Cracked crocks and the doghouse (9/28/05)

It’s been a tough time for crockery at our house.

The trouble started a couple of Thursdays ago. That’s the night Connie has her latest classes at Ball State University, so the dog and I were on our own.

Trying to take my mind off her commute and hoping to score some brownie points in the husband department, I was doing some dishes.

I also had some music going loudly enough that the dog was giving me reproachful looks.

Working my way through things by the sink, I picked up an old salad bowl we’ve had for decades.

It dates back to our college years and was made by a friend of ours. (There was some sort of rule in the 1960s that if you were a college student you had to have at least one friend who wanted to be a potter.)

I scrubbed the bowl in hot, soapy water and had just turned it over to read on the bottom, “Beck ’72.” That would be Larry Beck, whom we probably haven’t seen since 1972.

Just as I was getting nostalgic, wondering what had happened to old Larry and whether he had followed his bohemian dream of being a potter living the rustic life or had opted for a career in investment banking and suburbia instead, the bowl slipped from my soapy fingers, hit the edge of the sink, and broke cleanly in two.

I felt terrible about it, but about a week later the dog got me out of the doghouse.

It was a Monday night that time, and I was covering a Jay School Board meeting as a series of thunderstorms moved through the county. Rain could be heard pounding against the windows, and lightning flashed in the night sky.

At home, Connie did her best to keep our Lab from freaking out. The dog has never liked thunderstorms, and as she moves into old age — she’s 12 — she gets crazy whenever a storm front moves through.

This time, she out-did herself.

As my wife talked on the phone, the dog first got tangled up with a floor lamp and sent it pitching forward to the floor.

Then, while Connie was dealing with crisis number one, the dog upended a small table.

And on the table?

You got it. Another pot.

This one was by Alan Patrick, who lives and works over west of Albany. And after its encounter with the radiator, we now have two glue-repair projects ahead.

The good news is that both are fixable.

The bad news is when our great-grandchildren take them to “Antiques Roadshow,” the appraisers will frown, make some clucking sounds, and announce that they’d be worth a fortune if they hadn’t run into a klutzy dishwasher and a storm-scared dog.[[In-content Ad]]