RIVER CITY JOURNAL: SUGGESTION: DON'T FORGET LOOSE SCREWS

It is a little thing: While cleaning your glasses one day this week you noticed one of the tiny screws in one of the tiny hinges was about to fall out. Somehow that screw, and not its companion, had worked itself loose, bit by bit.

The loose screw reminded you of the ancient garage door on one of the houses you have owned over the years. This double-wide wooden door was installed in 1951 with an automatic door opener that was still operating quite well 40-plus years later. Occassionally the door-opener repairman would come by for a quick tune-up, but mostly the visit was to marvel at how the gizmo that pulls a heavy door up and gently lets it down still worked after all those years. "It'll last forever if you take care of it," he always said. "And you better tighten those bolts too."

"Those bolts" were critical, because it didn't matter how dependable or eternal that old door opener was if the bolts didn't hold the door together. So every time you cleaned the garage, which wasn't very often, you always ended by taking a wrench to the loose bolts on the garage door and added a few drops of oil to the moving parts. Given your mechanical ability, you took great pride in contributing to a well-oiled, tight-bolt society.

Your father-in-law, who was a mechanical genius, would tinker with repairable things every time he visited. It was a gift he had, and it was a contribution he could make without having to engage in esoteric conversation. Invariably, your father-in-law would wander about the house and frequently stop to pull the ever-present screwdriver from his pocket. Door hinges, drawer knobs, electrical fixtures, window shades, vibrating appliances, dripping faucets -- they were all accustomed to his well-intentioned adjustments.

In the bustle and hustle of getting ready for the holidays, it might seem out of place to be worrying about loose screws and bolts. But that is just the point. Everyone is so busy, so caught up in the hectic activity that aims to climax on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. After all the preparation, the anticipative bubbles burst in just a few moments, a fraction of the time feverishly spent in preparation. All the while, your father-in-law could have told you, screws were loosening imperceptibly, keeping track of time's march at a steady pace, but in strides ever so much slower than the frenetic rush called the holiday season.

Practical folks, like yourself, who understand little of the world around them and are content to exist without an overload of explanations, pause to wonder, though, about the "how" of some things. Like tight screws that loosen all by themselves. Why, for example, do some screws whirl in their sockets while others are content to stay snug and safe?

It is a question your father-in-law would never have seen a reason to answer, even if he had been asked, because loose screws are a fact of life, and while some of life's mysteries deserve explanations, others are best handled with a handy screwdriver. The "why" of loose screws is overwhelmed by the sense of contributing to an orderly world.

That is the reason for contemplating the world's loose screws at the height of the shopping-partying-spending frenzy. Keeping in touch with the mundane world, the continuum of reality, keeps your kilter from getting too terribly off balance during a tightrope season.

Take off your glasses. See?

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.