I want you to imagine being on a treadmill and, dangling from a stick in
front of you is a can of beer.  And, your tail, which is tied in knots, is
wedged between your legs preventing you from running.  Go ahead, take a
few moments and imagine it.  Even if you don't like beer take the plunge,
imagine you do.

That right there is a silly looking picture now ain't it?  I mean,
directly in front of you is something you're willing to run for but you
just can't make 'er happen.  That is the way I felt when Steve Bigelow
came for a visit this past weekend.

You know how the atmosphere can be around your house at Christmas
time...say the day after Thanksgiving and about four weeks before
Christmas?  You're barely done burping your turkey dinner and your
spacious hips are longing for a slab of punkin' pie?  That is the way I
felt when Steve Bigelow came for a visit this past weekend.

You know how agoraphobics lock themselves into their own spaces and will
barely open their door?  That is the way I felt when Steve Bigelow came
for a visit this past weekend.

There I was, happily locked away in the shop trying to invent a better
mousetrap when my sensitive and acute hearing distinctly heard a knock on
the door.

<sound like the middle knuckle of one's hand rapping against a door, which
makes a knocking sort of sound>

"Knock, knock, knock".

<sound of squeaky door opening and pursed lips protruding between door and
door jamb>

"Yeeessss, how may I help you?"

"Knock it off, Joe, it's me, Steve."

"Ugghhh, huh...Steve who?"

"Do your lips have eyes?"

"No, none that I've grown yet."  Said my moving lips, poking between the
slight crack.

"Well, then open the door a little wider and take a look."

"I can't, I've recently been diagnosed as being a
agoramaphoraaristocratee".

"Ohh, gimmie a break!  What the hell is that?"

"Well, all my doctors say it's my fear of leaving the shop and once I'm
outside I'm terrified because no one realizes I'm the Royalty I think I
am."

"Yeeesss,"  He said with genuine sounding concern, "I can see where your
feelings could whither there.  Now, open the damn door, I can't hold this
free stuff all day."

"Fre...fre...free stuff?  Well, don't just stand there,"  I said, flinging
the door open, "C'mon in!"

He arrived at approximately 5:37 Friday evening and for the next nineteen
hours he would be my guest and suddenly it became my job to make sure I
was properly entertained.

I've 'known' Steve since 1995 but it wasn't until August of 2009 during
the Bi-Dave's gathering that we would meet and it came no surprise to me
that he's a top notch guy.

The first order of his business was to take a tour of the shop and he had
hardly walked three feet before saying "Yep, it's just like the videos."

"What's that crack 'posed to mean?"  I said feeling as though some of my
Royalty had suddenly been usurped, "Did you think all them videos were
filmed at someone else's shop?  No tour for you, Weisenheimer, come back
one year!"

"Relax, Joe,"  He said while opening the fridge and extracted a container
of a very fine barley pop, "I just meant,"  He paused to open the can and
took a long slurp, "It's much better seeing it in person."

"Yeah, yeah, you'll say anything so long as that fridge,"  I said pointing
with the screwdriver I had in one hand, "Has more of that stuff,"  I
spewed pointing at his beer, "In it, now won't you?"

We had a grand time walking around and chatted about all sorts of things
and before I knew it an hour and a half had slipped away and it was time
for dinner.  It was a good thing Her Nagness and I had previously
determined spaghetti served with garlic bread and slow-cooked mushroom
meat sauce would be the evening's fare because if she hadn't of told me
what she was going to make I wouldn't have been able to tell Steve what
was for dinner.

Before leaving for the house I called my best buddies, Bob and Jim, and
told them to be at the shop in 45-minutes to meet Steve and, unless he
choked on his garlic toast, we might scare up a few dart games.

Steve, like me, wears a ball cap and I was very impressed to witness him
remove his cap prior to sitting at the table for a meal and I was
instantly reminded of Jimmy Stewart in the movie Shenandoah when he said,
"A man who sits at a table with a hat on his head is going nowhere fast."

Pretty soon the phone rang, it was Jim.  "We're here waiting for you!"

"You're not waiting on me, Dude!  It's Steve...he's only on his third
plate of spaghetti and sixth piece of garlic toast."

"Jeepers,"  Jim said with a long breath, "Doesn't his wife feed him in
Oregon?"

"I don't think so,"  I said shaking my head, "He just got done telling us
how awful his wife's cooking is and that he takes most of his meals at
Denny's.  Apparently Courtney doesn't give him or their kids any milk
either...from what I gather the bulk of their household budget goes to her
gambling problem.  Oops, he just opened another half-gallon of milk, we
might be awhile."

After dinner we rushed back to the shop and introduced him to my pals.  I
knew Bob had ridden his bicycle to the shop because I saw it leaning
against the west wall of the main room.  Twenty minutes later he gets on
his bike and rides away without saying a single word.

"Bye, Bob, thanks for stopping in!"  I yelled, as I watched him peddle out
the finish room door and into the darkness and barely ten minutes later he
was back.  It wasn't until I climbed into bed that I found out where he
had gone - he went to report to Her Nagness that in his opinion Steve
wasn't a serial killer and really was a nice guy.

By the time Bob returned Steve had finished my tour of the shop and his
focus was now settled on my Adirondack chairs.  I explained how I had
taken the bland and uncomfortable classic style with the flat back and
seat and redesigned it to have a curved back and a contoured seat.  He sat
down in one of them, wrapped his hands around the arms and I could almost
hear it before he said it.

"I'll be wanting you to send me the drawings for these chairs, Joe."

"Drawings?  Steve, I don't have any stinking drawings...real woodworkers
use templates.  How 'bout we make you a set, including most all the jigs
instead?"

It was then I realized how deprived he was of his woodworking time because
a nanosecond had hardly passed before he said, "Let's do it!"

Now Jim and Bob are in the fray.  Jim grabs the originals, Bob 'n me mark
them out on some Masonite salvaged from my mall and I turn around and see
Steve standing there like a statue.

"What the hell are you waiting for?  Start cutting these damn things out."

"Ummm,"  Steve says kinda timidly, "Do you have safety glasses?

"Yep, they're right over there on that shelf in the coffee can labeled
'safety glasses'.  Do you also want ear plugs?"

Bob yells, "How 'bout a helmet?  I got a helmet at home, I'll go get it if
you want it."

Jim, yells, "My son is a Marine and left one of his flak jackets the last
time he was home, I'll go get it if you want it because you never wanna
enter a woodshop without yer trusty flak jacket on."

And now it's my turn to pick on him.  "Ya know, Steve, the air in here is
gonna get awfully dusty cutting out these few parts so I'm gonna run home
and get my SCUBA gear for you to wear.  Do you think you can get along
well enough without the swim fins?"

"Shadap all y'all!  These glasses,"  He waved them in the air, "Are all I
need!"

Scant moments later Steve is playing with a large percentage of the shop
equipment by cutting things out and then sanding them to the marked lines.

On one part I demonstrated my free hand cutting style on the table saw
and promptly commented on how Beamer would have instantly vapor locked
watching that little procedure.  It's a good thing I'm an EMT as I was
able to diagnose Steve's condition fairly rapidly - he only needed to have
a beer waved under his nose to revive him.

With the four of us working on it we had every template and jig (except
for the back jig, which was already made and just happened to be laying
outside almost near to the top of the junk pile) made in less than
45-minutes.

I looked up at the clock to see it was a quarter past ten signaling time I
had to be home so me and Steve went to my house and Bob 'n Jim went to
their houses.  I wasn't quite sure but it seemed to me Steve was walking
quite alright without them swim fins on.

The next morning I let Steve sleep in while my pancake batter raised, then
just at the proper moment when the coffee was brewed I went upstairs to
knock him him up.

<sound like the middle knuckle of one's hand rapping against a door, which
makes a knocking sort of sound>

"Knock, knock, knock".

"Harrummmmaummm?"

"Wakey, wakey, you're burning daylight."

"Yeah, yeah..."

Ninety seconds later he stumbles downstairs to the kitchen and he's wearing
nothing but a pair of swimming trunks, he has a towel draped over his
shoulder and he's barefooted.  Now, I've told you before about how great
of a noticer I am and I instantly noticed where the tops of his feet had
been tanned...all except the lily white areas where his flip flops were in
place during the tanning process.

I looked at him pitifully and thumbed over my shoulder indicating west,
"The beach is about 450 miles that way, buddy."

For those of you who don't know, Steve is an electronic engineer and works
for Intel.  Have you ever looked at the mother board of a computer?  Have
you ever wondered how your cell phone has all them neat little gadgets on
board?  Have you ever looked at them tiny, black, wafer thin square
thingys?  Well, Steve is the genius behind all of that.  Yet, this same
guy, this virtuoso of all things brilliant, is standing there looking like
a little boy with a broken toy he wants me to fix.

"Ummm...how do I...,"  He squeezes the towel, "How do I get water to come
out of the shower head?"

I looked at him with very sad eyes.  "Awww, it's okay, Stevie,"  I said
leading him upstairs (I felt I had to do that for fear of him getting lost
up there). "They prolly don't have showers at that beach of yours do they?
See, whachu do is, you pull this little button here and, lookie, water
comes out up there, kinda neat, ain't it?"

"Thanks, Joe."

"No sweat, now hurry up, the griddle is ready."

When he was back downstairs I announced my breakfast menu, "We're having
my soon-to-be world class pancakes, ham steak, a cream cheese and chedder
omelet and fresh fruit."

"I'm not much of an omelet guy, Joe.  In fact, I hate them."

"Ohh..."  I said with complete confidence, "You can bet your flip flops my
omelets are light years tastier than the ones you get at Denny's, Steve."

His plate wasn't in front of him more'n thirty seconds and he said, "Damn
good omelet, Joe!"

"Yeah, how 'bout that."

Pretty soon we're back at the shop to load some stuff into his truck and
it was about here I realized how having your tail tied in knots and wedged
between your legs kept me from running.  We had so little time to visit
and so little time to pal around that I couldn't help feeling I had been
cheated.

Thanks, Steve, the door's always open and the next time you're here we'll
work on that toilet flushing thing we talked about.