Weather permitting, we'd usually beat sunlight to the deck. Seemed almost exhilarating to be finally standing above the world as we bent to our work. Definitely beat working on our backs in the dirt. Emil even had a broom delivered with his lumber order. Housecleaning was a necessity in his mind. Said a clean workplace was a happy workplace then handed me the broom. Come the end of the day sawdust was swept willy-nilly to the winds. Butts and stubs were saved as kindling. Any stud or plank remnant longer than a foot was stacked beneath the floor. 'You never know' was our gospel.
We worked surrounded by the aroma of piney sawdust. Bent to the task of constructing stud walls as sunlight and tree shadow danced on the floor. Now and then we'd straighten and stretch our backs. Look around if only to remind ourselves we were indeed in a forest. Dragonflies by the dozens came to pay their respects, check out our work, perch on our hats.
And it was a pleasure having a work surface. Emil quickly turned the floor into a tool by nailing a length of two by six solidly through the subfloor and into the joists below with twenty penny spikes, heads exposed for easy removal. Gave us a solid brace to back a section of wall-to-be as we nailed. Once started we lived by hammer, nail, saw, pencil and steel tape. Think about it, measure and mark it, lay it out and nail it. Section by section slowly constructed, plumbed vertical, nailed to the deck and braced, the walls grew. Emil's blueprint was out there floating invisibly above the deck where only he could see it. Stud spacing, rough openings for doors and windows, placement of cross beams, all with an eye to the posts sunk to the earth below for weight transfer and Emil's eventual second floor outlook above. Dimensions down to pencil lead widths drifted by. Between sections Emil would pause, lift his hat and scratch his forehead, give a moment's thought as to where the next length of wall would stand, pull the fat yellow carpenter's pencil from his wallet pocket, write a few numbers on the subfloor and we'd be off.
"Grab me a dozen studs Archie. Double mullion casement in this one." Then it was measure twice, mark and saw. Sticks piling on the floor, always the right length and number. Mostly I was weight, hammer swinger and go-fer. Get it, move it, hold it and grab another. Emil hummed and sawed away on his sawhorse table.
Sounds like it flew together doesn't it? And compared to the course of years since, it did. Fourteen, eight foot sections. Near two hundred studs not including bracing. Come evenings it was all we could do to throw together a meal, hands cramping, fingers locked askew. Thank God for bread, meat, fruit and cookies. Ate tomatoes with a little salt sprinkled atop like they were apples. We sucked down water and carbohydrates like there was no tomorrow. We agreed that heaven must look just like Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Emil claimed he could eat a chocolate bar just like an Finlander ate fish. "Knew this old guy who never filleted fish. Just sorted out the bones in his mouth while he was eating. Every so often he'd pull out a wad of fish bones like it was snus. Seems to me it'd work the same way with candy bars. Unwrapping's a waste of good working time. It'd be easier to simply cram the whole bar in my mouth. Sort it out on the inside with my tongue just like the old Finn and keep on hammering walls together. When I was done eating I'd just hack the wrapper out like a hair ball."
Come Friday afternoon we'd finished the first floor framing and stood admiring our work. Looked like we'd built a stand for boat construction. Big boat. What order there was in the walls was offset by the dozens of bracing boards. Went every which way like a whale skeleton dropped from a B-52. Sixteen holes for windows, most double mullion and two for doors. A lot of glass particularly on the stream side. Lacking stairs we still had to hoist ourselves aboard.
"Odd thing is, it's starting to look like what I had in mind. Library, kitchen area, wood stove, sleeping nook, I can see them all. Makes me want to throw a tarp over it and move in. Don't know about you but for me the charm of tent life is starting to wear thin. I want to hear rain on the roof and a fire cracklin' away in the Franklin stove. Almost a romantic hideaway with maybe a rhinoceros head mounted on the wall. Yes, a rhino. I've given the type of mount considerable thought. Started with deer. Way too normal. Then elk and moose. Getting warm. Then buffalo. Almost went with buffalo. Got some history and it's as ugly a beast as walked the prairies. Finally rhino. Ugly, dangerous, exotic.
"'Course the rhino'd need a story. Couldn't be I shot it over in Africa while on safari either. Any booger with a pith helmet full of cash can shoot a rhino. Then it came to me. A story worthy of my warped mind. Something like 'I woke up one morning thinking it'd be pleasant to wander down to Aspen Brook and start my day by fooling a brace of brook trout into the frying pan to break my night's fast. Maybe a side of morels and watercress as a complement. Laid there in bed for a few minutes enjoying the thought. Those moments before sunup always give me pleasure. Besides, I never like to rise 'til there's light enough to see my bunny slippers on the floor next to the bed. No hurry at all, it wouldn't take but a few minutes to hand tie a couple of Royal Wulff's and string the rod. Couldn't exactly place the reason but something about the lay of the bed just didn't feel right, felt atilt. Carefully I reached back with my left leg. Felt something hard and leathery. On closer inspection it turned out to be the scaly hoof of a rhinoceros. Sure didn't see that coming. My startled gasp woke the beast. While rubbing its eyes the rhino softly wished me a warm 'guten morgen.' What luck! Many's the time I'd said waking up in bed with a German speaking rhino was high on my list of things to do before I kicked the bucket. Long story short, my knowledge of deutsch was barely sufficient to carry on a conversation but over the years Brunhilde, that was her name, patiently worked with me on my grammar and syntax. When we toured the Rhine Valley - oh that Brunhilde sure did like her rieslings - I was able to speak with the townsfolk like a native. And could that rhino fish! She could lay out thirty yards of fly line in a stiff breeze and have her size twenty-two Adams tied on an eight feet of gossamer-like leader light on the water without so much as dimple. Pure beauty. It was almost a pity I had to shoot her for that mount you see over on the wall. Sometimes, out on the porch near sunset I think maybe I shouldn't have. Ah well.'
"Archie me lad, now that's a story a man can be proud of. Total fabrication of course but what is truth anyway? That'll be the essay question on your quiz tomorrow."
No comments:
Post a Comment