My Ebenezer

March 22, 2007, 7:45 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Steve  | 6 Comments

Sometime last year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, my car had a blowout while I was driving to a friend’s house with my brother, bweinh.com co-contributor Tom. I eased the Lumina onto the muddy shoulder of the road and we went about changing the tire; he pulled my spare out of the trunk while I put the jack together and started to hoist the car into the air. The lug nuts were protected by plastic covers and I quickly removed them — all but one. Tom and I took turns trying to free it with various improvised tools, but it had somehow become warped and twisted, its threads stripped by the pressure that had wedged it deep into the wheel. It wasn’t until two state troopers arrived that the pressure of being observed gave me the power to finally pull it free.

I stuck the deformed sheath in my coat pocket and headed over to my friend’s house. That weekend I bought a set of new tires, and since I have two winter coats, I didn’t run across the cover again for a few weeks, when I discovered it again sticking my hands in my pockets on a particularly cold trek to school. I left it there for a few days, but ultimately found it too interesting to throw away. I knew I probably wouldn’t keep the car after its inspection ran out in December, so I considered just sticking the lug nut cover somewhere in my files as a souvenir.

Then one day, in one of the more deserted staircases, I noticed a window extended below the floor of the landing I was on — just the sort of thing I love to physically investigate. I crawled onto the windowsill and lowered myself below the floor, where I found another level of the staircase, accessible in only three ways: the windowsill, a locked door at the top of the new stairs (the bottom of the level I had come from), and a locked door directly in front of me. Without a key, there was nothing else I could do, except remember the spot in the unlikely occurrence of a rousing game of law school hide-and-seek.

But I decided to leave a little token of my presence behind — that twisted plastic lug nut cover. I put it on the window, where it couldn’t be reached from the upper landing and couldn’t be seen from the lower landing. I’ll be the only one who sees this little guy, I thought, and every time I go up and down this staircase, I’ll look over and remember a time in late November, as the intense pressure of finals approached, when I climbed into a secret little cave and left myself a symbolic reminder.

A message to myself, a hope that things would get better, a token of accomplishment — something tangible I had done, however small.

An ebenezer, if you will, a memorial stone.

And in the months since, it’s worked out exactly that way, and more so. Every time I walk up or down that staircase, I look, and that weird little lug nut cover is there, and I remember. And I smile. Every time.

More than any other object in that entire building, that piece of plastic has brought me joy, no matter what my mood, no matter where I’m going. It’s my own inside joke. It’s not too much of a stretch to think it might be there next year when I come back, or even a few years from now — that window doesn’t open and there’s no reason why anyone else will even see it, let alone move it. But I’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts.

In what small ways have you made your mark on the world around you?
What secret trail have you left behind?


Comments

6 Comments to “My Ebenezer”

  1. Mom on March 23rd, 2007 1:22 pm

    If I’m not mistaken there are some hidden messages in the Houghton library as well…

    Do you do this in all of your schools? What secrets does Sackets Harbor hold?

  2. Josh J on March 24th, 2007 3:38 pm

    Steve Maxon,

    I could almost – ALMOST – forgive you for selling me out for a woman. But your MOM knows too?!?

    If I am ever in deadly peril, I guess I know where I’m not leaving my secret plea for help.

  3. Steve on March 24th, 2007 3:52 pm

    Ah, but Mom doesn’t have the call number, friend. We have other ways of communicating, she and I.

  4. Steve on August 7th, 2007 5:49 pm

    By the way, I stopped by the school a few weeks back and although someone had moved my lug nut cover — it was still there. So I put it back where it was. I’ll visit again soon.

  5. Brian on August 7th, 2007 9:33 pm

    You should take a picture of it, and include it in the post.

  6. Steve on May 22nd, 2008 11:18 pm

    Now there are pictures: here and here and here.

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