Love's Real Stories

I’ve broken more glass than anyone I know. I have left a trail of shattered and broken windows, bottles, glasses, plates, bowls, light fixtures, and miscellaneous statues, figurines, vases – some quite valuable- even a couple of windshields and skylights. But by far my most frequent glass victims have been windows. Windows always seem to be in the path of objects thrown, kicked, dropped, batted, flung, or otherwise generated by me.

But I was shocked when I ran into this house, late for my open house, slammed the front door behind me, and slipped on a carpet runner. My keys slipped from my hand, flew across the room and slammed into the living room window. I was shocked because the window did not break. The keys dropped to the floor harmlessly. It made no sense. I have broken windows with the mere flip of a pebble, the tap of a knuckle, much less the hurling of a mass of metal such as my key ring. This was encouraging; perhaps it represented a new trend. Perhaps it could mean the start of a new relationship with glass!

But alas, my hopes were dashed when I turned around and saw a crack traversing the front door glass. That made more sense: a simple slamming of the door by my hands translates into broken glass.

As a life-long glass-breaker, I knew what to do; I went into fix-it mode.

Fix-it tip: The common butter-knife is the perfect tool for removing old glazing around a pane of glass. Perfect, that is, if the glazing putty is at least forty years old, as was the case here.

I greeted my open house visitors as I scraped out putty, removed old glass, and measured for new glass. I called The Glass Man (“He’ll fix it fast, man,” said the radio ad); he delivered the new pane of glass, putty, glazing points, and putty knife.

One guy, at the open house with his kid, said, “You’re either a well-dressed handyman, or you broke a window.”

“You’re right in both cases,” I said.

The guy let his kid help me roll the putty into worm-like lengths between the palms of our hands. I stuck them to the edges of the newly placed glass. I let the kid spit on the putty knife; then I drew it smoothly and firmly along the glass edges shaping the putty into a nice bevel with clean corners.

I’ve heard it said if you break glass accidentally, you’ll have good luck. As it went, that guy with his kid bought that house, and they became my long-time friends and clients.

Maybe being a life-long glass-breaker isn’t such a bad thing.

“Think like a roofer!” said John James Miskella. John James took it personally when people mistreated their roofs. “See all those leaves sitting on that roof?” he said. “Leaves are acidic, dang it all, acidic! The acid eats through the mineral coating, destroying the shingles. I can’t believe people let layer after layer of leaves pile up and destroy their roof!”

I thought smugly of myself sweeping the leaves off my roof with my push-broom, a commercial variety, with a wide brush made of stiff bristle. I could move a lot of leaves with that broom. Even the deepest layer of leaves, the ones glued to the roofing, came off under the force of that commercial push-broom.

“Worse than the leaves are these idiots with their commercial push-brooms,” said John James. “They brush so hard; they rip the mineral coating clean off the surface and ruin their own roof! Idiots!”

I shook my head as if to say: How could there be such idiots?

Actually, I had recently obtained a commercial-variety leaf-blower which made the job even easier. The leaf-blower made it possible to blow leaves in all directions, not just downhill as with the push-broom.

“Worse than the idiots with their push-brooms,” said John James, “are the maniacs with their commercial-variety leaf-blowers.”

“Oh?” I said innocently, “How could a leaf-blower hurt the roof?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Look,” he said, “these maniacs with their leaf-blowers push the leaves in all directions instead of the proper direction: Downhill!”

“So?”

“So?” he mocked. “So when they blow the leaves sideways and uphill, they force the leaves and grit under the shingles where it rots and destroys the most vulnerable part of the roofing. Can’t they see the shingles flapping under the force of the air from that machine?”

In my mind, I saw a picture of myself on the roof with my leaf-blower; leaves rocketing in all directions as I grinned maniacally, feeling the power of administering hurricane-force winds. Through the storm of leaves and grit I saw the shingles flapping like wings.

“So, what do we tell these idiots?” I asked.

“Trim the branches to eliminate leaves in the first place. Then sweep the leaves gently; or blow them gently: Downhill!” said John James.

He tapped the side of his head. “Think like a roofer!”