Monday, April 19, 2004
Railing
Back in the winter of 1989, I was one of the head instructors at the astronomy labs. Sundays and Mondays were my nights to dole out assignments and corral the students as they came in. My friend Brian and I both worked Sundays, so we would regularly carpool out to the lab site to save gas.
One Sunday, we needed to make some stops at the mall on the way to the labs. Brian picked my up in his truck, and we headed to the shopping anti-mecca a couple of hours before we needed to be at the lab. While hitting the necessary stops and avoiding most of the Sunday evening foot traffic, we bumped into another friend of mine, Melissa, who was wrapping up her set of errands. As it was getting dark and Brian and I still considered ourselves true gentlemen, we escorted Melissa out to her car. That was when we found it.
Walking down the aisle of autos, we witnessed an odd sight. Several drivers who were coming down the row started to pull into an empty parking space, stopped, backed out, and continued down the row past where we were walking. As they passed, we could see looks of frustration on their faces. This happened three or four times as we escorted Melissa to her vehicle, so we decided to check it out, as the seemingly empty space was just a few spaces past where Melissa had parked.
When we arrived at the spot, we were surprised to see a railing laying on its side in the middle of the parking space. It was your standard department store traffic flow type railing - chrome, three vertical posts about three feet tall connected to each other by two additional bars. The whole thing stretched 7 to 8 feet long. While Melissa gaped at the railing, Brian and I looked at each other, grinning. Brian said, "I'll get the truck."
That night, we introduced the railing to the astronomy lab. Brian and I set it up next to the instructors' desk in the front of the main lab waiting room, ostensibly to separate the throngs of excited lab students from the instructors. Though in the lab we referred to it as the 'cattle guard,' it served as more of a conversation piece than anything, as none of us were having to fight off mobs of fanatical students during the welcoming activities each night.
The railing served two good years in the lab. However, when I left the lab to work in greener pastures, the railing was bequeathed to me. I really think that the new wave of instructors just wanted to get it out of there, and since I was the only remaining instructor who'd had anything to do with its arrival (Brian had stopped teaching out there the year before) they figured I should be the one to remove it from the premises. So the railing began the second phase of its life with me.
Once I got it to the house I was renting at the time (which was no small feat in my small Mitsubishi hatchback), the railing took a place of honor along one of the walls in the living room. This large room measured 18 by 22 feet and had one long stretch of wall that spanned from the entryway to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. The railing stood proudly next to this spanse of wood paneling. It served as a conversation piece every time someone new came to the house for a get-together.
Unfortunately, I never was able to put the railing to the use I intended at that house. I maintained a lookout for a very large poster of the Grand Canyon - one that would completely fill the wall behind the railing. I had hoped to find this poster or wall hanging and place it such that when you looked at the wall from the living room, the raining would help protect viewer from falling into the canyon. Alas, that never came to be.
When I moved from that house to the first house my wife and I shared, the railing came with us. In this house, it occupied a position directly behind one of the sofas we had in our living room. This house did not have an expanse of wall where the railing could protect visitors from a nasty fate, but I kept it out in honor of its legacy. Three years later, the railing came with us when we moved to our second house. Alas, the railing maintained a position in the garage during our tenure in this house.
Ultimately, we discarded the railing when we left that house. While I was saddened to see it go where it was ultimately headed when we rescued it from the mall parking lot, I am pleased to know that I helped to extend its life an additional 8 years. I am proud to say that I helped give that railing a useful purpose as well as loving and tender care after it had been abandoned in that parking lot, given up like an unwanted pet left in the country. But I still fondly remember the good times we had with that railing. I sincerely believe it has now gone on to a better place where it can stand proudly alongside its ancestors and peers. I hope that when my time comes and I am standing in line waiting to enter the Pearly Gates, I will recognize my railing as it serves to keep me in the correct queue. And I expect that my railing will be pleased to see me as well, when we can once again be reunited in the afterlife.
Entire contents of this site © 2003-2008 Eriq Oliver Neale/Simultaneous Pancakes Media unless otherwise noted. I hate that I have to point that out...One Sunday, we needed to make some stops at the mall on the way to the labs. Brian picked my up in his truck, and we headed to the shopping anti-mecca a couple of hours before we needed to be at the lab. While hitting the necessary stops and avoiding most of the Sunday evening foot traffic, we bumped into another friend of mine, Melissa, who was wrapping up her set of errands. As it was getting dark and Brian and I still considered ourselves true gentlemen, we escorted Melissa out to her car. That was when we found it.
Walking down the aisle of autos, we witnessed an odd sight. Several drivers who were coming down the row started to pull into an empty parking space, stopped, backed out, and continued down the row past where we were walking. As they passed, we could see looks of frustration on their faces. This happened three or four times as we escorted Melissa to her vehicle, so we decided to check it out, as the seemingly empty space was just a few spaces past where Melissa had parked.
When we arrived at the spot, we were surprised to see a railing laying on its side in the middle of the parking space. It was your standard department store traffic flow type railing - chrome, three vertical posts about three feet tall connected to each other by two additional bars. The whole thing stretched 7 to 8 feet long. While Melissa gaped at the railing, Brian and I looked at each other, grinning. Brian said, "I'll get the truck."
That night, we introduced the railing to the astronomy lab. Brian and I set it up next to the instructors' desk in the front of the main lab waiting room, ostensibly to separate the throngs of excited lab students from the instructors. Though in the lab we referred to it as the 'cattle guard,' it served as more of a conversation piece than anything, as none of us were having to fight off mobs of fanatical students during the welcoming activities each night.
The railing served two good years in the lab. However, when I left the lab to work in greener pastures, the railing was bequeathed to me. I really think that the new wave of instructors just wanted to get it out of there, and since I was the only remaining instructor who'd had anything to do with its arrival (Brian had stopped teaching out there the year before) they figured I should be the one to remove it from the premises. So the railing began the second phase of its life with me.
Once I got it to the house I was renting at the time (which was no small feat in my small Mitsubishi hatchback), the railing took a place of honor along one of the walls in the living room. This large room measured 18 by 22 feet and had one long stretch of wall that spanned from the entryway to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. The railing stood proudly next to this spanse of wood paneling. It served as a conversation piece every time someone new came to the house for a get-together.
Unfortunately, I never was able to put the railing to the use I intended at that house. I maintained a lookout for a very large poster of the Grand Canyon - one that would completely fill the wall behind the railing. I had hoped to find this poster or wall hanging and place it such that when you looked at the wall from the living room, the raining would help protect viewer from falling into the canyon. Alas, that never came to be.
When I moved from that house to the first house my wife and I shared, the railing came with us. In this house, it occupied a position directly behind one of the sofas we had in our living room. This house did not have an expanse of wall where the railing could protect visitors from a nasty fate, but I kept it out in honor of its legacy. Three years later, the railing came with us when we moved to our second house. Alas, the railing maintained a position in the garage during our tenure in this house.
Ultimately, we discarded the railing when we left that house. While I was saddened to see it go where it was ultimately headed when we rescued it from the mall parking lot, I am pleased to know that I helped to extend its life an additional 8 years. I am proud to say that I helped give that railing a useful purpose as well as loving and tender care after it had been abandoned in that parking lot, given up like an unwanted pet left in the country. But I still fondly remember the good times we had with that railing. I sincerely believe it has now gone on to a better place where it can stand proudly alongside its ancestors and peers. I hope that when my time comes and I am standing in line waiting to enter the Pearly Gates, I will recognize my railing as it serves to keep me in the correct queue. And I expect that my railing will be pleased to see me as well, when we can once again be reunited in the afterlife.
