A dustpan and broom

Sep 11, 2023

Last winter, I was packing my things eager to return home to California from Rochester. Dad called and asked me to stop off at a hardware store on my way to his apartment. When I asked him why, he said, “I made a big mess this morning. I spilled coffee grounds all over the floor. I need you to buy me a dustpan and broom.”

Trying to conjure the scene, I noted that Dad wanted a hardware store, not a hospital. So, no skin burns. Just a mess. “Don’t you have a Dustbuster or something?” I asked.

“No, buy me a broom and dustpan.” Dad was insistent.

“Isn’t there someone there who can help you, a janitor or something?”

“No staff today.”

I was sure I’d been to Dad’s apartment many times on Sunday. The place, an independent living facility, employed fitness class leaders, janitors, restaurant workers, even a rabbi. Surely a vacuum could be located on the premises for me to borrow for fifteen minutes. I said as much to Dad.

“No, no. Go to the store. Buy me a brush and dustpan.”

“On my way,” I said. But as I finished packing, I knew I wasn’t heading to a hardware store. Though I wasn’t going to argue further with Dad, I wasn’t going to follow his instructions. I didn’t want to go looking for a Home Depot. I didn’t want to look around the Home Depot for brooms and dustpans. And I didn’t want to deal with the check-out procedure, “Are you a member of our rewards club?” “Do you want a bag?” “Did you want to contribute $1 to the animal rescue league?” No, I just want to spend a little more time with Dad before I get on the plane back to California. Dad and I had a long history listening to each other and then going our own way.

The expressway exit for Dad’s apartment was Winton Road. Dad’s voice in my head said “Win-Tone Road,” imitating one of the Russian émigrés that Mom had tutored back in the 1990s. I found myself saying it aloud, though I probably did not sound Russian.

Heading South on Winton, Dad’s voice in my head now said, “All this land used to be Max Groos’ farm.” Though I have no memory of meeting Dad’s old business competitor, I’ve heard several stories about him since Dad moved to the independent living facility located on or adjacent to Groos’ old farm. Dad’s favorite story about Groos, who’d been born in the same small town in Germany, centered on Groos’ “old country thinking.” Groos had a car with a broken heater. Rather than trade in the jalopy or fix the heater, Groos elected to keep a blanket in the car. When he got cold, he unfolded the blanket onto his lap. In Rochester, this could have gone on for months each winter.

I don’t think Dad saw Groos as cheap, frugal, crazy, or stupid. A farmer who liked bright and shiny things, like those royal blue Harvestore silos all the rage in the 1970s, was a farmer on the path to bankruptcy. Groos did not go bankrupt. He might have died a millionaire, having bought farmland in the 1940s in what turned into a very desirable suburb after the Second World War.

The on-duty desk clerk in Dad’s building was happy to lend me the upright vacuum which lived in the director’s office. I rolled the machine through the corridors. I waved to the coffee sippers, the group of men who congregated at ten-ish every day next to the communal coffee pot. Dad used to like that group, I thought. But between COVID and his declining hearing, and maybe the fact that he knew all their stories, Dad was no longer a coffee sipper.

I found Dad asleep in his recliner, TV volume set to a level where he’d never notice a fire alarm. I rubbed his forearm and called his name. It took him a split-second to wake up. He smiled at me. Then he noticed the vacuum. He quickly maneuvered the recliner into the upright position and rocked himself out of the chair. I noticed that where his feet touched down, the wall-to-wall carpet was wearing thin and stained from dirt. Speaking of a good use for the vacuum.

Back in the kitchen, there was a small mound of dry coffee grounds on the floor. Easy peasy, I thought. I plugged in the vacuum. When I turned it on, it made a lot of noise but didn’t seem to suck. As I was trying to figure out how to get the machine working, Dad cried out, “No, no!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “I’ll have this cleaned up in a minute. I just need to figure out the machine.”

“I wanted to save those coffee grounds. They are perfectly fine. I can still use them.”

Maybe Max Groos was yelling at me along with Dad, worried that I was wasting something “perfectly fine,” concerned at my lack of “old country thinking,” or angry about me not following Dad’s wishes. But I switched on the vacuum so no one could hear me laugh.