blood test revealed that no such virus exists and that the state of my health, if it is judged by extension blood tests, seems to be splendid.
While we were absorbing this noteworthy news, came a check for $400 from the great state of New Jersey because of a new furnace that we had installed earlier last year. The furnace runs on green vegetables and sautéed turnips rather than on natural gas. The check was another good sign of the new year.
And in the final analysis, there was an occasion the day after New Year’s when I found myself at the end of the driveway wrestling with two garbage cans that I intended to bring back to the garage. The weather was windy and one of the garbage cans fell on its side. Retrieving the garbage can and corralling it with its mate without dropping my cane was about all I could handle. And it was cold, cold, cold. In the midst of this wrestling match, the garbage men in their big truck turned the corner and headed up the street in front of our house. Normally the garbage men collect garbage on the west side of the street, and then go up to the corner and turn around and collect the garbage on the east side of the street where we live. But this was not the case. The garbage driver stopped the truck on his way up the street and the next thing I knew a garbage man interrupted my work to tell me that he would take care of things. There was no argument about it. The garbage man said that he was going to take care of things and he set out to do exactly that.
He and I walked to the back of the house, a distance of about 90 feet, and he carefully placed the garbage containers in the garage. During our walk, we had had a discussion and finally I asked him, “What is your name?” I then told him that my name is Ed Carr and we shook hands. He told me that his name was Louie and he called me “Eddie”, which is what one of my older brothers used to call me. Louie and I expressed to each other best wishes for the year to come and patted each other on the back. There is no better way to start a new year than by making a new friend. I consider good old Louie to be a decent man who is my new good friend.
After my encounter with Louie, I began to wonder about where the fellows who empty the garbage cans eat lunch. When I could still see, I recall that they had a conclave of garbage trucks that parked on the playground lot that adjoins Parsonage Hill Road. Emptying garbage cans is not conducive to a great appetite but I suspect that as time goes on, one concentrates on eating lunch and forgets about the smell in the great compartment just behind the front seat of the truck. So you see, Louie and I are great friends but so far we have not invited each other to lunch, but he would be welcome here at any time.
I am perfectly aware that there are nearly 12 months left before 2008 expires and many shoes could drop before ’08 disappears. I am aware of illnesses, hospitalizations, deaths, etc. But so far, if you subscribe to my philosophy of taking it one day at a time, the vital signs for 2008 are promising. Now if we can put together the same promising signs for the next 360 days, I would say that 2008 may be a banner year. And before it is all over, I may have my middle name changed from Edgar to the numeral 8. As Jennifer Lee can testify, 8 is a propitious number.
E. E. CARR
January 6, 2008
Essay 282
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Kevin’s commentary: Well if nothing else, the end of 2007 sure as hell was good. The bit about the turnip furnace threw me for a loop. I am pretty sure he was kidding but I honestly don’t know. Hopefully he’ll see this and can give me a heads up.
Regarding weird Chinese names and the letter 8, here’s a related fact — you have to pay more for phone numbers with the digit 8 in them in China. Conversely, phone numbers featuring the digit 4 are cheaper because the word “four” and the word “death” are phonetically very similar, which is of course unlucky. “Four” actually sounds way more like “death” than “eight” sounds like “fortune” (“si” and “si” vs “ba” and “fa”) and that negative association is taken highly seriously.
Also, the post office machines and infrastructure working not only as intended, but outperforming expectations is a minor miracle.
I’m also thinking now about how I want to tackle 2008 from a blogging perspective. Going in order seems all well and good but the year that I did randomly and the year that I did in reverse were also fun. I’m pretty sure I also did a year in alphabetical order. I’m running out of different ways to sort a year full of essays, so if someone comes up with a novel one they should let me know!
Also, as a final note, Esteban and his whole family seem like excellent people. I wonder if any of them know about this site? Maybe one of them would be willing to write something here someday.