I HAD LEARNED that the best time to bring such things up was over dinner, preferably late in the meal. I knew, too, that I had to be careful not to give the whole plan away at once, since my father had noticed—and on occasion had pointed out to me—the fact that some of the projects I undertook didn’t turn out quite as I had advertised them before I began. It would be best, I reasoned, not to announce my intention to build a lighthouse, especially since lighthouses were a touchy subject in my family. I’d once hoped that my father would build one for me, right through the center of our house. He’d started, but in the middle of the project he’d thought better of it—though I certainly wouldn’t have put it that way—and abandoned the project. It would be best, then, to claim that I had something else in mind, something more modest. I asked permission to build a shack.
“A shack?” said my father.
From something in his voice, and from the way he stopped his fork on its way to his mouth and looked at me over it, I realized that I had chosen the wrong word.
“Well,” I said, “not a shack, a hut.”
“A hut?”
Wrong again, apparently. “A fort,” I tried.
“A fort? What kind of fort?”
Apparently, that wasn’t going to work either. “More like a clubhouse,” I said.
“Oh!” he said. “A clubhouse. Sure. Why not?”
At last. “Great,” I said. “Thanks.”
I SUSPECT that my father didn’t have much faith in my ability to build a clubhouse or a fort or a hut, or even a shack for that matter, and that he expected me to build, no matter what I called it, an eyesore, because he allowed me to build it only if I built it at the top of the hill, where my failure would be hidden by the grove of bamboo.
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, and Reservations Recommended.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post