Our fridge died the other day. It wasn’t particularly dramatic – there was no overwrought moaning, a promise to see us in heaven, etc. – just a tiny puddle of water that indicated that the compressor was no longer really compressing and it was time to send it out to the farm with the other dribbling refrigerators for a nice, long rest.
We’d gotten 20 years of loyal service out of that fridge, and people tell me we were lucky. But in my world, refrigerators last a lot longer than that. Why, back in my ancestral home in Cleveland, my grandmother’s upstairs apartment was grandmother-free for decades, yet her refrigerator sailed on – it was still running when my father passed away, more than fifty – fifty! – years after we bought it. And when my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, sold her aunt’s house the year we got married, there was a fifty-year-old fridge puttering happily along in the kitchen.
Now, sure, these refrigerators lacked those newfangled gadgets like ice makers and energy efficiency and any useful way of removing the six inches of ice from the freezer compartment, but they knew what they were doing. They’d sit on the front stoop, glaring at the young whippersnapper refrigerators making ice and telling you you were out of milk over WiFi, muttering about how nobody these days knew how to really keep things cold, the sort of cold that makes you forget about your extremities and start to think about hibernation.
And there are days, as you might imagine, when I feel like those refrigerators. Not the ones which have given up the ghost, mind you – I’m pleased to report that I’m not yet leaving puddles on the floor – but the ones that keep running out what seems like sheer spite.
Now, truth be told, I’ve thought about hanging it up – unplugging myself and moving off to a corner of the kitchen, where people might occasionally open me up and wonder what the odd smell is. Because the aftermath of the pandemic has really – and I mean really – put a dent in my stage time. The open mikes I used to frequent are gone, dead, sleeping with the fishes, and an old friend of mine suspects that they’re not coming back – there are too many other ways to share your music, he says, and running one of those iconic open mikes is just too much damn work, and he’s definitely in a position to know. And a bunch of the venues are dead as well, as we have all lamented. And for an old refrigerator like me, plugging along with his ancient compressor and retro styling, well, it’s a little hard to adapt.
But adapt I must, because, well, I’m a hog for the spotlight. Retirement does not suit me, in spite of the increasing amount of energy required for a smaller amount of cool. I’m still writing excellent songs, and I’m still killing it on stage – at least, in those limited opportunities I still have to do so. I’m still one of the hosts of the Somerville Songwriter Sessions, and there will be new opportunities to find, and new people to meet, and more and more situations where I find it advantageous to leave the home. It’s gonna be work – and heaven knows, I’m not as aerodynamic as some of these younger units – but as long as there’s still cooking to be done, I’m determined to continue to help keep it cool.
Happy new year, everybody.