THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 13, 1994 TAG: 9411110260
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Great goodness, in my geezer-hood, am I finally improving?
I hear you saying, ``We doubt it!'' but I have some evidence on my side. I took an eight-day bus tour and came home with the same pair of sunglasses I left with.
Don't turn up your collective noses at this. For me, it is a semi-triumph. I have left a trail of lost sunglasses all across the southeastern United States. The early explorers marked their way with notches on trees. I have marked mine with orphaned green lenses. I have repeated the line ``My sunglasses. Where are my sunglasses?'' so often that I should have it on tape. ``My sunglasses. Where are my sunglasses? This is a recorded announcement.''
Ask me why I have mislaid so many pairs of sunglasses and I will give you a choice of two explanations. The first is that I am always thinking Deep Thoughts. My brain is operating in the mental stratosphere, far above the level at which it records where I last put my sunglasses. The second explanation is that I am absent-minded. Take your pick. I will not record the results of this poll. I have my pride.
To tell the truth (a rare commodity in this political season), I have been a mis-layer of personal gear all my adult life. However, sunglasses and car keys lead the list. If you would consider losing sunglasses a mental misdemeanor, losing car keys is a felony. You can drive home without sunglasses. No keys often means no drive.
Yes, I know some people can hot-wire a car and start it without the key. I am not one of them. If I tried it, I would doubtless short-circuit the car, me and every Virginia Power line for five square blocks.
Even more frustrating than losing keys is leaving them locked in the car. Sheer misery. You can see them, but you can't get at them. I know the feeling well. It has happened to me several times.
Like once when I was to talk about the Chesapeake Humane Society - I am a board member - on a program at WAVY-TV in Portsmouth. I was a tad late, so I rushed in, leaving the car locked with the keys inside. When I discovered the problem, a WAVY receptionist smoothly rescued me. She had a coat hanger already bent to the right shape to hook the knob they used to have on door locks. ``We keep the hanger handy,'' she told me. ``People are nervous about being on TV, and they lock their keys in the car a lot.''
Then there was the time a Ledger-Star newspaper staff car almost got pushed into Hampton Roads. Some other reporters and I had gone to a newspaper seminar and were returning to Norfolk. This was in the days when you had to take a ferry from Newport News to Norfolk. There we were at the head of the line for the ferry, blocking all the other cars. Here came the ferry. There were the staff car keys, locked inside the staff car.
Talk about desperation. How would you like to have your paycheck docked for the staff car that couldn't swim? But someone had a coat hanger. Carefully . . pulled up, just as the crowd around us was reaching the ``Car overboard!'' stage, we got the door opened. The crowd applauded, and one man even said to me, ``This speaks well for the ingenuity of our local newspapermen.''
I assume he meant the way we got the door open, not the way we locked the keys inside.
And while the key in this next tale wasn't lost, it was unavailable, which almost got me turned into a human Swiss cheese. In 1959, we were moving into a house in Norfolk. A neighbor was supposed to have the keys, but somebody's signals got crossed. No keys. I had to get in the house, so I climbed in through an open window.
When I came out the front door, there were five cops standing there with their revolvers pointed at me. Aaaaaaah! Another neighbor had seen me crawl in the window, figured me for a burglar and called the law. I have never explained anything as fast and as furiously in my life.
But the most memorable key story in our family involves the 1975 Mustang my wife used to drive. My son was living with us at the time, and he and I occasionally drove the Mustang ourselves. Which led to confrontations like, ``The keys to your Mustang? Mom, Honey (check one) didn't I put them back in your purse?''
Frequently, we did not, which left my wife scrambling for a spare key or borrowing my car or leading a search party in angry haste. Finally, she got fed up. She went to Robert Cooke's hardware store and bewildered him by handing over a fistful of cash and telling him to make as many copies as it would buy.
There were 17. She took them home and told me and my son that 17 keys ought to be enough to have one available when it was needed despite our chronic dopiness.
She was right. When we sold the car three years later, there was still one key left. My son and I were proud of that. My wife was unimpressed. She harped on the 16 we had managed to mislay. Some people are never satisfied. by CNB