Patching Jeans (not genes)

      No, they are not genetically modified, but they are jeanetically modified.

     They are my work jeans.  They have holes in the knees.  I know, I am perfectly in style wandering around the farm with my knees showing.

      I also am perfectly aware that when I kneel down to plant a seed or work on a piece of equipment, bare knees on bare ground isn’t always a pleasant meeting.  Think of pebbles below and body weigh above the kneecap.  Or thorns and stickers, or dried cedar needles.

    Thus, I look for ways to patch jeans.  My time-tested means left the earth over twenty years ago.  My mother, I mean.  She would sew on jean patches whenever I needed them.  She also would wrap glass gallon jugs with burlap, gunny sacks, too, but that’s beside the point right now.

     The Goodwife would occasionally patch a pair of jeans, but sometimes the pile of holey jeans got quite high before anything joined the patched pile.  So, I set out to patch jeans myself.

     I have never learned to operate a sewing machine.  I think I should learn that, but the time is never right to set out on that adventure.  Probably too frustrating for a guy who already cusses at broom handles that won’t stay put leaning against the wall.

     I tried iron-on patches.  They worked well until I washed the jeans.  Then, the edges commence to curl like a pig’s tale.  Quite annoying, not to mention dangerous, if a protruding patch should find itself in contact with a roller chain operating a part of a machine.

      In despair after two separate attempts to use iron-on patches.  I sent a batch of holey jeans to Goodwill.  Heaven only knows if I might have met a young lady wearing them in church.  I guess I would have had to gone to church in order to see that.  But you catch my drift.

     I also looked into fabric glue.  I knew enough about quilting to know that there are products out there that are supposed to hold two pieces of fabric together with glue.  When I asked the young lady in the quilt shop if she had any, she said they had nothing permanent, that what they had was just to hold things in place until you could stitch it more permanently.  Scratch that idea.

      The best ideas come from chance occurrences.  Several times a week, in fair weather, we stroll down the street enroute to the walkway around two separate lakes, or ponds if you are east of the Mississippi.  Our initial ”good day” greetings have, in a few cases, expanded into genuine conversations with some of the folk working in yard or garage along the way.

     Thus it was, I asked Mike, as I eyed the knee patches on his blue jeans, if he knew how to run a sewing machine.  Mike calls himself a garage rat.  We call him a fair-weather barometer.  If it’s a nice day, Mike’s garage door will be open, and as often as not, he will be doing something in his garage, like building a set of speaker boxes out of plywood.  He’s always willing to step out of his garage and shoot the breeze in the sunlight.

      Mike looked at me blankly and asked why I would ask if he could run a sewing machine.  I pointed out his patched knees.  He laughed and said, “Silicone.”

      “Silicone?” I asked.  Yes, silicone, plain old window and door stuff or bathtub and sink stuff that comes in a squeeze tube.  You cut the patch to fit and coat the edges with silicone and apply it to the holes in the pant legs of your jeans.  Let it set for a few days, and voila!  You have patched jeans.

      It took a while before I could attempt using silicone to patch my jeans.  When I did get to it, I thought  that in light of recent changes to my middle, such as having to move up from 32-inch waist to 33-inch waist, I had better choose carefully the jeans to patch.

     After my despairing cull job, the candidates were not particularly numerous.  Having selected a likely pair, I grabbed a tube of caulk designed for tub or shower.  I carefully applied the silicone around the holes in the pant leg and to the edges of the patch itself.  I carefully placed the patch into position with seams bordering the sides and centered over the failed jean fabric on the pants. 

     A few days later, as I checked the jeans, left on the cement of the basement floor, I found the caulk unset, still a jelly.  And still sticky.  I had a mess.

     While the caulk wouldn’t dry, it would spread to other surfaces and be rather hard to remove.  Faced with two choices, I decided to reclaim the project rather than trash-canning it.  My first stop was the trash basket where I recovered a few used paper towels and napkins.  Snotty Kleenex need not apply.  (You wouldn’t expect a person patching jeans to use new paper towels for a job like this would you?) 

     I managed to get most of the recalcitrant caulk off the jeans.  The granite kitchen counter cleaned up nicely.  (It’s probably fake granite, but it still cleaned up nicely.)

    I was ready to try, try, try again.  I had another old tube of silicone, but this time I determined to try its effectiveness before I applied it to the jeans.  I applied a shaft about two inches long to a near-to-hand 6-pack holder.  A day later, it had turned to rubber and adhered nicely to the cardboard.

    Onward with the experiment.  I re-applied silicone to around the knee holes and the edges of the patch.  I carefully aligned the patch between the seams and over the hole and returned the jeans to the basement cement floor where any leakage could be cleaned up and wouldn’t be forever in a carpet.

      Two days later, the patches were firmly affixed to the jeans.  But the experiment isn’t over.  The patches haven’t been subjected to numerous genuflections and kneelings.  Nor have they encountered clothes washer, dryer, or clothes line. 

 

     Later:  The patches weathered the work world well.  I got into a dispute with a couple of hydraulic hoses, resulting in dirty jeans, not to mention oily spots all over my glasses and additions to grease spots on my shirt.

     A trip through the washing machine was required.

 

     Ouch!  Back to the drawing board, or just ash-can it?  I need to talk with Mike again, to see if his patches weathered the washing machine.  

     Three possibilities:  1) The silicone was also old, even though it set up well.  2) I used window and door caulk.  Should it be the tub and shower variety?  3)  Change brands of caulk?  I used Ace Hardware variety.  Try another brand?  (GE need not apply.) 

     My apologies that there isn’t a better ending to this story.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Disney on Ice

 

     “I think we may have got the B-Team.”

     That comment came from a dancer who watched the wavy lines of the “dancers” on ice skates as they stretched across the hockey rink.  True, the chorus line didn’t line up nearly as precisely as the Rockettes.  I noticed it, too, but it wasn’t that much of a distraction for 2-left-feet me.

      I got lost in the lighting and the special effects, and trying to follow the Disney story lines.  I recognized Aladdin, Snow White, and of course Mickey and Minnie, Goofy, Donald Duck (no nephews), and a few others.  I had to rely on Grandson to enlighten me when it came to sisters Elsa and Anna, one of the major story lines.

     Elsa was a goddess whose anger could turn July into winter, complete with snow falling, and inflict Anna’s heart with ice because she wanted to marry the handsome Prince after only one brief meeting.  Elsa departs and Anna sets out to find her to convince her to return the weather to July and bless her union with the handsome Prince. 

    In the quest, Anna runs into some real characters including a snowman who is the only one who truly appreciates winter in July, and a wart hog, which had to be a skater with skates on his hands, skating around bent over enough for his hands to contact the ice.  What a backache he must have after his appearance.

 

     Anna also encounters a young, humble woodsman who has an interest in helping to find Elsa and convincing her to return the climate to July (a refreshing change from climate warming).  Together, they  find Elsa, who in anger not only refuses to correct the weather, but turns Anna’s heart to ice.

     The only way for Anna to get her warm heart back is by true love.  The handsome Prince tries to revive her but fails!  It takes the young woodsman kneeling by her side to revive Anna.  The truth dawns on all of them, except the poor old obtuse Prince. 

     Elsa was right.  A match between Anna and the Prince was not made in heaven.  When the Prince steps in and tries to claim the newly-revived Anna, he is rewarded with a brisk slap to the face from Anna.  She and the woodsman are destined to live happily ever after.

      The snow stops, the sun comes out, every body is happy except the poor old snowman, who has been such a help in locating and placating Elsa. He realizes that his day is about done, but he says it’s worth a meltdown to see Elsa, Anna, and the woodsman so happy.  Elsa rewards him with a permanent cloud of snow flakes and cold to accompany him everywhere he goes.   Thus, they ALL live happily ever after, a truly Disney ending, with a year-round snowman.

      As I watched the story unfold in lots of song and dance, I thought this is just like opera, except for the absence of fat ladies and rigidly-erect baritones singing with vibrato ranging a full step above and below the note.  I had to back off that judgment and think, this is a musical on ice, with the skaters doing the dancing to canned music, music like most performances these days, too loud.

     It wasn’t as loud as the noise played during a hockey game, but loud enough I had crammed pieces of Kleenex in my ears because I forgot to bring my ear plugs.  I told the usher that he should have a private concession and offer ear plugs for sale to those he helped to seat.  He laughed and said I could probably get ear plugs from the head office, but I said Kleenex would work.

    There were other characters I hadn’t a clue about, such as the Chinese warriors, whom I mistakenly referred to as Samurai.  I got severely corrected for not knowing that they were Chinese and not Japanese.  Oh well. They all rook arike.  Uh oh.  I have crossed the line of political correctness.

     The whole experience took me back nearly 70 years when Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Dell took us all to the “ice follies” or “ice capades.”  I remember the colored lighting, especially the blue.  There were probably a lot more colors that I couldn’t see.  I remember Peter Pan, in green, streaking across the sky in front of us, and later Wendy and maybe a kid or two, all able to fly.

    The other thing I remember was Uncle Wilbur insisting he buy snow cones for us, and I insisted on a blue one.  It was pina colada, and it tasted terrible.  I sat there with the thing melting in my hand.  The adults didn’t want it and they were debating what to do with it. 

      Uncle Wilbur took it from me and threw it down behind the seats.  We must have been near the top of the coliseum, because there weren’t any chairs behind us.  I’m sure Mom was scandalized.  I guess I must have felt something in that way, too, as I still remember Uncle Wilbur’s trespass all these years later.

 

       From an old person’s point of view:  As this show opened, the skaters all came out in their leotards and circled the ice several times, as a sort of warm up, I think.  One of the best skaters I saw out there had a bald spot on the top of his head near the back, and a receding hairline. 

 

       I enjoyed the experience of Disney on Ice.  Everyone should take in the ice follies once or twice in a lifetime.  One of the best things about this experience: It was right here in Loveland.   I didn’t have to go to Denver to enjoy it.

 

In the audience: