Careful

Sometimes I have a difficult time finding material on which to write a blog each week.  I even commented to my wife this past Tuesday that she had not done or said anything sufficiently relevant for a blog post, and I noted that I did not know what to write about this week.  A short while later I decided to go cut down two volunteer trees in the yard that are starting to get large for the space. As I left the house to cut down the trees on a hot and humid mid-September day, my wife said the normal phrase she always says to me when I am going to work on some project--be careful.  It has become so common that several years ago, when she said it, I said Careful is my middle name. For years that has been my common reply.

Crankshaft Cartoon from WI State Journal

It turns out I am not the only person with such a middle name.  "The Wisconsin State Journal" cartoon pages carry the cartoon, Crankshaft, which happened to be a favorite cartoon of my father-in-law. Perhaps as I age, I find the cartoon more funny.  Ed Crankshaft is a semi-retired elderly man who lives with his daughter and her husband in Ohio.  Ed, being a stereotypical seasoned citizen drives a bus part-time where he is always knocking down mailboxes, but he is also quite the bowler.  When he starts a grill the fire department always responds, and one time his fire was so large it could be seen from the International Space Station.  Anyway, in a recent story line the elderly lady who lives next door asked him to trim some branches that were hanging near her power line.  (Knowing Ed's history of accidents, it is beyond me why she would ask him, other than it made a good story line.) In the Cartoon (see above) she says to Ed, "Whatever you do, Ed...be careful!"  Ed responds that "Caution is my middle name" to which the lady says, "I did not know that."  In the last tile Ed says "That's because I never use it."  I showed it to my wife, but I am not sure if she got the humor other than Ed and I sharing a similar middle name.

Well, with a middle name like Careful, I tend to use extreme caution, particularly with a chainsaw and other dangerous tools.  The trees I needed to take down were small, about 4 or 5"  inches in diameter just a few inches above the ground, a few years ago I probably would have cut them down with a handsaw, but that day I thought a chain saw would make the job much easier.  I realized that they best were gotten out now before I had to turn to a professional.  In the back of my mind is an accident my oldest brother had when a tree did not fall correctly and ended up hitting face breaking his jaw (which required surgery), and knocking him unconscious.  As I cut the first tree I make the notch to fell the tree in a certain direction.  Pretty confident in my notch I move about a quarter way around the tree and start the final cut.  The tree starts to slowly descend, but not the way I intended, but rather right toward me, so I turn and the tree brushes, touches, knocks, okay, hits my shoulder and I use my body to direct the tree so it does not get hung up in any adjoining trees, but have it fall where i generally intended it to fall.  Now, if I did not say hit, I would be quickly corrected by my wife when she reads the blog, so I figured I better say hit.  

I then proceeded to cut off the branches and trunk into lengths in which one person can more easily manage.  I then moved to the second tree, a small hickory, which is right next to  a larger hickory. which falls pretty much where intended.  My wife then comes out of the house and says something to the effect that, "Should you not be behind the tree to make the final cut!" Then of course, "Did you not learn anything from the accident your brother Steve had."  I simply responded:  "Oh, you watched it?" A comment, that for some reason, she did not seem to appreciate. She then topped it off by saying, "You now have your blog post for the week."  What was surprising is not that she watched it, but that she did not come out of the house right away.  When she had not exited shortly after it occurred I figured she had not watched me cut that first tree.  Perhaps she saw that I was alright.  I do wear a hard hat with ear muffs when cutting.  I have on a occasion played her, but I have to say the thought never occurred to me to fall down on the ground to see what she would do.  Not all was lost as she helped me finish cutting the brush to load in the car and take to the drop-off site.  

So, I guess I am like Ed Crankshaft, or he is like me, as we share a similar middle name:  my Careful to his Caution, to which my wife would say I use the name but seldom exercise it. To be upfront, in the past few months I have stopped responding to her that my middle name is Careful, as I thought it wise not to tempt fate.  But, perhaps using not using it tempts fate even more.  However, unlike Ed Crankshaft, I would not try to cut branches near a power line.