I am fortunate to have a back yard large enough to do things in, like growing the three fruit trees that allow me to walk right out the kitchen door and pick my own oranges, lemons, and limes. Then there's the cactus garden over in one corner. One of the best features of the yard is the brick wall all around it, just short of six feet high. If somebody wants to sunbathe out there in the nude, which a visiting niece once did, she can have complete privacy to do so, as long as she keeps the thick foliage of the orange tree between her and the gate.
That gate, in the wall on the west side of the house, is an ongoing problem. Why anybody would build a six foot wall and put a three foot high gate in it is the sort of mystery that you can expect to stumble onto when you buy a house that's thirty years old. I've been planning to replace it with a taller one, but in the ten years I've lived here it never made it to the top of my to-do list. At least until this summer.
My list isn't the neatest thing you ever saw. It really is several lists and notes on various sized pieces of paper, that live in a box on the desk that I almost never use. I sat one morning and went through the box, crossing off jobs that either got done or were no longer necessary, and trying to judge the urgency of the remaining tasks so I could select my next chore. There was the gate. I looked over some other scraps of paper, and there was the gate again.
It turned out that I had jotted the gate down in four places, and I didn't have any other job that had cropped up that many times. Try as I might to find an easier job to tackle, I was forced to admit that the gate was the most important, and I'd better get going on it.
I took some rough measurements and looked around for some materials that I could use. There was a piece of plywood that I could trim down to the right size, and various scraps of two by four that might come in handy, but I would certainly have to buy hardware, paint, and some lumber. It would probably not come to a hundred dollars, but it was sure to exceed fifty.
While I was standing at the side of the house thinking about it, a little voice came from behind me, and I turned to see a cute little girl, probably 18 or 19 years old, standing waiting to address me, but with a facial expression of fear, as if she'd turn and run if I said "Boo!" She was dressed simply, but her clothes were neat and clean, and everything about her seemed to scream middle class respectability.
"Hello, how may I help you?" I asked in my very best Dale Carnegie manner.
"I'm looking for work: odd jobs, housework, yard work, anything to earn some money. I graduated from high school in May and I haven't been able to find any work since then, other than a few hours here and there that haven't even paid me enough money for food. I'm getting pretty desperate. Do you have anything I could do?"
"Look, it's hot right here with the sun roasting us. Around back I have a couple of chairs, and we could talk there in the shade. Would you like to come around there?"
She looked fearful, and I hastened to assure her that she would come to no harm. "I'll leave this gate wide open. I'm not leading you into a trap. You can turn your chair so it faces the gate and you'll have an easy exit. I'll leave it to you to decide whether you want to come into the back yard, but I'm going there right now because I'm hot."
I turned and walked back to the small patio by the lemon tree and positioned two chairs as I had said I would. Then I stepped into the storage room back of the kitchen where the spare refrigerator stands, and got out two ice-cold bottles of water. When I came back to the patio the girl was standing behind a chair, clearly trying to decide whether to sit or flee. Without another word I handed her a water bottle, and sat down in the other chair. Finally she turned her chair a little to aim it directly at the gate, and sat down on it as if she feared that it would attack her like a bear trap.
"I'm Mr. Dunham. My friends call me Carl. What's your name?"
"I'm Sally Clark. I live a few blocks down that way, where the road curves around. I wanted to go to the community college but I don't have the money for tuition. I live with my mother, who was supporting me but she's only working part time now and we're just about out of everything." As she said this she uncapped the bottle. She took a small sip, licked her lips, and then downed a big gulp.
"Sally, have you eaten anything today?"
"No. I didn't even have any coffee because when I went to make a pot, the can was empty. My mom works at a restaurant, so she'll get something there, but I was completely out of luck."
"I don't want to talk business with you while you're starving. I'm going into the kitchen to fix us something for lunch. You can stay out here, or come in with me, whatever you'd prefer. It'll take me about fifteen minutes, I expect. I'm going in there now."
I heated up a frying pan and cut up an onion to flavor some ground beef. In five minutes I had two big hamburgers sizzling in the pan and two rolls heating up in the toaster oven. I looked up when I heard the kitchen door close, to see Sally about a foot inside, sniffing the aroma of the frying beef and onions. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.
"You can keep an eye on those rolls, make sure they don't burn. In the refrigerator, in the door, you'll find ketchup and mustard, and in the drawer in the refrigerator marked Meats, you'll find a bag with shredded cheese. You can put all that on the counter over there. If you want to go to the bathroom, it's down the hall on the right. We'll be eating in five minutes."
When we took our burgers out onto the patio, she had hers half eaten by the time I had sat down. "Sally, when's the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday morning. Oh, this is so good!"
"Slow down, or your stomach will reject the food and you'll throw it up. Take your time, small bites, and then we'll see what else you might like. Your blood sugar must be very low. The protein in the meat will be metabolized to provide you some energy, but it'll take a while. I'll get you a glass of orange juice for a quick pickup, to give you a jump start. What you need then is a little rest, to let your body digest your food and sort itself out."
