John’s favorite meal was thanksgiving dinner — or, really, a turkey dinner with all the trimmings; it didn’t have to be just for thanksgiving. The young family usually attended one or the other sets of parents’ holiday gatherings; John really wanted to host a holiday gathering at his own home. He was surprised how much he wanted it. They had a little house; a two-bedroom ranch, a “starter home”. No garage, and no insulation — but he climbed into the crawlspace and installed the fiberglass batting himself. Even little Jimmy came up to help, although Liz worried that the fiberglass would bother his skin, and insisted that he wash up afterwards.
Liz worried. She worried about Jimmy getting hurt, then worried about being overprotective. She could see that he didn’t participate quite as completely as some of his friends. He was always holding something back. She hoped it wasn’t because of her.
Jimmy ended up feeling he must be particularly fragile, breakable, not as good or tough or strong as the other kids, because his mother clearly thought so. And she was a nurse, whatever that was. He thought it was important. he wasn’t sure what his dad did; just that he left every day in his car and came home in the evening.
—
One of the things John loved best about his new job was lunch. He was on the road, on his own, and could pick any diner or lunch counter he liked. No wife around to frown about cleanliness; no mother-in-law to cluck about what he ordered or how much, or to bring it up to Liz later in disapproving tones just loud enough for him to hear. And nobody around that he knew, but wasn’t friends with. In the back of his mind, not even a conscious thought, he was just a little uncomfortable eating around people he knew. Friends were different; you knew they weren’t going to use the fact that he was eating to insult him about being fat. And really, it never happened; adults weren’t always trying to find openings for teasing or insults. It was just a reflex from long ago. But no matter how far back in your mind you tried to shove it, it didn’t seem to ever go away.
There were always some other guys at the counter, strangers; maybe on the road like him, or on their lunch hour from a local machine shop or small factory. That was the great thing about that area; it was full of old industry, so there were tiny workshops and two- or three-man fabricators tucked away everywhere. You could get far enough out to be nowhere near home around lunchtime, but it was still a small enough state that you could be home by dinner time. It was a chore to log your miles, but you got that little extra check every month; two cents for every mile you drove. It paid for plenty of lunches.
And the guys at the counter were always ready to talk. John loved to talk, and as often as not the subject of cars came up. He’d mention his old Model A Ford, and his friend Joe, the body and paint man who was just setting up his own shop. They’d decided to work together on restorations — Joe had helped set up a club to share info about putting old Model As back on the road, as good as or better than new. And John was always looking around for interesting cars. His friends knew if they wanted to find an old prewar Studebaker or Dodge Brothers sedan in decent shape that’d been sitting in somebody’s barn, John was the guy to ask. He crisscrossed the state and seemed like he knew everybody — and like as not he’d heard about the car you wanted, or if not that one, maybe one you’d like as well or better. And that was the thing about John, he talked to everybody. Didn’t have a single enemy.
When he saw Joe’s club for Model A Ford restorers get off the ground, he liked everything about it. The meetings, discussions, talking with other guys about the things he liked too, and knew something about. But John was never the know-it-all; whatever it was that made some guys need to know more than anybody about something, and always be right, well, that just wasn’t built into John. Everybody said he was the easiest guy to talk to they knew.
But never needing to know more than anybody else also meant nobody thought of John as a main man. If you heard of a nice job with a good paycheck and maybe even a path to something better, you didn’t tend to think “John’s the man; I’ll tell him about it.” John was a guy to talk to, and helpful as could be. But as for helping John, it was just something that didn’t occur to you. John never seemed like he needed much help. And he wouldn’t ask.
