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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
October 29, 2006
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated October 29, 1996.
© 1996 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Barn, 1968
© 1968 by Bud Grossmann
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A LIMITED NUMBER OF SLAMS
Tuesday, October 29, 1996
Dear Gramma,
One evening last December, after supper at my parents’ house, Dad and I planned to drive over to the Manor to keep you company till bedtime. By the time I had sufficiently attired myself to face the frosty night, Dad already had his car—a Mercury Sable—idling outside the garage. Great ghostly exhaust clouds drifted in the glare of the yard light. I crossed the icy driveway as swiftly as I dared, entered the car, closed the door, and reached for my seatbelt.
Dad put the Sable in gear and eased off on the brake. The tires squeaked on fresh-fallen snow. As the car skated through the curve by the barn and headed out along the farm’s north fenceline, Dad began to speak. “A person should be cautious,” he said, “in making generalizations. But I have found truth in what some people say—that the doors on a General Motors vehicle almost always require a firm slam to close them, while a Ford product needs a light touch only.”
I had to chuckle. Dad’s tone of voice was so amiable and gentle that the significance of his message almost sailed past me—but I caught it. “So, Dad,” I asked, “have I been beating your doors to death?”
“You might be using a bit more force than necessary,” he replied. By the glow of the instrument panel, I saw his smile, fatherly and kind.
In the months since that brief exchange, Dad’s words—and his skillful way of delivering them—have echoed in my head. My father seems to be present whenever I attempt to close a door on my own vehicle, a Dodge-brand Caravan. My first try frequently lacks the oomph to get the job done.
When I’m putting wear and tear on the hinges and latch mechanisms of automobile doors, another memory of Dad crowds into my head. When I was seven years old or so, and our family was living in Tokyo, my parents bought me a Japanese cap pistol. Nowadays “Made In Japan” generally signifies “Superior Quality”; back in those days, though, it often meant “Buyer Beware.”
My pistol was a tinny little thing with sharp surfaces and loose little rivets. It was awkward to hold and not especially nice to look at. The wonderful thing about it, though, was that it came with eight hundred—that’s what I remember, anyway—eight hundred rolls of caps! A little pistol in a great big box, with all those colorful rolls of caps. They were narrow-gauge, Made-In-Japan caps with a Made-In-Japan sound, slightly higher pitched than the pop of American caps.
I can’t imagine what Mom and Dad were thinking when they gave such a gift—they must have been out of their minds. But if they weren’t nuts when they bought the gun, I soon drove them close to insanity with non-stop pop-pop-popping. I remember, though, how my dad got me to ease off and conserve my ammo. “A cap pistol,” he told me, “is good for only a certain number of shots.”
“How many?” I asked.
“I don’t know the number,” Dad admitted, “but it’s only a certain number, and then the gun breaks and never works again. The same is true of anything mechanical—a certain number of uses, and it’s kaput.”
I was impressed. I could see how many rolls of caps I had left, but I had no idea how many clicks remained in my gun. So I put my flimsy toy away; I wanted to delay the day of its demise.
I have applied Dad’s Finite Number of Shots theory to other situations, too. On the assumption that a human heart is allotted but a limited number of beats, I am careful not to waste any of mine on activities such as jogging. And, knowing that door hinges cannot last forever, I park my Dodge Caravan in my garage each night and leave the driver’s door wide open. I have to do something, you see, to make up for slamming the darn thing twice.
Love to you,
Buddy
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