If you are old enough, you may remember the term “Frick and Frack” and have a notion that they were a duo like Abbot and Costello or maybe Ren and Stimpy and, somehow, just the term “Frick and Frack” makes you smile. They were actually an ice skating duo from Switzerland and came to the U.S. in 1937 to join the very first Ice Follies show. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Our Oysterville version of that duo does not involve Switzerland or ice (but may involve folly of a sort) and none of us really knows which is Frick and which is Frack. They are somewhat interchangeable. One of them (in real life ) is called Tucker. The other (I’m pretty sure) goes by Del. Tucker, of course lives here and were it not for occasional visits from his friend Del, we would never know that he has another persona altogether — either Frick or Frack, apparently depending upon which persona Del is at the moment.
Del lives in Portland and Tucker met him (of course!) when he was working at the Oyster Bar. A mutual friend introduced them because Del was looking to buy a…drumroll…pinball machine. that was more than twenty-five years ago and has involved Del going to Germany with Tucker on one occasion (wow! I’d like to have been a fly on the wall during that visit!) and many adventures to do with pinballs and beyond! Del, like Tucker, has a part of his house devoted to his collections which he calls the “Knappsonian Museum (Knapp being his surname and sonian being… well, you know,)
Dell is in his element when he is fixing things — electrical things, plumbing things, wonky furniture things. And what’s even more important, he really really enjoys helping people. He has assisted Tucker on a number of projects but now he has discovered this old house and its ancient contents and that’s where Frick and Frack shine. The two of them are a bit interchangeable, though mostly Dell takes the lead with rewiring the old lamps and, this time, he fixed a weird plumbing issue in the kitchen.
Before Frack? left, he discovered some of the antique furniture issues and made a list of what he needs to bring along next time — epoxy and chisels and other stuff that Frick? probably has — or both of them know are available on Nyel’s workbench. I’m sorry I can’t regenerate their Frick-and-Frack banter, You just have to take my word for it! (And the entire Knappsionian thing should give you a clue!)