The Turkey Dad Carved One More Time

Finally I found a mobility dealer on the west side of Green Bay that rented out wheelchair minivans by the day. They had one left, a minivan with a fold-out ramp on the side door and floor tracks for the straps.

“A hundred and forty for Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning,” the man said. “Plus the deposit on your card. You ever tied down a chair before?”

“No,” I said. “But I’ve chained down a road grader on a lowboy trailer. I work for the county highway department.”

He laughed. “Then you’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s the same idea, only smaller. Four straps, one at each corner, and a lap belt and shoulder belt for him. I’ll show you.”

I left the shop at noon on Wednesday and drove the hour to Green Bay.

The man was older than me, with a limp of his own, and he took twenty minutes to show me everything. He made me do the straps twice.

“Front straps pull forward and out,” he said. “Back straps pull back and out. Tighten them till the chair can’t rock. Then the belt goes over him, not over the chair. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”

I paid him and drove the van home slow, like I was hauling eggs.

My husband was in the driveway when I pulled in, still in his county coveralls. He drives plow for the county, same as half the men I know.

He walked all the way around that van with his hands in his pockets. Then he went into the garage and came out with his mother’s old wheelchair, the one we had kept since she passed.

“Show me,” he said, and he sat down in it.

So I practiced on my husband in the driveway in the last of the afternoon light, with the neighbor kids watching from their swing set.

I rolled him up that ramp four times. He made me tighten every strap until I could hit the chair with my hip and it did not move.

“The back left one,” he said the third time. “It’s got a twist in it. A twisted strap will slip on you over a bump. Flatten it out.”

I flattened it out. He nodded, and he got out of the chair, and he put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m on standby Thursday,” he said. “They’re calling for snow tonight. If it comes, I’m out on County C all day. If it doesn’t, I’ll meet you at the hall.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Your dad cut me a standing rib roast for our wedding,” he said. “Wouldn’t take a dime. Go get him.”

It did snow, a little, that night. A dusting on the yards and the fields along the highway, not much.

My husband was gone before five. By the time I got up, the sun was out and the roads were bare and wet.

I drove down to Pulaski in the morning and stopped at Dad’s house first. It sits empty now, on a side street off Main, with a lockbox on the door. Bernadette checks on it. I have a key too.

Inside, wrapped in a clean flour sack towel, was his carving knife. A ten inch slicer with a wood handle worn pale where his thumb went. Beside it was his old steel and a sharpening stone in a coffee can.