Quicksilver

If it weren't for something I did as a kid, who knows? My IQ might be a few points higher.

When I was in grade school, I went to a dentist (I'll call him Dr. X) in downtown Juneau. He was "old school," still using what I refer to as a "jack hammer drill," when other dentists were beginning to use the much gentler air drills. Despite his drill, Dr. X. was nice, but his assistant, who was also the receptionist, played "bad cop" to his "good cop." I remember her slapping my white knuckles when I had them clamped to the arm of the chair during one of those drilling sessions. "Don't squeeze so tight," she said. "You have to relax." Yeah, sure!

Anyway, Dr. X had a supply of mercury, also known as quicksilver, as all dentists did back then, to make those mercury amalgam fillings that lots of modern dentists are removing from our mouths, saying they are not safe. (I know that the ADA disagrees. I don't intend to get into that debate here.) So, after one somewhat traumatic dentist visit, Dr. X was kind enough to try to appease me by giving me a little bottle of mercury to take home and play with. The silvery blob was about the size of a pea. I loved playing with it -- rolling it around on a table, and breaking it up by squishing it with my finger, then pushing it back together into a single ball. It was also great fun to rub it onto a dime or a quarter, and watch it bond with the coin, making it shinier than when it was new.

I can't even tell you what eventually happened to that first blob of mercury (now that's a scary thought), but one day I was telling my fourth-grade friend, Joyce B., what fun mercury was to play with. She wanted to try it, too. So, after school, we went up to Dr. X's office, together, and sweetly asked him if we might "buy" another blob of mercury from him. He laughed, pulled his jar full of mercury (it was very heavy!) from a cabinet and dropped another pea-sized ball of it into a small vial for us. He said there was "no charge."

Joyce and I spent the afternoon playing with it, and then, when it was time for Joyce to go home, we had to decide how to share the little silvery blob. We decided, rather than dividing it, to have "shared custody." Joyce would take it home that night and bring it to school the next day; then I would take it home, and so forth. But the next day, Joyce came to school without the mercury, and with a severe case of fury. She told me that her parents said that I had to buy her a new gold ring. She had played with the mercury the night before, wearing a little gold band that her Grandma had given her. The mercury bonded to the ring and ruined it.

If destroying one gold ring was the only consequence of our experimentation, I now know we should be thankful. Here's what Jim Lehrer had to say on the subject, in a 2005 Newshour Extra special for students:

"Mercury, shiny, silver and odorless in its elemental form, is toxic. When released it breaks up into tiny beads that can be inhaled or ingested, causing shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and even death. It is especially harmful to the brains and nervous systems of children."

Back then Joyce and I (and a lot of other kids) played with this fascinating, but toxic, substance, in ignorance; and Joyce and I were spared, by God's grace, any serious side effects. But we all know better these days. Be sure your kids or grandkids don't get their hands on any quicksilver.

Thanksgiving Fireworks

Friday night we went out to dinner with Keith and Sherry. It was an evening of good food and even better conversation. Toward the end of dinner, Sherry and I started putting our heads together about Thanksgiving dinner. It's been our custom, in recent years, to have Thanksgiving here at our house, with Keith, Sherry and their son, Reed; Tim; my mother, when she doesn't have other plans, in Carlsbad; and, depending on the year, a variety of others. It's a time I look forward to all year, although, at our table Friday evening we all agreed that we might try something different this year. Not that we know what that "something" would be, but we're all in the mood to shake things up a bit.

As we were talking, I recalled a Thanksgiving 15-or-so years ago. We were living in Newberg, and Mom and Dad, Dan and I and the boys all decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant instead of at home. On SW Terwilliger Avenue, in Portland, high on the hill overlooking the Willamette River, sits the Chart House. The entire front of the building is glass, and the view is a panorama of the city. We'd heard that their Thanksgiving dinner, served family style, was "as good as a home-cooked meal," so we decided to give them a try.

When we arrived, we were seated at our table, which was draped in linen, lit by candles, and next to the windows. Everyone in the restaurant was there for the same reason - to celebrate Thanksgiving with their loved ones. I remember seeing heads bowed, at a number of tables, as the families offered thanks to God for their blessings. There seemed to be, both, an atmosphere of festivity and of reverence in the room.

We hadn't been there long before platters and bowls filled with delectable turkey and all its trimmings were brought to our table. We were about to pass the dishes around the table and fill our plates when we saw a series of spectacular, explosive flashes of light near the waterfront, on the other side of the river. Then we saw, from our hilltop vantage, the lights of emergency vehicles coming from different directions, but all heading toward the continuing explosions.

People from all of the tables got to their feet and came to peer out the windows. As we continued watching, we saw flames and smoke rising from the same vicinity. Some who were familiar with that part of town said that the building was an electrical substation, and that the flashes of lights must be exploding transformers. We watched whole sections of Portland go dark as electrical power went down. And then . . . our lights, in the Chart House, also went out.

What impressed me about that evening was how the fire, the explosions, and the resulting loss of power drew that room full of people together. Before the spectacular fireworks each party had been in a world of its own. But now we were talking with people who had been complete strangers only minutes before. There was a feeling of camaraderie as we stood there, in the candle-lit room, sharing stories and information and, in some cases, exchanging names.

We all eventually drifted back to our own tables and enjoyed our Thanksgiving meals, as individual families, by candle-light. But there was a new awareness of those around us and a feeling that we were all connected, somehow, by the events we had shared.

Where is Chris?

The Sunday morning worship service had been over for about ten minutes, Dan and I had been visiting with friends, and Chris, who was probably close to three years old, had disappeared. That was nothing new. He is probably with his buddy, Jonathan, I thought; but I'd better go see what they are up to.

I looked outside first, and saw Jonathan and a couple of other children playing "chase," but Chris wasn't with them. "Whoa, Jonathan," I said, as he whipped by me. "Do you know where Chris is?" He paused only long enough to shake his head "no." So I continued my search -- classrooms, bathrooms, and then the small multi-purpose room that had a kitchenette at one end.

That's where I found him. He was all alone in the room, sitting on the floor, beside a utility cart. The cart was used to store the communion trays and cups, after worship, until someone could take care of them. He had discovered the remaining pieces of unleavened bread (matza crackers), and was stuffing them in his mouth with both hands and with vigor. When I opened the door, our eyes met, and he froze. His cheeks were pooched out with crackers. But he was a quick thinker, even at that age. Remembering the answer I'd given him time and again, when he had asked me about communion, he said, with crumbs flying out of his mouth, "I'm remembering Jesus, Mommy."

Ouch! That Hurt!

Lately my friend, Gloria, and I have been emailing. She's still as sweet and generous as she's always been - even telling me how cute my grandbaby is, when she has two adorable ones of her own!

Probably because of our recent correspondence, Newberg has been on my mind lately, including this incident that happened sometime back in the '80s.

Gloria and I were both at the church building in the middle of the week, working on bulletin boards and teaching aids for our up-coming Vacation Bible School. The only other person in the building was our youth minister, Brad. When it was time to leave, I had a huge armful of class materials that needed to go to my car, which was parked in the lot to the side of the building. It was raining hard (uh-huh, it was Oregon), and I didn't want to get the materials wet. Our church building was sort of an A-frame, although the roof didn't go clear to the ground. And the leading edge of the roof overhung the front of the building a few feet. I figured if I stayed close to the building, and ran through the flower bed instead of walking on the sidewalk, I would be sheltered by the overhanging roof, and could stay dry.

Off I ran, keeping right against the front wall, head down, watching where my feet were going (that was my mistake). All of a sudden WHAM! Some immovable, very hard object clubbed me on the forehead so hard that I was out like a light. I regained consciousness in a couple minutes, and found myself lying on my back in the flower garden, with Brad's and Gloria's concerned faces looking down at me. It took awhile for me to realize what had happened. As I had come to the corner of the building, I ran smack-dab into the 2x4 that was at the bottom of the roof edge. My description may not make any sense, so I've drawn a rough sketch so you'll understand. (Okay, maybe my sketch is even less effective than my words! I'm no artist.)

Once I was on my feet again with Brad's help, and once my head had cleared, I realized what a stupid thing I had done, and was feeling terribly embarrassed. That's when Brad said, "I only know of one other person who has ever done that!"

What a relief! I wasn't the only person who had fallen prey to this wicked, sneaky roof line; maybe I wasn't such a dunderhead. "I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one!" I said, while the big goose-egg throbbed on my forehead. "Who was the other person?"

Brad's answer: "Um . . . It was a blind man who was here, having a Bible study with me."