In the summer of 1988 I was working a large construction company in Iceland, called Ístak hf. It had a project at the University of Iceland which involved the construction of a new building for startup companies and tech transfer projects. The whole building was finished in 5 months. I had worked for this company the summer prior and was sent to work on this one as well. It was a good summer, we had sun and the weather was decent, which in Iceland is lottery win. I was not the only teenager working there because there 5 other boys working there to also, and we spent a lot of time together and became good friends. We had many good times together that summer, played football after lunch every day and sunbathed while joking around.
It was in this fun environment that I was carrying heavy windows up 4 flights of stairs for many hours, that I started to feel pain in my right knee. This pain became worse and worse, and I had to stop working. I limped to the HQ with the help of two of the other boys and soon after my knee began to swell up badly. The swelling got so bad that my knee became a ball of blood, and I was then taken to the hospital for treatment. The doctor looked at the and I was taken into the surgery, and the doctor tapped 2 pints of blood from the knee and patched me up. I could not work for the rest of the summer so I was at home with my crutches.
My father figured that I needed something to do at home so he bought me a pool table, which I used all day every day for the rest of the summer. The pool table was placed in the basement next to the TV area. It became so much used by me and all my friends, so that my house was the main place where me and my friends met up. It was in my family for 34 years until it was sold during covid.
My pool table gave a lot of people a good time and lifted many spirits in its day. It was the center of tens of thousands of conversations and was a solid member of my family over a third of a lifetime. It will be missed but not forgotten.
