Productive (Or Destructive) Day
Mar. 7th, 2011 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillRegular readers will recall Martin, a hero and mentor who teaches boat building and shop at Maryville High School.
Well, several weeks ago, as Binturong was taking shape on the drawing board, I got back in touch with Martin, hoping selfishly that I could enlist him and his shop class to help me cut my planks. I got his voice mail and left a message and a couple of days later the phone rings and I pick it up and it's Martin.
"Hey, how are you?" I joyfully greeted him.
"Well" he said in that understated way of his, "I've been better. My workshop burned down a while back."
Come to find out that his workshop at home caught fire and despite the firemen coming promptly when summoned, the grand old structure, dried out by years of summer heat and winter drought, couldn't be saved. All his tools, his store of prized boards (woodworkers will know whereof I speak--those special treasured boards picked up when you see that great piece of mahogany, that beautiful cherry--you don't have any plans for it now but surely *someday* the right project will present itself), and the structure itself destroyed.
So of course I offered to help.
We arranged for me to show up 1pm yesterday. I happened to mention to my friend Steve at the hardware store what my plans for Sunday were, and he promptly volunteered to come along and help. I packed a couple of lunches, and we brought our breaker bars, heavy boots and work gloves. When we pulled up it was apparent that a lot of work had already been done--the burning down part had actually happened early in January, so the remains of the machinery were out of there, and the floor was about half cleared and we were looking at the charred and partly fallen remains of a couple of walls, and a tangle of beams, support timbers, and pieces of wall boards (the walls had been done in the old fashioned stringer-board-and-batten method because this was quite an old building.) It was like jackstraws with big, heavy charred straws, many of which were nailed to each other. Almost every board had bent nails sticking out of it, some rusty, some still bright after the wood was wrenched apart.
I looked at this in momentary dismay and then decided--that looks like a little piece; I think I can throw that in the dumpster. And I could. And then I just continued working my way around the edges, throwing things in the dumpster, while Martin and Steve smashed and wrenched big things into smaller things. Some of the smaller things still required me on one end and Steve on the other, swinging them back and forth in unison and letting go on "Three!" We filled the dumpster (it was 22 feet long!). Martin and Steve got in the dumpster and repacked it to leave less open space. We filled it again. Martin and Steve repacked it again. By now I was using a scoop shovel to pick up ash and char that had been rained into 2 inch thick muck and tossing that in the dumpster (once it had no people in it.) It was good weather for it--cool enough to wear long pants and long sleeves and gloves and work hard without steaming oneself like an asparagus, but not actually raining.
Presently Martin said "we have to stop filling the dumpster soon--we're not allowed to fill it higher than the rim." So we piled the remaining stuff beside the dumpster so it could be tossed in more easily when the full dumpster went away and the empty dumpster came. We got everything cleared, down to the floor. Which will also have to be replaced because it had holes in it where the fire had burned through in some places and besides it had been rained on for a month and it wasn't the right kind of plywood and such to take that kind of treatment.
And then we cleaned up a bit (me by the simple expedient of removing my BDU jacket, folding it inside out, and putting it in the car) put the tools away, and went in to talk about (what else?) boats and eat the wonderful spaggetti dinner Sandy made for us.
And I gave Martin my extra 1/2 inch chisel as a start on his new tool collection. He deserves better, but it was what I had.
It was a good day.
Well, several weeks ago, as Binturong was taking shape on the drawing board, I got back in touch with Martin, hoping selfishly that I could enlist him and his shop class to help me cut my planks. I got his voice mail and left a message and a couple of days later the phone rings and I pick it up and it's Martin.
"Hey, how are you?" I joyfully greeted him.
"Well" he said in that understated way of his, "I've been better. My workshop burned down a while back."
Come to find out that his workshop at home caught fire and despite the firemen coming promptly when summoned, the grand old structure, dried out by years of summer heat and winter drought, couldn't be saved. All his tools, his store of prized boards (woodworkers will know whereof I speak--those special treasured boards picked up when you see that great piece of mahogany, that beautiful cherry--you don't have any plans for it now but surely *someday* the right project will present itself), and the structure itself destroyed.
So of course I offered to help.
We arranged for me to show up 1pm yesterday. I happened to mention to my friend Steve at the hardware store what my plans for Sunday were, and he promptly volunteered to come along and help. I packed a couple of lunches, and we brought our breaker bars, heavy boots and work gloves. When we pulled up it was apparent that a lot of work had already been done--the burning down part had actually happened early in January, so the remains of the machinery were out of there, and the floor was about half cleared and we were looking at the charred and partly fallen remains of a couple of walls, and a tangle of beams, support timbers, and pieces of wall boards (the walls had been done in the old fashioned stringer-board-and-batten method because this was quite an old building.) It was like jackstraws with big, heavy charred straws, many of which were nailed to each other. Almost every board had bent nails sticking out of it, some rusty, some still bright after the wood was wrenched apart.
I looked at this in momentary dismay and then decided--that looks like a little piece; I think I can throw that in the dumpster. And I could. And then I just continued working my way around the edges, throwing things in the dumpster, while Martin and Steve smashed and wrenched big things into smaller things. Some of the smaller things still required me on one end and Steve on the other, swinging them back and forth in unison and letting go on "Three!" We filled the dumpster (it was 22 feet long!). Martin and Steve got in the dumpster and repacked it to leave less open space. We filled it again. Martin and Steve repacked it again. By now I was using a scoop shovel to pick up ash and char that had been rained into 2 inch thick muck and tossing that in the dumpster (once it had no people in it.) It was good weather for it--cool enough to wear long pants and long sleeves and gloves and work hard without steaming oneself like an asparagus, but not actually raining.
Presently Martin said "we have to stop filling the dumpster soon--we're not allowed to fill it higher than the rim." So we piled the remaining stuff beside the dumpster so it could be tossed in more easily when the full dumpster went away and the empty dumpster came. We got everything cleared, down to the floor. Which will also have to be replaced because it had holes in it where the fire had burned through in some places and besides it had been rained on for a month and it wasn't the right kind of plywood and such to take that kind of treatment.
And then we cleaned up a bit (me by the simple expedient of removing my BDU jacket, folding it inside out, and putting it in the car) put the tools away, and went in to talk about (what else?) boats and eat the wonderful spaggetti dinner Sandy made for us.
And I gave Martin my extra 1/2 inch chisel as a start on his new tool collection. He deserves better, but it was what I had.
It was a good day.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Martin
Date: 2011-03-07 06:24 pm (UTC)Nate
Re: Martin
Date: 2011-03-09 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:37 am (UTC)the best thing I've read all week
Date: 2011-03-07 10:09 pm (UTC)Re: the best thing I've read all week
Date: 2011-03-09 02:38 am (UTC)I am looking forward to helping build fresh, though.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:40 am (UTC)