THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604170061
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
TAKE AWAY Bill Gable's refrigerator and it'd be like stealing his wallet.
``Everything I need is right here,'' Gable says, scanning the front of his fridge. ``When I put it there, I know where it's at.''
Dental insurance card? Held tight in a clip magnet stuck to the door.
Library card? Check it out, handy even when he's just reaching in for a cool one.
Zero's sub coupon? Got it. Over there, under another magnetic clip.
In fact, Gable's system works so well for him that he doesn't carry a billfold. He puts a few bucks in his pocket and keeps the rest of his paperwork stuck to the fridge.
Unusual, perhaps. But this shipyard welding supervisor has turned the hodgepodge of stuff a lot of people have on the outside of their icebox into a filing system that works.
That's unless you check with his wife, Mary, an independent computer consultant.
``Oh, yeah,'' she says, rolling her eyes. ``He keeps everything there. Including expired gift certificates he forgot to use. One for a golf lesson was on the fridge for three years.''
Well, sooner or later every system encounters a little glitch.
Truth is, a lot of people use their refrigerators for more than cooling stuff off. At the Gables' in Virginia Beach, the fridge doors are covered with kiddie art, notes, receipts, important papers, schedules, calendars and a changing kaleidoscope of snapshots of family and friends. A look at the door is like peeking into a family scrapbook.
``Down here are pictures of friends' kids we got at Christmas,'' says Mary, pointing to snapshots tacked to the surface with magnetic frames Bill Gable buys from guys at work who peddle their kids' fund-raisers on the job. A small Olan Mills proof of Mary's best friend, who died of cancer two years ago, is pressed behind a clear plastic holder.
She touches it, then her hand strays up to straighten a tiny, yellowing image of an infant's face in a heart-shaped frame. ``And this is Allie when she was just a couple of days old. We were still in the hospital.''
Alexandra, the Gables' daughter, is way past 4 years old today.
``Oh, I just could never take it down,'' says her mother.
Nearby, above the bookmobile schedule, is a newspaper clipping about the best time to watch the skies for Comet Hyakutake.
Below it is a birth announcement from a college friend who just had a baby, a tiny copy of the Serenity Prayer printed onto a decorative magnet and another prayer snipped from this past Thanksgiving's church bulletin.
Big magnetic clips, big enough to close a bag of potato chips, hold overflow - a planting schedule for a vegetable garden, movie theater gift certificates and packets of wildflower seeds.
``And here,'' Mary says wryly, ``is the name, address and insurance company of the lady who hit me in the rear a month ago.''
Underneath swings a handmade banner sporting a cotton ball sheep. ``Behold the Lamb of God,'' it says in puff paint. Alexandra made it at school.
When children are little, the refrigerator doors can be part art gallery, part toy.
Donna Schmieley reserves the bottom half of her fridge for her 3-year-old, Joey.
``He has those magnetic ABCs and numbers that he likes to play with there,'' she says. ``And we put up whatever he brings home from preschool - his little drawings and projects. They usually have a lifespan of about 30 days.
``I take them down at night when he doesn't notice,'' she says, pausing. ``At least, I don't think he notices.''
The fridge in this Norfolk home is also where these parents fan the flames of romance.
A horse-shaped magnet tacks down two sheets of paper. ``On one my husband and I listed family things for the three of us to do - play mini-golf, go bowling, Busch Gardens,'' she says.
``On another sheet of paper we listed things that Don and I should do, like `Harbor cruise at night' and `night on town.' ''
If the stuff on refrigerators can spark a wild fling, it can certainly motivate other action. Among Connie DeScisciolo's family pictures, magnets shaped like Big Bird and a Ritz cracker, a picture of her cat and her daughter Cristina's preschool art is a very important clipping.
``I clipped it out of Reader's Digest,'' she says. The Norfolk embryologist is working on her doctorate. ``It says, `Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.'
``I think that's so, so true.''
As children grow and change, so does the refrigerator decor. As Jean Serino's three children are growing from tots to teens, she's instituted a bulletin board system that's as organized as any executive secretary's appointment calendar.
On her almond side-by-side GE in Virginia Beach, Serino has a tidy arrangement of schedules.
Just beneath the automatic, in-the-door water and ice dispenser is her second-grader's weekly homework assignment sheet. To the left are orthodontist appointment reminders, a birthday party invitation. In a clip that says ``Crisis?? WHAT Crisis??'' is a school lunch menu.
Then there's a copy of the American Heart Association's CPR instructions. ``I just thought that might be something I should keep,'' she says. Just as handy is the big magnet below it that lists hurricane preparedness tips.
Then there are the permission slips, one for Katie, 13. ``When I sign it, I put it here. When she needs it, she takes it,'' says this mom-with-a-system.
The front and side of this fridge are covered with three different baseball schedules, another for soccer, a PTA calendar and a magnetic box that holds a neat stack of coupons.
``There is a method to my madness,'' she says.
Once the kids are grown and gone, the fridge still does more than keep the milk cold. It keeps the grandkids where you can admire them every time you reach inside for juice.
Bill Gable's mother-in-law has her eight darlings in magnetic frames all over her fridge. The bottom half of the door is reserved for granddaughter Alexandra's gifts.
``These are her drawings and paintings. She gives me one just about every day,'' says Gen Buchanan.
Stuck to the door are also a battery tester, a notepad that says, ``If you can't charge it, you don't need it,'' and a koala magnet from an Australian vacation two years back.
There's also an air plant thriving in a magnetized basket, a magnetic flashlight and, on the side, a can and bottle opener.
``That's really old,'' she says, looking at the gadget. No kidding. The avocado green gives that away.
Over to the side there's a big clip with a bunch of papers in it. ``Those are all the contests I've entered, where I'm going to win those millions,'' says Allie's grandmother. Right now she's waiting to hear about an entry in McCall's ``Live Like a Millionaire'' contest.
Just below is a business card from a shoe-repair shop: Get 10 shoe taps, get the next one free.
It's not in her wallet. It's on the fridge.
Her son-in-law would call that cool. ILLUSTRATION: HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
[Color Photos]
Bill Gable of Virginia Beach uses his refrigerator above, for more
than storing food. The doors are a collage of art, notes, schedules,
receipts and photos.
HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Alexandra Gable made the ``Lamb of God'' banner that hangs on her
family's refrigerator. And her baby photo is at top right.
by CNB