Sunday chores

Mid-day on a Sunday in November.  Home from my softball game.  Sandwich and beer consumed, it’s time to clean the gutters.  I haul my aluminum extension ladder out of the garage and have at it.  I balance the ladder on its feet, straight up, wrap the nylon cord around my right hand a turn or two, and pull the rope to extend the ladder up a few steps.  It makes the familiar, sliding and clanging sounds of all aluminum ladders. 

My gutters are done in about 20 minutes, and that’s it on my chores for the day.  Except for cooking dinner, which is more recreation than work for me. My father’s chores took all day most Sundays, like they did his Saturdays as well.  On a fall day like this, with all the leaves finally down, we would spend hours raking them into piles, then spread out one of my father’s drop-cloths, rake the leaves onto the cloth, fold it up into an enormous dumpling of leaves, and drag them down the edge of the garden.  Then my father would drive the lawn mower back and forth across and through them, chopping them up before spreading them over the garden, where they would break down over the winter.

Like so many things he did -- a lot of physical labor, but always with technique and care.  The last bits of leaves were always raked up.  The drop-cloth always carefully shaken out and folded neatly and put away where it belonged.

Hard-working, thorough, and thoughtful in the simplest of chores.  I wish I was more like that.