Beech Tree News Network

Do you remember that scene in the movie, “Christmas Vacation,” where Chevy Chase gets locked in the attic, and he’s walking around on the floor, which is the ceiling below, and he accidentally steps onto the soft plaster and falls through to the bunk beds below?  I did that this weekend, minus the cushy bunk beds below.
    I was in the attic because I need a new car—actually, not a “new” new car, a new-to-me car would do just fine.  I was walking around up there trying to locate a leak that was causing a water stain on the sunroom ceiling below.  It’s spring, which means Garey is covered up with field work and our garden/truck farm, so I figured if I could locate the leak and fix it myself, I could cut out some unnecessary expense, and a better car would be in my near future.
    I drive a 2002 Chevy Impala, which has logged over 200,000 miles.  The car lived in Texas with me for a couple of years, and it has made countless trips to Corner, Alabama, and Taylorsville, Kentucky, where our families live.  There is a whole list of things wrong with it, but considering what I’ve asked of the car, it’s remarkable that it is still road-worthy. 
    I used it on a paper route for a while, which meant I had to replace the transmission and a couple of window motors.  I’ve gotten an undisclosed number of speeding tickets driving between here and Alabama.  The last policeman to pull me over asked if I had a medical emergency.  I wanted to say, “Yes.  If I have to be cooped up in this car with these people for one more hour, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”  I didn’t.  Instead, I said, “No officer, I was just speeding.”  I paid a hefty fine for that incident, enough to fix some of what’s wrong with my car.  Live and never learn.
    All of the problems with my car can be traced back to one source.  It has a wiring problem, and you know what a nightmare that can be to track down.  The turn signals only work if you first turn the emergency flashers on then off.  The trunk button sometimes sticks which means the trunk comes open by itself at indiscriminate times—draining the car battery, if it happens over-night while the car is stationary.  I’ve had the air conditioner fan replaced, but it still only works on wide open, that is when it works at all.  I carry a rubber hammer in the passenger seat, because I’ve found if I hit a certain spot on the dash, just above the fan switch, I can bring it back to life.  The upside with the sticking trunk button is that when it does happen, the air conditioner fan works great, on every speed.  Go figure.
    In my defense, I have enough sense to know that, when in the attic, one walks on the boards, not on the soft plaster between the boards.  It just so happens that we have that blown-in insulation stuff, and the last board I stepped on, before I went crashing through the ceiling to the floor—nine feet below—was actually a strip of plaster, covered with dust-infused insulation, the color of the boards around it. 
    I have several abrasions on the right side of my body from my neck to my hip, but no broken bones; however, the fingertips on my right hand are blue—never had bruised fingertips before.  I fared better than the glass ornaments and stuffed animals I took out on the way down, though.  A box of wine bottles broke my fall without breaking themselves, so I wasn’t cut.
The good news is I located the source of the leak before I fell.   If all goes well, I should be healed enough by the middle of the week to be able to climb up on the roof and put sealer in the crevices that are allowing the water to go through.  My daughter, Natalie, tells me I’m not going up there unless I’m fitted with repelling gear.  She is so overly-protective!