As Roseanne Rosannadanna used to say on Saturday Night Live, "It's always something..."
My daughter worries about Global Warming, as well she should. I guess every generation has its bogeyman. When I was younger than she, during the cold heart of the Cold War, I used to live in fear of Soviet nuclear missiles striking the Bay Area. I can remember poring over maps in the SF Chronicle that highlighted likely targets, surrounding them with overlapping circles to indicate the extent and levels of destruction expected from hypothetical nuclear warheads of various megatons. Needless to say, the outlook was bleak. As tensions ebbed and flowed between Moscow and Washington, my only solace was that I would be assured of instant obliteration and would never know a thing. Small consolation, to be sure.
Fortunately, I'm still here, and while the Cold War has been replaced by similar threats from North Korea and Iran, I'm less worried these days. So, this weekend I undertook to repair a leaky window sill in my bathroom. (That may sound like a non-sequitor, but read on.) Kind of a tricky project, but as I tore out and replaced rotting wood, reinstalled the aluminum trim and neatly caulked everything, I reflected on how much more efficient I am at this sort of thing than I used to be. Today, I am all about making things just strong enough to last for the foreseeable future. Or, in theatrical terms (since I also do a bit of set design and construction), until just after closing night. Light and elegant appeals to me now, in stark contrast to how I used to build things.
Back in my youth, I sought the kind of solidity that one typically finds in 18th century Spanish Colonial furniture. Perhaps it was a survivalist instinct born of the Cold War, but I tended toward the massive "can't-deforest-the-planet-soon-enough" kind of construction. I was in this mind-set when, at the age of 14, I decided that I absolutely had to have a genuine captain's bed. You know, the kind with drawers underneath. And rather than simply going out and purchasing one, I was going to build it from scratch. Sort of.
Fortunately, my father liked to encourage this sort of activity. I presume he thought it was character-building. It certainly wasn't economical if you considered the cost of time and materials, but at least the time was my own. Heck, based on materials alone, it still wasn't economical.
We went to the Goodwill store in San Rafael and purchased a small chest of drawers, around which I would build the bed, since I didn't feel up to that level of carpentry. I knew vaguely what I wanted: several drawers along one side and a capacious cubby running the whole length, which could contain larger items, such as my skis. I could even hide in it, should the occasion arise - a combination "safe room" (slash) family crypt (slash) make-shift bomb shelter (see above).
Then I got to work. I churned out drawing after drawing on ¼ inch graph paper, taking into account the vagaries of dimensional lumber, the need for a secure fastening system and a list of materials required. I was stalling, but this was to be the bed of my dreams. Again, I was thinking archival construction, so I opted for a rigid frame of mostly 2x3 inch Douglas fir, lap-jointed and held together with stout 3-1/2 inch galvanized wood screws counter-sunk to a precise depth of 1-1/2 inches. Lest the mattress platform fail to support my Herculean 120 or so pounds, I opted for a sheet of 3/8 inch plywood on top. At this point, the bed was definitely in the heavy-weight category, tipping the scales at just under three thousand pounds.
The finishing touch was to be the siding. I hemmed and hawed for nearly a year over the choice of wood and the difficulty of mitering the siding's corners. Meanwhile, the bed languished in our basement.
Finally, my father had had enough. Get the thing completed was his loud-and-clear message, mixed in with a healthy dose of "you never finish anything you start" character assassination. He took out a second mortgage and we bought sixty linear feet of beautiful 3/4 x 10 inch clear redwood shelving. Mitering the corners turned out to be much easier than I feared, and the captain's bed was done at last. I can't recall how we managed to get it from the basement up to my room, though I think it may have involved earthen ramps and catapults, similar to the construction of the pyramids at Giza. But I finally had my bed and it was indeed spectacular. Architectural Digest inquired about doing a photo spread, but I preferred my anonymity.
Twelve years later, when I moved to Berkeley to attend acting school, the "bed-hemoth" went with me, having at one time been expanded to accommodate a more girl-friendly double mattress. At least I had modified it to be transported in two still-gigantic but manageable pieces. Two years later, I moved to Hollywood and tearfully bequeathed "Bed-zilla" to my housemate, Steve Schleimer. That was in 1984.
I sometimes wonder where that captain's bed has gone to. Does it still even exist, or has it been taken apart and used to build low-income housing in Emeryville? Perhaps I will never know. Or perhaps the world will end in fire someday, as I feared. As the smoke clears from the wreckage of our doomed civilization, the indestructible bed will be the only remaining structure among the smoldering ruins. Not even the long-heralded cockroaches will have survived. But, wait. Slowly the cubby door swings open and a young couple emerges into the eerie post-apocalyptic haze, holding hands and gazing in wonderment upon the exact piece of sturdy furniture they will need to re-populate the human race.
Whoever you are, Adam and Eve from the future, you're welcome.
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