The criteria was set, designing the right bench/table/roll-away to meet them all was the problem. Think I have it now. Stay tuned.
The bit about terminating conversations yesterday triggered a memory of my brother and his friend Garin Birchak. Garin's family lived next to our grand parent's house on a couple of acres in Pacomia, CA. Quite a few great childhood memories from that place. It had a second home that they rented out to a family that kept horses in the back acreage. Each home had a fenced back yard and behind that was the orange orchard, corral and shop. With enough space left over to build forts in the trees and a 36' ketch next to the shop. But that's another story.
They dug one of the first private pools in the area in the back yard (I think it dated back to the thirties) and drained it periodically to irrigate the oranges. You know how good all that chlorine was for the oranges.
The Birchak's (spelling undoubtedly wrong, they were of German ancestry) place was magical. They had sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, geese and lots of cats. Garin had a make-shift shop in the back where he built various electronic stuff. You see, Garin was a bit of a genius. He would salvage parts of discarded electronics and build magical devices. For me, all electronic devices were magic. What else could explain the mystery of a crystal radio?
Once, he and Ralph took me along on a "trash canning" trip. We rode our bikes down to the industrial side of San Fernando and scavenged their trash cans. No one had dumpsters, just 50 gal drums for their trash. It was then that I learned one of life's most amazing secrets. People throw away the coolest stuff. We found old radios and even TVs. Garin would dissemble the electronics and save all the good parts. We would take huge shopping bags full of vacuum tubes (remember those?) down to the market and test them on their free tube tester machine (remember those?). The rejects made great slingshot ammo (first you break off the stem while holding it underwater; it fills with water, giving it enough weight).
A lot of the stuffs original purpose was a mystery to us, but it's potential was obviously huge. So it would be placed on a shelf in the shop awaiting it's destiny. This lesson has served me well throughout my years of accumulating stuff. Unfortunately, I have been unable to teach this to my wife.
You may wonder what this has to do with terminating conversations. Well, after a long day of adventure at the Birchak's, it was hard to say good bye. When I thought about examples of "conversational terminatium deficiency", I pictured my brother leaning out the car window waving and yelling "good bye, so long, bye, see ya later, bye..............................." as Garin stood in the road waving and yelling the same until he faded into the dust cloud (yes, dirt roads).
If you are still here, thanks for taking that quick jog down memory lane. You gotta go there when it pops up cause you never know when it will be for the last time.
Stay cool.
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