MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE (KEN SIEBEN)



Despite the guilt I feel for entertaining this thought, I wish my father would die soon so I wouldn’t have to disappoint him. No, disappoint is not a strong enough word. If I actually do what I’m seriously thinking about doing, it will take away his will to live. He has colon cancer. His condition is not necessarily fatal because it was diagnosed early on. Successful surgery removed all the diseased tissue—at least, that’s what the oncologist said, so now he just has to rest and watch his diet.

I used to love my job when I was younger, but since taking over as master I find myself feeling more and more bored, more like a performer than a craftsman. And I can’t tell if I’m glad about that or ashamed. I could easily be glad because finding a new job means Elaine would marry me and I could look forward to an ordinary, probably happy life. But I don’t want to kill my father by choosing to end a heritage.

I’ll explain my heritage as I do at least twice a day to school groups and other visitors. My name is Abdon Cooper VI. My great-great-great grandfather, Abdon Küfer, came to this country from Germany in 1848 after the failure of the revolution. His first act was to Americanize his name. According to family history, he was a master cooper chosen by his fellow Bavarians to represent them in the National Assembly, but he quickly became disillusioned with the right-wing monarchists and decided to start a new life in the USA, a rapidly-growing nation with an ever increasing need for casks.

He immediately found work at a cooperage in Lenape County in New Jersey, soon married the daughter of the owner who bore him a son and four daughters, and inherited the business on the death of his sonless father-in-law. Proud to be an American unionist at the start of the Civil War, he dedicated the cooperage to the manufacture of water-tight casks to store and transport gunpowder. Feeling that he was not fully performing his patriotic duty, the next year he organized a regiment of German immigrants to fight for their adopted country. He was killed at Gettysburg.

His wife kept the family business going, but her eleven-year-old son, Abdon Cooper, Jr., made the casks—and continued to make them for the next forty-seven years. He was succeeded by my great-grandfather, Abdon Cooper III, who enlisted in the Army in 1917, was gassed in the trenches, returned to work as much as he was able, but started teaching the trade to my grandfather the day he turned ten. My great-grandfather spent the last seven years of his life dying in a veterans’ hospital, but my grandfather was, by then, a master cooper. My father was born in 1946, nine months after my grandfather returned from his war. He was the first Cooper to graduate from high school but had been working in the shop since he was ten and took over the business in 1964.

Unfortunately, the rapid growth of plastic containers in the post-war years left little business for dry-tight coopers, so my father thought he could teach himself wet cooperage and move to California to make and repair wine casks. Before he could put that plan into action—my mother did not want to leave our home—he was made an offer he said could not be turned down. The Lenape County Park System was planning to restore a nineteenth-century village and needed skilled craftsmen. My father was the only cooper left in the county. They paid to move his shop, tools, and stock to the village and hired him full-time. Instead of having to drum up business, indebt himself to bankers to purchase supplies, and try to collect from customers, all he had to do was conduct demonstrations of the cooper’s trade to school kids and other Village visitors. I started learning the trade when I turned ten. I finish my introductory talk by explaining that our namesake, Abdon, was a Persian who traveled to Rome, became a Christian, and was beheaded for his faith in 250 A.D. In the Middle Ages he was declared by the Pope to be the patron saint of coopers.

That’s what I tell folks. I don’t tell them I stopped believing in saints when my mother died, and I don’t tell them how I feel about my job. For nineteen of the past twenty years, I served as my father’s assistant, helper, go-for, and—on Saturdays since I turned eighteen—his substitute. I enjoyed the work at first. I quickly learned to make simple dry casks, most of which we sold—with a hefty profit margin—to hardware stores, antique dealers, and tourists. But since my father’s cancer was diagnosed last fall, I have been working six days a week by myself. Dad keeps telling me he looks forward to coming back to work, but, after eleven months, I no longer believe him. I just know I don’t want to make casks for another thirty-five years.

Nor do I want to pass the trade on to my son—if I ever have one. Elaine already has a son. She had him when she was sixteen, and now he’s eighteen. Elaine says she’s lonely without Danny around the house. We’ve been dating on-and-off for two years now. She insists she wants to marry me and have two more children, but only if I agree to start a new career. She wants me to live in the twenty-first century rather than the nineteenth. The more we talk about it, the more I agree with her. Danny, who never met his father, seems neutral about having me as a stepfather, though I believe he somehow thinks of his mother as virginal. I do, too, because she refuses to have sex with me until we’re married. She will not make the same mistake twice.


On Sunday, I unlock the door to the shop at nine and put a second coat of polyurethane on the cask I made yesterday. Then I will myself to start the first cask of the new week. I’ve decided to make a dry-tight gunpowder cask, the type that the first Abdon Cooper built his reputation on. The process has been simplified through the first five generations of American Coopers; I don’t think I could make it any simpler. I begin by ripping the white oak staves at the proper angles on the table saw my grandfather bought in 1945. The saw cuts the angles accurately, so the only actual hand-work I do is to plane them narrower from the middle to both ends. Then I steam them in a frame-box that my great-great-grandfather designed to bend them to the proper curvature. I use a high-quality galvanized steel tape for the hoops, though I would use stainless for a wet wine cask. I plug any gaps with dried cordgrass, then cut the two ends on the angled bandsaw my father rigged up. I secure the bottom with glue—and nails to hold it while the glue sets. I just set the top into place because most customers won’t use it to seal. By day’s end I sand it and apply the first coat of polyurethane. Only five people came by to observe me today, probably because of the heavy morning rain. Yesterday, we had at least twenty.

After locking up, I strip, wash, and put on the clean clothes I always bring from home on Sundays. Then I drive to Elaine’s for dinner. We usually go to a restaurant, but she telephoned last night to say she wanted to prepare a special dinner. I think she likes to have one night a week off from cooking, but I also know she wants to show me her domestic side.

Elaine is really quite a woman. She made a major mistake by getting pregnant at fifteen. She and baby Danny lived with her mother for the next two years while she finished high school. Her father had died when Elaine was thirteen, which was when she started getting a little wild. But her mother re-married, and Elaine’s stepfather turned out to be a great guy. He was making enough money to support them all, so he suggested that her mother quit her job to take care of Danny and he would pay for Elaine to go to the county college.

So she started in their nursing program and got halfway through in the first year with all As and Bs, but decided she had accepted enough charity and wanted to start leading an independent life. She had sufficient credits to qualify for a phlebotomist’s license and managed to get a full-time job in a local doctor’s office. She rented her own apartment, put Danny into day care, and started a new life. Three years ago she went back to nursing school to finish her degree. She graduated in August and passed her R.N. exam last week.



Elaine’s apartment is the second floor of a two-family in downtown Waterwitch. She has a living room with a modest view of the bay, a large kitchen, two small bedrooms, and a tiny bathroom. As I pull up to the curb, she waves from the screened front window and calls out that the downstairs door is unlocked. She smiles as I enter her living room and says, "Hi, Ab. Have a good day?" She’s probably not conventionally attractive because she’s so tall and thin—gangly and angular, actually—but to me she looks quite nice in a red blouse and blue shorts that show off her bird-like tanned legs, and her short brown hair looks neater than usual.

"Same old, same old," I answer, then lift up my nose toward the kitchen and add, "Something smells great in there."

"I hope it tastes as good as it smells. It’s a Beef Bourguignon from a Jacques Pepin recipe, and I’ve been working on it all afternoon."

"I didn’t know you were into fancy cooking."

"Well, I happened to spot one of his early cookbooks in a used book shop yesterday morning. I was paging through it while my hair was under the dryer and was impressed. Beef stew was always Danny’s favorite. I used to make it whenever he had friends over for dinner, but Jacques has you adding a lot more herbs and spices—and using good wine. I put half the bottle in and saved the rest for us. Oh, and he also tells you to use chuck because the fat will dissolve during four hours of braising and the stew will taste better. My mother used bottom round, so I always did, too." She checks her watch and adds, "We’ll find out if he’s right in half an hour."

She sits down on the sofa, picks up a glass of wine from the coffee table, and pats the cushion beside her. I sit down and pick up the other glass. "Here’s to Registered Nurse Elaine Smith," I say.

We clink our glasses together and take our first sips. "That’s what I wanted to discuss with you, Ab," she says after rolling it around in her mouth and swallowing "— my future as a nurse. I was going to wait till after dinner to bring it up, but I just blurted that right out without thinking. Sorry."

"Well, I’m not exactly surprised, Elaine. I’ve had this gut feeling all day that’s what you wanted to talk about. I figured you’d feel more comfortable in the privacy of home rather than a public restaurant. So, go ahead, tell me what’s on your mind."

"Okay, but please don’t be upset. We’ve been having this conversation for two years now. But I turn thirty-five a week from tomorrow, and I need to find a new direction for my life. Danny went off to college last month, and I miss him, of course, but I’ve always known he’d have to start his own life someday. I never looked very hard for a husband because I didn’t want to burden my son with a stepfather he might not like. But now he’s out on his own so I can choose any man I like. I like you and want to marry you, but you know my terms."

"You want me to quit being a make-believe nineteenth-century cooper and find a real job. I never thought that was an unreasonable request, Elaine. Believe me, I’m coming closer and closer to agreeing with you. You can’t believe how boring it is to do the same thing every day—make a barrel."

"You don’t think I get bored sticking needles into people’s veins and drawing blood samples? I do it fifty or sixty times a day!"

"But you’ll be changing jobs soon. You’ve prepared yourself to go to the next level."

"And that’s what you should do. I can’t see you making a barrel a day for the next thirty-five years, Abdon. You could do so much more with your skills, be so much more creative!"

"Believe me, I’d love to work in a cabinet or custom furniture shop."

"Then do it, for God’s sake. Or for my sake if you have doubts about God."

"I have to wait till my father dies, Elaine. You know that. It would kill him if I quit. I’m the sixth generation in this country, and my forebears were probably coopers for three or four centuries!"

"My ancestors were probably blacksmiths or gunsmiths, but I don’t even know—and I don’t care. My mother is a bookkeeper, my father was a plumber, my stepfather is a bricklayer, and I’m a nurse."

"Elaine, I get your point. I don’t want to do what I’m doing, but I owe it to my father to keep up the tradition."

"You father’s only sixty and in remission," Elaine says, and I can tell she’s starting to get angry. "He had no right to make you follow him and all those great-grandfathers into the trade. Multi-generational businesses are a thing of the past, Abdon. People have the right to choose their own careers."

"But I agreed to do it. I wanted to."

"You were ten years old then. Now you’re thirty and admit that you’re bored, and that you don’t really do anything worthwhile. And another thing, if we ever have a son, he’s not going to be Abdon Cooper VII."

"I definitely agree with that. I’ve always hated the name. My mother called my father Abdon and me Abbie. The name followed me all through school—a girl’s name, everyone said. I intend to give my son his own name, a nice, plain American name like John or Paul."

At least my last declaration has brought a smile to Elaine’s lips. She takes another sip of wine, sets the glass down, and says, "We won’t have a son if we don’t get married. I won’t raise another child on my own. But do you really want to be married to me and have children?"

I nod my head and answer, "I think being married to you would be great—we’d eat meals together, read together, watch television together, go to bed together at night, wake up together in the morning. And I’d love to have a couple of kids. And I hope they grow up to be doctors or engineers, but if they want to be plumbers or masons, that’s okay with me because I agree that a person has the right to choose his own path in life."

"Or her path."

"Agreed."

"Fine," Elaine says, "we agree on several things. But I need to know if we have a future together. I can’t wait any longer. For my birthday I want a decision from you, not flowers and candy. You’ve got a week to make up your mind."

"I’m not sure I can do that, Elaine."

"If you make a commitment to me next Monday, meaning to make a serious effort to find another job and resign from the Park System, then I’ll stay with Dr. Sharpe because he’s offered me a job as office nurse and the hours are regular. If you refuse, then I’ll look for a staff position at Riverton Hospital. I’d have to work shifts, which is bad for family life, but the pay is much better, and I’d have opportunities for promotion, a real career. I have to look out for myself, Ab. Now let’s have dinner and talk about nice things."



I can tell Elaine is eager to please. The kitchen is hardly spacious or modern, but it’s spotless. The table is covered with a perfectly pressed pale blue tablecloth. Two white china plates and blue and white striped napkins are set on opposite sides along with shiny stainless steel flatware. She even has me open a second bottle of burgundy while she serves.

The Beef Bourguignon turns out to be the best meal I’ve ever had. The meat breaks apart with a fork, the mushrooms and little white onions are delicious, and the dark aromatic sauce is thick, smooth, and rich with a blend of flavors. We talk mostly about Danny’s plans. He won a full scholarship to NYU, is majoring in both economics and criminal justice, with the goal of becoming a lawyer. Not bad for the son of an unwed teenaged mother, I tell her.

I tell myself that what she wants me to think about is how great it will be for me to brag about our children someday. I compliment her cooking and think about eating dinner like this every night. My father’s dinners are weak imitations of what my mother used to make. His stews are watery and gray, his meatloaves dry, his pork chops overdone, his spaghetti gluey. He oversalts everything, and I don’t think he knows what garlic is. Then Elaine brings us real coffee—the first I’ve had since my mother died—and a pecan pie she had made for dessert. Yes, I wish I could eat like this every night.

After washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen, we return to the living room to watch the seven o’clock news, followed by a new Mystery. When I announce that it’s time for me to leave, she gives me the surprise of my life.

"You said before, Ab," she begins, "that you’d like to go to bed with me at night and wake up with me in the morning. Do you also want to make love with me before we go to sleep?"

"Well, yes, of course." I’m too flabbergasted to elaborate, but I have been longing to make love with Elaine since we met. My only sexual experience has been with a fifty-something divorced woman who works in the lace-making shop. Every three or four weeks, she invites me over, after closing, for what she calls a quicky. She’s quite pretty and has a nice figure. I’m always grateful, of course, but she’s looking for a much wealthier man to marry. When she calls me, I know she’s as hard-up as I am.

Elaine reaches into her purse, which has been setting on the coffee table, and I am utterly shocked as she pulls out two condoms and dangles them in front of my face. I stare at them in utter amazement and hear myself saying, "You’ve always told me no sex till we’re married."

"I didn’t want to let you treat me like an easy lay. Now that I’ve asked for a definite commitment, I thought you might want to try me out first. If you like my fucking as much as my cooking, it might make your decision easier." She studies me and smiles—seductively, this time—trying, I guess, to measure my reaction, then adds, "Why don’t you call your father and tell him you’re spending the night here? Otherwise he’ll worry."

My immediate reaction is, Yesss! At last! Let’s do it! But I have to be fair and not selfish. I move to the opposite chair where I can see her face better without turning my neck and say, "That’s very kind and thoughtful of you, Elaine, but I’ve never wanted you as an easy lay. I wanted—and still want—to be your husband. I wish we would simply get married and you take any job you want. But I’ve already made my decision and don’t want to string you along till your birthday: I cannot agree to your terms because it would break my father’s heart. When he dies, I’ll end the family tradition, but not now." When she offers no response, I stand and say, "I think I’d better go now. Dinner was delicious. I’ve enjoyed our two years of friendship. But I understand your need to get on with your life on your own terms." When she still says nothing, I try to end the evening with a joke. "Hey," I say, "maybe you’ll luck out and find a rich available doctor at the hospital."

She doesn’t smile but pats the sofa cushion next to her and says, "Please don’t leave yet, Abdon. I’ve got one more thing to say." When I do as she has asked, she continues, "I’m disappointed in your decision, but I accept it. And since you chose not to take advantage of my offer to spend the night, I’m repeating it—with a somewhat different motive. I’d like us to go to bed together, have sex, and wake up together tomorrow. We’re two available consenting adults, and we’ve been good friends. We have a major disagreement, but we’ve each declared acceptance of the other’s decision. Let’s end our relationship in a pleasant way. Please call your father." When I hesitate, she adds, "If you want, I’ll call him, tell him you had too much wine, and you’ll spend the night on my sofa because I won’t let you drive home."

"No," I answer. "I’ll make the call."


I awake at dawn and realize immediately where I am and what I did last night. It was so wonderful that I hope Elaine changes her mind and agrees to marry me now. I also realize an immediate need to urinate.

When I return from the bathroom, Elaine is sitting up in the bed rotating her narrow bony shoulders to reveal her lovely little breasts. She smiles and asks, "Well, how was I?"

"Great!" I answer. "Wonderful." Then I smile and whisper, "How was I?"

Elaine pulls the sheet up to cover herself and answers, "Not as good as Danny’s father was. Have a good life, Abbie.”