The last thing I bought at the old Service Merchandise was a kitchen island/Microwave oven stand.
It is a solid piece that came with an ugly hunter green marble top and rolled around on caster wheels.
I was living in Oak Park when I bought it and my girlfriend at the time helped me put it together. It was a three hundred dollar table that I bought for one hundred and six bucks.
Through the years it has labored as a microwave cart, a bar, a side serving table and when my marriage went south, I took it over to the rugby clubhouse kitchen. I was the team cook for a couple years and I needed the extra counter space.
I brought it home to Riverside and it’s been working incredibly as a kitchen island. I have the pots and pans that I use frequently on the shelves and my Boos cutting board lies on the top.
A couple of years ago a corner of the marble cracked off and the rubber on the wheels started disintegrating. It was starting to bother me.
Service Merchandise closed over twenty-three years ago and this thing was starting to show its age.
My cutting board fits just right on the top of the island without the ugly cracked marble. I had Big George hall the stone down to the garbage.
If this was me and my Oldman asked me to throw it away, I would have taken it straight to my room. It was perfect for bouncing quarters off of. Luckily my son isn’t interested in drinking games.
I made some brackets and glued nonskid rubber on the top frame of my island. The cutting board sits nicely inside the makeshift corners.
Yesterday I went over to Menards and bought new caster wheels. I got home and with my electric screwdriver replaced the wheels and now my kitchen island glides quietly across the floor.
The Service Merchandise is now a grocery store and the old Berwyn Car Spindle sculpture that stood in that parking lot is long gone. You know the one… it was featured in a “Wayne’s World” movie.
That was the main feature of my Saturday, putting new wheels on my kitchen island. A sense of accomplishment that was rewarded with a growler from BuckleDown Brewery.
Look at that bottom left hand corner. Take notice that the sunrise is slowly creeping closer to seven o’clock. The sunset is pushing a little quicker than its counterpart toward five o’clock.
Time to answer the call of the wild.
“Dad? Dad? I can’t sleep, will you rub my back” from Hazel.
Which means, soon I’ll be making pancakes for her and her two big brothers. The perfect Sunday morning…
But before I put this piece of chalk down.
I just want to tell you Chalkheads to square your shoulders, bow your neck, place your feet shoulder width and plow through the middle of January with gusto and love.
