Raul Ascunce
Because the wife is a gardener, she looks for unusual tchotchkes with which to decorate her gardens. Be it a flamingo, a gazing ball, a trellis, or a birdbath, items are selected to enhance the beauty of the perennials or annuals whose color scheme changes from year to year.
I enjoy seeing the pleasure she gets from creating these beautiful beds and rarely do I question her choices of accoutrements for her garden.
One day about five years ago she saw an antique wooden screen door at a garage sale and said, “I must have that screen door.”
“But we have a nice white aluminum screen door on our house, dear. I’m not sure that door would even fit our front door,” I said nervously about questioning her choices.
“It’s not for the house, silly. It’s for my perennial garden in the backyard.”
“Oh honey,” I said, “I think you’re unclear on the concept. Just setting a screen door up in the garden will not keep the bugs out. You’re gonna need walls, a ceiling, plus the screen door.”
Rolling her eyes to the point I thought she was going to fall over backwards, she said, “It’s just a decoration. I’ll paint it a funky color with a few details and it will brighten up that corner of the garden until the flowers start to bloom.”
Well, that was a while back, and since then weather and carpenter bees have taken their toll on the old screen door. The bottom rail rotted off and the top rail was full of carpenter bee holes.
This spring the wife took me by the hand out to her perennial garden, pouted severely, and pointed at the direly deteriorating screen door and said, “Can you fix it please?”
“Honey,” I said, “it’s garbage. A termite would starve on the wood left in that thing.”
The pout grew poutier and the sad eyes batted faster.
“Please try to fix it. I love that door. It displays my antique garden tools. I’ll bake you an apple pie.”
“DONE!” I said. What can I say? I’m a sucker for fruit-filled pastries.
To say that the task of restoring the old screen door was difficult would be an understatement. The door was so rotted that top and bottom rails were removed, I had to leave it on the garage floor to work on so it wouldn’t collapse in half.
So for an entire day I was on the floor fashioning as best I could replacement rails, scabbing boards on the back for bracing the frame, and stapling old screening to new boards. And when it was done…
“Oh honey,” the wife squealed, “it looks wonderful. I am so happy that I will have my screen door in my garden again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Why aren’t you getting up?”
“I can’t,” I said. “My knees are locked in this position. I think you may have to call for assistance.”
“Too bad, the pie just came out of the oven.”
All I can say is it was a miracle. I popped up off the floor and sprinted into the kitchen for some hot apple pie and ice cream. Hallelujah!
Raul Ascunce is a freelance columnist for the Sentinel-Tribune. He may be contacted at [email protected].
