Jericho: The Ghost of Frank Wolk

Halloween, my favorite holiday. I've toned down my pursuit of this holiday as the years have gone by. As much as I love the dress up and the assuming of characters for one night of fun, people around me seem less and less interested in the holiday. "It's for kids," they say. I couldn't disagree more, but it's no fun if I am the only one playing.

However, beyond the candy and costumes, there is something more to this holiday. The veil between the world of the living and what is beyond does somehow seem thinner. As a younger man I denied all of this as hogwash and poppycock, but in my dotage, well, let me tell you what happened to me today.

I like sunglasses. Max can tell you I have a long history with the things. I like big, cheap, dark shades. If you put them on, they take up your whole face, you can't see out of them and they cost less than $10 - they are perfect! If welding masks were a little cheaper and a little more stylish, I would just wear them.

But, I have problems. First, I have a HUGE head. Just big. So, I have to find really large glasses. Second, they are never dark enough. It would seem these days that people want to see out of their glasses. I hate sunlight, the darker the better. And, last, there's cost. I just can't bring myself to pay $60 or more for a pair of shades. I wear my glasses hard and I would be replacing the expensive ones probably as often as the cheap ones. So, why fork out $80 bucks and have the things get dropped and scratched, when I can buy a pair for $15 and replace them a year later when I can stand the scratches any more?

Anyway, in the last few years, I have had a succession of cheap shades. I have kept the dead soldiers in my drawer at work after they broke or whatever. This has been handy, as I had been buying a particular cheap brand and using the dead shades for replacement parts.

Today, I opened that drawer for another reason and found the pile of left-over bits. I have a pair of shades now, they were $6.50 (woo hoo!), and they are fairly dark, but not big enough. However, as I looked at that pile, I had a feeling come over me. The spooky part was, I knew instantly what that feeling was!

My grandfather, Frank Wolk, was an infamous tinkerer. The man had an entire garage full of tools, he even used some of them. He often had two if not three cars that all ran at least some of the time. They were held together with duct-tape, wire clothes hangers, bubble gum and prayer. He could, and would, jury-rig anything. The thing might only work for a little while, but by gum, it worked! Now and then his fixes would last and last. There was a bit of magic in his madness. Sometimes, when I'm working on a computer problem, I like to think some of his magic rubbed off on me.

Today, I had proof that Frank Wolk's genes ran in my blood. I looked at that pile of broken shades and at the little glasses screw driver I keep around to keep my shades in tact, and before I knew it, my fingers were working on their own. When I was done, the bits from three different pairs of sunglasses had merged with three screws and had become one new and rather nice looking pair of shades.

Now, I know they may not last, but, even if I only wear them once, it will have been worth the effort. On this sunny Halloween day in the Pacific North West, I felt the presence of my Grandfather and I created something new and good from a pile of plastic crap. Thanks, Granpa.