Comforting Art From a Long-Lost Place

I have two exciting deliveries coming today. A new dishwasher and a less-than-mediocre art print.

My Bosch dishwasher left production in 2016, if the web’s guess is correct. I have had it for 9 years, and it may have been here almost 6 years when I arrived. A web source thinks it became available at around the start of 2012.

My dishwasher is not smart. I can’t communicate with it at all. No app. No wifi. No Bluetooth. But it did function for somewhere between 9 and 15 years with only a moderate amount of trouble.

I had to replace the front door panel containing the handle once. There is no latch. You just pull until it gives up. The part you pull on is around 3/16″ thick on each side, plastic, with no reinforcement. It eventually gave way because it was stupidly designed, and I had to spend about $80 on a new panel.

I got some special JB Weld for plastics, and before I installed the new panel, I shot the problem areas full. Now it has the strongest Bosch dishwasher door handle on Earth.

It also leaked a couple of times. I could not figure out why. I was going to tear into it, and then the leaking stopped.

It leaked again recently, and it refused to repair itself, so I took to AI to figure out what was wrong. I had to keep correcting Grok, and eventually it led me to a couple of likely parts. One cost $20, so I ordered it and replaced it.

Installing it should have been an easy job, but I had to lie on the floor on my face and turn a hex fitting 1/16 of a turn at a time, and there were other issues. Bosch could have made it much easier by using some brains. The order of installation operations caused the problem. It’s much easier to remove the hose from the part if the part is out, but you have to remove the hose in order to take the part out. That kind of thing. Stupid.

It still leaked, so I looked into the other part. It was a pump, it was discontinued, it would have cost something like $250 if I had been able to find it, and replacing it would have been a very unpleasant job. I would have had to turn the dishwasher upside down, and there was no guarantee the new part would fix the issue.

I could have called a repairman and blown a hundred bucks or so to be told I was wrong, but I was almost certainly right, and other parts would have been replaced, so I would have been out maybe $200 at the least, and I would have still had an old machine with a vanishing parts supply.

I found a successor model on sale at Lowe’s for $400 off for no clear reason, so I jumped on that. They wanted $217 for installation, which I did not jump on. It’s two screws, two tubes, and a cord. I need to open a dishwasher installation business and charge $150 per trip.

I went with Bosch in spite of the stupid bits. Basically, the machine has impressed me. It worked well, and working on it was surprisingly easy for the most part. And the parts are not terribly expensive. It looks like they gave it parts support for a reasonable amount of time. Could have been better, but I have seen worse. And getting over 40% off the price was a deal I could not miss out on.

Oh, boy. Here comes the truck.

I’m paying them $50 to haul off the old machine. I could do that myself, but in a time when a visit to Cracker Barrel costs over $30, $50 seems cheap for what I’m getting.

It’s here. Life can now go on. We can cook again.

I know I’m spoiled, but if the dishwasher quits, it means I can’t cook. It doesn’t mean I can cook and wash dishes by hand. No.

My other package is a Nellie Meadows print.

Nellie Meadows was an artist from Clay City, Kentucky. My grandfather owned a lot of land in her area. Was she a great artist? No. Was she a good artist? Mmmm…no. Let’s be honest. I would say that she was not quite good enough to make it as a commercial artist drawing new Buicks for newspaper ads. She misunderstood perspective and composition, and she chose subjects poorly.

On the other hand, her work was very popular with people in the area because she, along with a guy named Al Cornett, was a scarce commodity. They were the only artists within miles.

Al’s work is better but still not good.

Actually, man who made quasi-pornographic sculptures lived about 50 yards from my grandparents, and his work is in the Smithsonian. His name was Edgar Tolson. I wouldn’t want any of that stuff in my house.

He carved anatomically-correct figures of Adam and Eve in the buff. He also did carvings that lacked genitalia. I guess it would be okay to have one of those. Antiques Roadshow appraised one of his pieces for $2,000-$3,000, so he’s not up there with Picasso.

I think the fuss over Tolson’s work is sort of like the reverse racism of soft expectations, applied to white people. If he had lived in New York, his work would all be in landfills.

My grandparents had some Nellie Meadows and Al Cornett prints in their house, and I didn’t get any of them when they died. My sister glommed at least one Cornett print and utterly destroyed it. I had never seen an art print stained with black mold until she got ahold of it. I would guess my aunt glommed the others while glomming things for her kids without going through the will or probate or my grandparents’ wishes. But I’m not sure.

My grandparents had a painting called “Kentucky the Great State;” a title which was not intended to be sarcastic. It wasn’t good, but I used to sleep in the bedroom where it hung, so I want a copy.

I have Ebay set up to send me Nellie Meadows and Al Cornett items, and it sent me a listing for a painting of Natural Bridge. This is a bridge created by erosion, and it is located in the Red River Gorge, near my grandparents’ town.

It’s one of her better works, meaning it’s good enough for a post card. It has what looks to be a wormy chestnut frame. It wasn’t expensive. I got the seller down to $42 plus shipping. I took it.

We plan to clean it up and put it in one of the upstairs bedrooms. It’s good enough for kids and guests. I already have one of her paintings in the guest toilet.

I have given up on Eastern Kentucky as a place to live or visit. The culture is just not up to par. The childishness, racism, violence, machismo, drunkenness, ignorance, spousal abuse, and so on are too much for me to deal with, and I would also find it awkward to live near my relatives who have pretty much rejected me in favor of bits of my grandparents’ estates. I’m also bummed out because so many people there are conservative in their hearts yet vote for Democrats so the government will give them money.

Nonetheless, I have very fond memories of Kentucky, and I often think about what it could be if the people would just grow up.

I hope the painting is in good shape when it arrives. Now I have to install a dishwasher.

The new dishwasher is “smart.” Notice the quotation marks. Bosch expects me to use an app to set it up and use it. I can do it without the app, but then I lose elite features. I won’t be able to set a delayed start, and I won’t be able to change the dishwasher’s gender.

I’ll bet that smart junk added $75 to the MSRP.

I wonder when we’ll get over the smart idiocy and resume making appliances that make sense.

Anyway, here’s to our mechanical and electronic slaves. Thank you, God, because I don’t have to wash clothes or dishes by hand, travel on foot or on a cart, take cold showers, or accept the climate nature gave me. I appreciate it more than I can say.