The story is in the Pipes

Here I am, in Maine at Rose’s house. Rose is my 90 year old mother-in-law. In case you are wondering, yes, we have a great relationship. It’s been a working vacation getting the house ready for this summers rental season. We had the cellar flood, my son’s boat sank at the dock, one of the cabins was infested with mice, the black flies and no-see-ums ate us alive and it’s likely my dog will give me poison ivy again this year. 

 

My father-in-law, Bill, passed in 1998. I was fortunate to meet him just before he died. I only spent a couple days with him but loved him immediately. He has been very present for this vacation. A few days ago, my husband heard his footsteps in the hall when he was upstairs alone. We’ve also had two other isolated events over the years. Friends heard footsteps and witnessed the door knob turning while also upstairs alone. He’s given me channeled messages for Rose, his daughters and my husband. He also shared a story I posted called, Ties that Bind. It’s a great message, you should read it.

 

Well, almost everything in the cellar and cabins had to be thrown out. We were beyond thankful for the five dump guys that came to clear out 30 years worth of memories. Nothing had been moved since Bill’s death. It was strenuous, dirty work but they did an amazing job. Bill had saved all things copper piping in the cellar for years and I just knew he would not allow these to be thrown out. I said, “It’s all right Bill, I’ve got this.” It was dirty and exhausting. I gathered it all up, hauling the buckets of copper fittings and pipes through the bulkhead doors. Several days later, I asked Rose to come with me to cash in the copper piping. She had asked earlier in the week to go to the casino so I thought I would surprise her.

 

The gps took us to the wrong address first, luckily it was only another fifteen minutes to the correct address so that wasn’t too bad. The guy that weighs the copper was really nice. I got a free lesson on clean copper and dirty copper and everything in between. Twenty minutes later, I was headed to the office to get our check. They wrote me a check for $178.50. I gave it to Rose but she wouldn’t take it. I found a way around that! I headed towards the Oxford Casino, stopping at the The Hungry Gull on the way there. She was so excited to order the fried clams with bellies, I ordered a fish sandwich. Well, as is normally the case, she didn’t like them because the breading was too thick. At any rate, it wasn’t cheap. Now, we are headed to the casino. The front door was closed off so we had to enter through the hotel. I dropped her off at the door and parked. She was still waiting for me near the front when I made my way in. The casino required an id to enter and we left hers in the car. So, I run back out to the car, get the id, go back in and now we are ready to win big. I think it took us all of thirty minutes to blow through the rest of our copper pipe money on the slot machines. All is well though, we enjoyed ourselves and had a few laughs.

 

So, here I am. Trying to sleep, Bill, (my father-in-law) keeps me up all night with the strangest but not so strange to me dream. There’s no need to share the details, his message was clear. So, now here I am, sharing our story about the copper pipes for my 100th story. Apparently, my father-in-law loved monumental moments, (That’s another story I posted that you should read.) celebrations and goals being met. Well, here it is Bill. Thanks for the memories!