When the bough breaks

Brian Wilson

“I’m pretty sure that nothing will go wrong with putting the ladder there.”

I am choosing to treat my son’s comment to me as sarcasm, knowing full well that one does not tempt fate by saying a ladder on anything but firm, dry ground is secure. Even then, I would avoid promising too much, especially when my family is involved, given our seeming ability to gain injuries from just sleeping in bed.

The comment came as we were attempting to get lights and evergreen boughs off of an excessively large wreath in the Medford city park on Monday night.

The wreath was a new addition to the Holiday Magic light display in the Medford city park this year. It measures about 12 feet across and took most of a day to get set up and secured.

When we helped set it up just before Thanksgiving, the primary concern was to make sure it was well-secured and would not topple over in one of the area’s routine winter storms.

As we were working on the wreath, it occurred to me that we may have gone a little overboard in securing the boughs and structure as a whole. These things are always a matter of degree.

Thanks to that ice and snow storm just before Christmas this year, the large decorations placed by the Kiwanis Club got frozen down into snowbanks. To prevent damage to them, we have been waiting for the snow banks to melt in order to access them and put them away for the season. We had taken down as many cords as we could and unplugged everything during a mild day in January, however were unable to access many of the displays, including the large wreath which celebrated not only Christmas but also Valentines Day and St. Patrick’s day.

As anyone who either drives or schedules people to drive plow trucks knows, this year the winter storms dumped on the area mostly on weekends. Invariably the storms would strike on days I had people lined up to help take things down. It doesn’t help much if it is warm and sunny on a Tuesday or Wednesday when I am and all my potential helpers are either at work or school.

Not wanting to have a rapidly browning wreath displayed for Easter weekend, fellow Kiwanian Mike Shiffler sent me a message about working on the wreath on Monday night. I had planning commission and city council that night, but I told him I would call when I got done and drag along my son Alex when he got done with his play practice at the high school.

I was perhaps overly optimistic given the amount of snow melt that has occurred in my front yard in the past few days and did not take into account that the grassy area to the south of the Millpond has snow fence put up across it for a reason.

As we trudged through more than a foot of snow-covered ice, I was forced to pivot in my plans to get the entire wreath down in the hour of sunlight we had remaining. A more realistic goal would be to at least get the boughs and lights off the frame.

We briefly considered the option of setting the boughs ablaze and have a flaming ring of fire, but I did not think that the Medford fire department or the gas station next door would appreciate that option — even if it would be pretty epic.

Instead we balanced the ladder on the frozen-in hay bales and Alex scurried up with snippers to cut the wires holding the boughs in place. When my family members helped decorate the wreath last fall, they followed the philosophy that if one loop of wire was good, 27 loops were better.

Some sections of the wreath required creative placement of the ladder, but we managed to get the job done without a side trip to the hospital. When it comes to members of my family doing a project, this counts as a win to me.

With any hope this week’s rain, along with the forecasted warmer temperatures will melt the remaining snow and actually let me put the wreath and other items away for the season.

Here’s hoping.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.