Emil's Cabin XXXV - Rounding Out the Summer

     Felt like summer was winding down even though school was better than a month away.  Plenty left to do on the cabin.  Emil said we were about half done.  Less than that had we running water and needed to deal with plumbing.  While I was at school Emil'd had gone shopping at Sears.  When we loaded he already had a few boxes in the back.  I figured he knew what they were for and I'd eventually find out.
     Wednesday morning, our first back, while Emil laid a second coat of varnish on the outhouse floor, I began drilling good sized holes in the wall studs, one per stud, about a foot and a half above the floor.  The drill he gave me was called a sill borer designed to do exactly what I was doing.
     "Nothing fancy but it's a solid Craftsman and'll do the job just fine.  Cost a pretty penny and I'll probably never use it again.  Life in the big woods."
     When I asked him why we were knocking holes in perfectly good two by fours he said, "Electricity.    Didn't think there was any up here 'til I realized all those poles along the McFarland Road must be there for something.  Talked with the power company and they said they'll probably run me a line next spring.  Should the cabin have been closer to the road they could have done it this year.  We're doing the wiring now 'cause it's easier with the walls open.  And seein' as how I've got you to do the hard part, I figured I be a fool not to."
     The first couple of holes were difficult.  Took all I had to angle the drill and auger once it bit into the stud.  Gave it a moment's thought and grabbed a length of stud from the scrap pile to use as a brace against the wall.  It both set my gap and gave me something to lean the borer against.  Then eased the auger in, shaving off a little at a time.  Slower turned out to be faster.  Seemed like I'd heard that somewhere before.
     By the time Emil had his varnish brush clean I had a dozen of the more than a hundred holes done.  He spelled me for a couple of holes then was off hanging what he called a hundred amp breaker box,
     "State of the art.  Doesn't use fuses and will give me the finest electrical system without a source of electricity in the entire free world.  The epitome of useless.  Wait'll you see the outlet and switch covers I ordered.  Oak with walnut inlay, done in Cubist style and signed by Pablo Picasso.  Just beautiful.  I'd have preferred Van Gogh but he's dead and that makes 'em pricy as all get-out.  Had I any sense I'd rig up one of the boxes Rube Goldberg style so it'd fire up a candle when I threw the switch."
     By mid-afternoon we were hammering in outlet and switch boxes and stringing the electric lines.  We ran eight circuits.  Four along the base of the walls, one for the kitchen area, one for the Lookout and two that could be used outside for lights and tools.  Ran the lines into the boxes with plenty of cable to spare, folded them neatly then closed the boxes.  Finished by three on Thursday and started tacking up the wall insulation.  Won't bore you with the details as there's not a lot of glory in wall insulation.  On the other hand, ceiling insulation is indeed an art form so long as your idea of art is along the lines of Andy Warhol's industrial art.  'Bout the only difference is real fiberglass'll help keep you warm in the winter months and a Warhol'd only make think of warmth.  Or maybe soup.  Or, if you're like me, leave you cold.  Not good when it's minus forty.
     To insulate the ceiling we jury-rigged a scaffolding using the big beam, planks, studs and scrap plywood.  Wasn't much to look at but was solid.  Sunday afternoon we were done.
     "Archie me lad,  I figure we'll knock off around Labor Day.  Maybe take a week and do something else.  For the moment I'm at a loss as to what that might be.  Should you come up with any ideas let me know.  I'm game for most anything."
     Truth was the idea of putting in another week of work seemed fine with me.  Going up north and camping out still held its appeal but we already were up north, were surrounded by good fishing and should we want to camp out we could always set up the tent.  I liked being where we were.  No place I'd rather be and wanted to stretch out and savor what time I had left.  Work appealed.  Maybe a different kind?  We worked on in silence for a few minutes,
     "How about firewood?  You've got some but probably need a whole lot more.  I've seen a bunch deadfall around here, no reason why some of it wouldn't be good to burn.  If we put in a solid week of gathering and splitting, you'd have enough to last for whatever part of the winter you'd spend up here."
     So that became the plan.  I still wanted a week at home before starting school in five weeks.  What we'd been doing had been the summer of my life but a week at home with nothing to do besides the mundane chores of yard and house work seemed a pleasure.  Time to adjust and accept what was coming.
     Our remaining time was spent with wood.  Nailing it up in the cabin or breaking it apart outside.  Started by putting up a set of stairs to the lookout.  Nothing fancy.  She was a little on the steep side and had a make-shift railing.  All the interior paneling was tongue and grooved cedar.  Mid-September found the ceiling and most of the Lookout sheathed and oiled.  Didn't feel good about not being there for the finish.
     "I wouldn't worry about that Archie.  Back in June I was hoping to have the cabin buttoned up when you left for school and all that's left is the walls and floor.  'Til I get used to being alone again it'll be good to have something to do.  Don't even know if I'll get around to the floor 'til next year when I can move outside while I'm varnishing.  Don't know about you but this's been the first good summer I've had since Lena passed."
     'Bout the only thing that needs being said about the cedar paneling is Emil installed it sideways.  Usually the boards are nailed on vertically but he liked the feeling horizontal gave him.  "Brings the ceiling down, cozy like," he said.  Also allowed him to skip the bottom board on the Lookout's walls, "Airflow.  Rising heat'll keep the upstairs warm when it's cold and'll pull the heat up and out the windows when it's warm.  At least that's the idea."
     Turned out the only deadfall of use was about a cord of maple.  Instead, we walked the land looking at the tree tops.  While we looked, Emil explained,
     "A tree can only grow as high as it can shoot food and water.  Mostly I'm looking at the birches.  Not the best firewood in the world but the best in these woods.  Under normal circumstances they won't make a century.  Most die a lot sooner than that.  Finicky buggers, don't like too much heat, cold, water or drought.  Thing is, with a birch what you see above ground is more like a mushroom than say, an oak.  You can fell a birch but the roots keep on living and'll send up new shoots.  That's why you see all these nice clusters around here.  What was one is now three or four.  But what we're looking for is different."  
     "When a birch peaks, the upper branches start to shed leaves.  Doesn't always mean a lot, just that they're as tall as they can be.  However, when the shedding starts to move down, the end is near.  Couple, three years at the most.  Those are the ones I'm looking for.  Already have one jack pine, don't need another.  Pine creosotes up the flue something terrible but it sure smells good when you walk outside on a cold winter's night."
     Emil marked the trees he intended to fell by shaving a little bark off the trunk.  "Six or eight for now.  Should give us three or so cords to go with the two I've in the shed and the dry maple we salvaged.  Nowhere near enough for a winter but seein' as how I'm not wintering over this year, it'll do."
    Lacking another means, we grunted the wood out of the forest in four and a half foot lengths and stacked them by the shed.  Any branch thinner than two inches was piled where it fell, sliced with the saw and stomped as flat as possible by your's truly.
     "Over time the pile'll turn to soil.  'Til then it'll make a home for mice, rabbits and the occasional wombat."
     We did better than a tree a day.  Emil did the felling with the yellow McCulloch and shortened the four footers to eighteen inches at the shed.  There we took turns with the maul.  A foot thick chunk would be split six ways, "Won't be ready to burn this fall but should be okay in the spring when I return."
      I learned to love splitting wood.  Before we started I had this movie image of needing a splitting block and an axe.  Emil saw no need, just stood an eighteen inch length on the ground and went at it with a six pound maul.  'Spose he might have felt differently had we a slab big enough to serve as a block.  His rule of thumb was spread your legs and keep your eye on exactly where you want the maul to strike.  Should the wood have a crack across its face, help it along.  By week's end we'd felled, sawed, hauled, sawed again, split, moved and stacked better than four full cords.  Whoever said 'he who heats with wood is twice warmed' never actually gathered their own fuel.
     "Seems versifiers are appreciated more for their poetic feet than cubic feet.  The difference between art and craft ain't in the beauty.  A person can use and admire the beauty of craft.  A four by four by eight stack of hardwood, hand made ash paddle or the cabin we're alongside hold more meaning and beauty for me than any of the Dutch Masters.  Archie, we're not craftsmen but there's truth with a capital T in what we've done.  Could be the hours, sweat and blisters that went into the making.  Also the laughter and the screw-ups."

      
   
   

Emil's Cabin XXXIV - Home

     Early Saturday morning we ate, tidied camp and stored everything to await our return.  Two months had passed, a month's worth of work remained for me but orientation called.  I was also looking forward to a bath and the smell of the house I'd grown up in.  Yeah, even though I was eighteen I had to admit I missed seeing my mom.  Fifty-three years have passed since that day and I still miss seeing her.
     For a change we ate breakfast in town on Emil's dime.  Seeing as he had all the dimes I was fine with that.
     "Uncle Emil, I was thinking that we might find a barber before we head down.  Maybe get some of my hair removed.  Maybe all of it.  It's gotten long enough to be a nuisance and it'd be a lot easier keeping my head clean when we come back up."
     "Okay with me Archie.  Mine's gotten to the point where I can comb it and that's not a good sign."
     Finished eating and five minutes later we joined the line at Ray's to get our ears lowered.  A half hour wait led to two minutes in the chair.  Just like the path to the outhouse I had it all taken down to the nubs.
     Keep in mind when this was and that I was still a teenager.  The Beatles had invaded a little over a year earlier and brought their haircuts with them.  By the summer of '65 hair over the ears and collar was considered fashionable and showed no signs of slowing down.  Problem was, I never felt myself to be all that fashionable.  And after a couple of months in a tent, building a cabin from the ground up without a radio, television or a newspaper, I wouldn't have known fashion if it'd bit me in the ass.  And didn't care.  Also felt I'd grown up a bit.  Not that I was comfortable about any decisions I was making, including the haircut.  No, I knew I'd stand out like a sore thumb among the students at the U and would feel a little self conscious, almost embarrassed.  But so be it.  Besides, it felt good rubbing my head as we walked to the mud splattered truck.  Very good.
     We were set up in groups of about twenty.  Started by introducing ourselves and what we wanted to accomplish in school.  Though I had no idea what direction I was heading I spouted some hogwash about wanting to get a degree in political science - not sure what science has to do with politics - go on to law school, become a politician, get exposed for something or other, take to the bottle and end my life in disgrace as a well paid lobbyist.  May not have actually said that but the intent was there.  We spent the rest of the morning wandering from building to building, ate lunch, got our pictures taken for an ID and registered for classes.  Had I known what I was doing, at least one of the classes I chose would have been an interesting one.  But over the years I learned there weren't many of them and they always filled on the first day of registration.
     More than anything I felt like a doofus walking around campus with a group of people who probably also felt the same.  Didn't know at the time the world was filled with self-conscious doofusses (doofii?) just like me.  Guess there was a lot I didn't know.  What I did know was the smell of sun on pines, how to dig a hole in the woods and how to drift a tiny jig and scrap of pork rind to entice a brook trout strike.  Checked the course directory from top to bottom and didn't find anything like that.
     Truth was I don't think I was ready for a university education.  Hah.  Don't know if I'm ready yet.  Go back to what I'd said earlier, I was told by those who should know that I was college material.  Been hearing stuff like that all the time I was growing up.  Maybe if I'd known exactly what college material was, I could have decided on my own if I fit the mold.  But I didn't.  And didn't have an alternative.  So there I was, short hair in a long hair world.
     Tuesday morning me and Emil climbed back into his freshly washed Ford and fled to the sanctity of the Arrowhead.  I'd enjoyed my time at home but was starting to wonder exactly where home was.  Once out of the cities Emil turned the wheel over to me.  "Keep 'er between the lines Archie and near the speed limit.  Not often I get to watch the world pass by.  By the by, just between you and me and the wall, how'd it go over at the U?"
     "It went Uncle Emil, it went.  Something about the whole university scene just doesn't feel right to me.  Don't know exactly what.  But it sure didn't feel like a happy place to me.  Oh well, maybe it'll turn out for the best."

Emil's Cabin XXXIII - Outhouse

     Another Saturday rose in the southeast.  Again it brought a trip to town.  Phone call, a raid on the library, laundry, food and lunch.  You know the drill.  Emil figured we were looking at two half days of work 'til the cabin was buttoned up so we were in no hurry.  Couldn't get it done today but tomorrow for sure.  For a little added fun we stopped at the hardware and picked up a case of caulking and a couple of guns to apply it.
     "Plugging the holes.  If we don't, every mouse, bat and bug in Cook County will move in.  It's not fun, just necessary.  We have to seal every window and door edge, and all the eave joints.  Maybe four, five hundred feet of caulk.  Like everything we've done it's a skill we'll be really good at about the time we're done.  Each day we'll do it for an hour or two 'til it's either done or we're out of caulk."
     For a change we picnicked, legs dangling over the side, on the concrete wall guarding the harbor.  Had to be careful choosing a seat as the herring gulls had white-washed a fair amount of the wall.  Below us in the clear green, rock strewn lake, nothing moved except the water.  There's supposed to be fish in Superior.  Lots of them.  From what I'd seen from our perch and while agate hunting, they must be cannibals.   Haven't seen a weed, a bug, plankton or a minnow.
      Our lunch was nothing special.  Burgers, fries and root beer from the drive-in and a bag of donuts from the bakery.  "Bumming it," Emil said.  Still, it ate good and our behinds were nicely toasted on the sun-warmed concrete.
     This was our last week of work before heading down to the cities for my orientation and registration at the U of M.  The U's a big place.  Around fifty thousand students with some of the introductory courses numbering over a thousand.  It was a conveyor belt to an impersonal meat grinder that'd spit graduates out after chewing them up without even noticing they'd been there.  But being a land-grant institution it was inexpensive.  As it turned out what Emil was paying me for the summer would cover my books and tuition for all four years.  And the U had a reputation as a good school.  Just how good was up to you.  Nothing personal about it.
     Finished the windows on Saturday and started in on the pre-hung doors.  Pricy oak doors half-paned with glass and a hint of prairie style.  "Didn't really need anything so elaborate but seein' as how I'd pass through them a dozen times a day I figured they should please my eye.  There's also a pair of heavy duty combination, screen doors to go with them.  Come Monday I'll hang them while you're digging the outhouse hole."
     Sunday afternoon, eight weeks less one day from when Emil paced up from Aspen Brook and drove the first stake, we moved our cots, sleeping bags and gear inside.  Two men and sixty hours a week may not be able to move mountains but it seems they can button up a cabin.  Helped a lot that the weather had been kind.
     Emil chose a spot for the outhouse two hundred feet back from the brook and near as far from the well.  We began by brushing a six foot wide path.  Took everything down to the nubs and raked it clean.  Didn't want any eye gougers or booby traps to interrupt an emergency trot.  Once the spot was chosen, with an eye to view of course, we cleared a construction site.  That's the deal about working in the woods, can't start 'til you've got a work area.  It was pushing lunch time before my hole-to-be was staked out.
     "The building'll be a six by six, two-holer with a side entrance.  That way we can put in a window with a view out without allowing a view in.  Not that that matters much.  But seeing as how I'm still such a fine specimen of manhood, the ladies will no doubt be drawn up here like hummingbirds to honeysuckle.  Should the spirit come upon them, a discreetly placed window will screen their urging.  Your job is to dig a two foot by four foot hole as deep as you can.  Should you reach a layer of molten rock, stop.  It's a little too late in life for me to have to deal with a volcano.  Doubt there'll ever be a need to use the seats in tandem but having a second will spread the fill.  One hole's all I ever want to dig.  Done right it'll last me a lifetime."
     After how well the cabin holes had gone I figured this to be a piece of cake.  Should be done in an hour or two.  Wasn't.  But I sure built a fine pile of rock.  Started with a shovel but quickly turned to the digging rod and pickaxe.  Next, my shirt came off.  Chain gang time except there was no one with a rifle and mirrored sunglasses standing watch over me.  Couple of years later I took a course in geology and didn't need to be told what glacial till looked, felt and smelled like.  What they left out was the sweat and blisters.  Thankfully, none of the rocks I dug out was larger than a jagged basketball.
     Emil payed a visit to let me know lunch was ready, "Looks like you've been rootin' for truffles Archie.  You might want to wash up before soiling my table linen.  Good thing I chose this spot, those big rocks'll make fine cornerstones.  The way it looks to me, you're removing the rocks at about the same rate the glaciers laid them down.  Let's go eat."
     Emil and I played a labor duet during the early afternoon hours.  Mine, the bass of grunting, pickaxe and shovel.  His, a tenor of hammer tap and saw bite.  As my hole grew deeper, his platform to cover it expanded.  By three I was bottomed out close to armpit deep.  Not quite deep enough for a grave though a lot of formerly living things would eventually turn to soil in the cold at my feet.  My sunlit head was sweating and my feet were freezing.  In the distance Emil was whistling "Sentimental Journey," and drawing closer.
     "Let me give you a hand out of there.  Damnation, any deeper and we'd be hit from below by bricks falling up from the streets of Shanghai.  That should do 'er.  Time for you to stop playing in your hole and lend me a hand with my creation."
     Seems he'd built a deck that had a slot at one end about the same size as my hole.  Talk about lucky.  Spent a moment admiring his work then hit the scrap pile for two loads of plywood and two by fours.  The rest of our afternoon was spent lining the hole walls.
     "The way I see it nature doesn't like holes and bumps.  She likes everything smooth and flat.  This hole you dug no doubt riles her up enough to want to fill it as fast as possible.  By lining the hole, double layer of plywood, we'll slow the crumbling of the walls.  Hopefully, your hole will last 'til there's one dug for me.  We'll start by measuring and building with this scrap.  Be easier to use fresh plywood but since we have the scrap, well, there's no sense throwing good money after bad or some such nonsense."
     Spent the next two hours in and out of the hole, fitting, sliding, scraping and securing the liner.  Finished by laying down eight corner and side stones, lining up the deck hole with the ground hole and leveled the floor on the stones.  Done, Emil trotted off and returned with two chilled Lowenbraus.  Cracked the caps, stood back, admired our work and drained the brews.  Back at camp Emil asked me if I thought German beer tasted better than American,
     "Don't know.  I never stopped to taste the first one.  Maybe we should try a second so I can find out."
     The answer was; different, maybe better but still tasted like beer.  We stumbled our way through dinner.  Though we had the cabin to cook in, our kitchen remained outdoors.  Felt too confining surrounded by wall and ceiling.
     We'd set up our cots in a corner surrounded by opened windows.  At night the silence of the cabin was stifling.  We needed the sounds of night and movement of air to sleep properly.  The night drifting though the windows arrived chilled.  And that was good.  A cold nose made me appreciate warm feet.  Also kept my sinuses open and I slept well.  The rush of the brook, owls hunting in the dark, a scurry of mice on the roof, now and then the chattering whistle of a loon passing by on its way to any of a dozen small lakes in the area, all were soothing.  I'd awake in the dark and listen for maybe a minute, reassured by those sounds that all was right with the world.  Then drift away toward the morning.
     The six foot long walls of the outhouse went a lot quicker than thirty-two footers.  By Tuesday's end they were up and we'd moved into the cabin to assemble the four roof trusses.  Having a level surface again proved a joy.  Level is good.  Made the first truss from two by sixes and used it as a pattern for the remaining four.  Wednesday found the rafters up, decking on and shingles laid.  Thursday, screened the triangular side eaves for ventilation, installed the three awning windows, hung a homemade door with crescent moon and began nailing up cedar siding and boxing the eaves to match the cabin.  Friday finished the siding, built the bench, keyhole sawed two holes, installed toilet seats over them and laid the birch flooring.  The flooring, like that which would eventually go in the cabin, came from birch trees grown on Emil's acreage.  Emil finished the day by varnishing his way out the door.  Inauguration would have to wait.
   
   
   
   

Emil's Cabin XXXII - Interlude

     Emil:
     Each night I sleep like the dead.  Tired to the bone.  Years earlier I never figured to be working this hard at age fifty-nine.  Also never figured to be building a cabin with an eighteen year old nephew as a helper.  Truth is it's Archie who keeps me going.  Even though he think's I'm doing the leading it's more he's doing doing the pushing.  The wonders and energy of youth.
     Not long and we can slack the pace.  Sleep in a little later, take a longer lunch break.  Once the outhouse is done it's clear sailing.  Pop on the window screens and do all the work inside.  Hard to believe I'll miss the smell of the tent and keeping an eye on the sky while we work but I will.  Another door closed.  Supposed to be another one opening up ahead somewhere.  Hope it's a good one.
     I've got Archie for another month.  Yeah, I've said I like the quiet but with him gone it may be more quiet than I've bargained for.  Oh well, don't have to think about that now.  For the moment I'll just enjoy what I've got so long as these ten and eleven hour days don't kill me.
     Some nights I'm too tired to sleep.  Learned over the years to not get worked up over it.  There's always something to think about.  The past, future, those last two windows to install tomorrow.  Ladies, of course.  Also the world at large.  A war starting up.  Civil rights and all that unrest.  How do I fit in?  Feel I should do more or at least care more but don't want to and wouldn't know what to do if I did.  Sometimes I worry about how it'll go once I'm alone.  Where'll my life lead me?  And there's always God.  Still trying to figure that out even though I know I can't.  Infinite's infinite and I'm not.  Kind of a dilemma.
     Then I remember to calm down.  Just breathe.  I have any real questions that need answering, something'll tell me.  Usually my dreams.  But they can be pretty cryptic and require some thought.  Sometimes the answer just comes.  When Archie sees me staring off into the trees or down to the ground, I'm looking for answers.  They're out there floating around on the edge between thought and the treetops.  The answers are always there if you know where to look and how to grab on.  Kinda
of like dreaming or fishing.  The fish are always there, even the ones in my dreams, just have to keep my line in the water.
     Hang on a second.  I've got an incoming.  Nooo, this isn't Leon in Cincinnati.  Sorry, it was just another one of the lesser gods.  I get those wrong numbers all the time.  Don't know what their problem is.  You'd think even a lower peg god'd be able to whisper in the ear of the right dreamer.  Problem is that kind of crap's going on all the time.  Some bozo in Wisconsin gets to thinking he's the best thing since white bread and ends up in the Senate trying to uproot Communists who aren't there.

Emil's Cabin XXXI - Wood Stove

     We were off to a slow start and still washing dishes when the mill truck drove in.  Ted at the wheel, Arne riding shotgun.  Ted climbed down from the driver's seat, gloves in hand, "Figured this'd be your day to head into town and didn't see your truck coming down the trail.  Afraid we'd missed you and'd have to carry your stove in by ourselves.  You guys starting to keep banker's hours?  Day's half shot.  So, put down your dish rags ladies and let's get to it."
     Again the lumber pile grew.  Emil planted cash at the mill and harvested lumber at the building site.  And a stove.  And a box of metal parts to go with the eighteen feet of stove pipe.  Seemed like an overkill of pipe to me.  Emil said it had to do with code and code had to do with not burning his cabin down.

     "Gotta be two feet higher than any point within ten feet.  That much straight run of pipe and the stove'll draw like a jet plane taking off.  Keep in mind Archie, the building codes were written from decades of experience.  They're not so much the government buttin' into our business as they're a guideline on how to do things."

     Turned out Roy wasn't exaggerating about the weight of the stove.  Four hundred, twenty-five pounds.  Getting a grip on it was the hard part.  That and not making any unmanly noises when we moved it.  We each grabbed a corner and shuffled along like penguins.  Once inside we slid it near the spot Emil had marked out.

     "One second Emil.  Got something in the truck Roy said you might need.  Thirty bucks should you want it and you can pay him when you're in town."

     Ted and Arne trotted off and returned with an inch thick, four by four sheet of what looked like brick .

     "Insulation board of some kind.  Roy says it'll keep the floor from overhearing.  You might not need it but for thirty bucks Roy figured you wouldn't want to take a chance."

     "Should've also told me it might make sense to lay the floor before I put in the stove but that's my mistake and no big deal.  Give me a minute and I'll write you a check.  And tell Roy thanks.  Never thought about burning a hole in the floor."

     Seemed Roy had also thrown in four small steel plates to spread the weight of the stove's cast iron feet.  The insulation board went down and the stove placed atop, four feet from the wall.  Along with the pipe, Emil had ordered a sheet metal baffle for the back of the Franklin that'd keep the wall cool.  We were set.

     "Gotta get to gettin'.  We've a big order on the truck for a place going up on McFarland.  And have to be back to the mill by noon.  Emil, I've given some thought to a canoe trip.  Sounds good.  Maybe fall, soon as work slows down a little.  Okay with you?"

     "Looking forward to it already.  Take care and thanks for the help."  Emil pulled a coupla of bills out of his wallet.  After a moment of pooh-poohing Emil clinched it with, "buy yourself's lunch.  Anything left over, bring us a half dozen donuts next time."
     As the truck lumbered up the driveway we went back to putting camp in order.  First things first.  Having a new toy and not being able to play with it must have been hard on Emil.  But, Emil being Emil, it was hard to tell.  Laundry and food trumped installation.  Like I said, first things first.
     'Bout the only time we ever listened to news or music was on the drive to and from Grand Marais.  Up on the land our sounds were limited to nature, tools, song and conversation.
     "Quiet is one of the reasons I chose this site.  I'd have a transistor radio but as you've no doubt noticed, there's no radio signal beneath the ridge.  Lost a fair amount of hearing back in the war.  Not as though I'm deaf but when there's a lot of background noise I can't carry on a conversation.  Keep misunderstanding words and have to ask whoever I'm talking with to repeat what they've said.  Lena said the inscription on my tombstone should be 'pardon?'  Yah, I've had more than my share of noise.  Probably hit enough for a lifetime twenty years ago.  Up here I can still hear leaves rustling and the sound of Aspen Brook.  For now that's plenty.  Should they ever come up with a battery powered record player I'll be the first one in line.  For entertainment I've got my books.  Might take up writing or even drawing.  Who knows?"
     We ran through town like the Mongol Horde on a rampage.  Hit the ground running and were back rolling up Highway 61 by twelve-thirty.  Darlene at the Hub said we should slow down, enjoy our food.  Also said the noise we made gobbling down the broasted chicken special was scaring the other customers.  And should maybe take care to not choke on the bones.  We didn't slow but did mind our manners a bit more.  Fun's fun but Emil said we were on a mission to cut us a hole in the roof and fill it with stove pipe by supper time.
     Good thing the pipes came with instructions.  Even had a template to mark the roof hole.  As usual, getting started was the hard part.  A plumb bob told us where to cut the hole.  Marked the spot from the underside of the roof by drilling upwards.  Put us in the ball park.  Once above Emil used his best guess to position the template, figuring we could always slide the stove an inch or so either way to center it beneath.  Took three drill holes and the saber saw to open up a big enough slot.  We were in business.  Single wall pipe from the stove to the triple wall transition piece in the rafters and triple wall pipe above the roof.  Finally, a screened bonnet topped the run.  Down at roof level Emil carefully worked in the tar paper and black-jacked the bejeezus out of the metal roof plate.  "Doubt it'll ever leak but you never know."
     "Tomorrow we finish the shingling and maybe start boxing in the eaves.  Then, by hook, crook, or Wildcat, we head down to Irish Creek.  Maybe catch us some ten inch brookies, fry 'em crisp and eat 'em like corn on the cob with taters and asparagus.  Should you be up for it there's always that six pack of Lowenbrau I bought a month ago."
     Never had German beer before.  Maybe it'd taste better than American?  Had my hopes as beer was well down my list of things to drink should the world be ending in an hour.  Somewhere between turpentine and pond water in the pecking order.
     With trout fishing in the offing we spent our evening reading and snacking.  I have no idea how many calories we burned in a day but it seemed if we didn't eat every chance we got, our pants would fall down.  Can't say I'd lost any weight but I'd sure hardened up.  And my hands had leathered.  Emil said hands are the true windows of the soul.  They'll trump eyes any day.  One glance at a person's palms'll immediately tell you if they earn an honest living.  Yeah, he says a lot of stuff like that.  Sometimes I think he just likes to play with words.
     Finished the shingling around the chimney in an hour.  Closing the eaves seemed like it'd be a walk in the park.  It wasn't.  Turned out to be a lot like the days of the dying cockroach.  All the work was above our heads and gravity was our enemy.  Took both of us to nail in a single, eight foot cedar board.  Four hands to join the groove to the tongue, then we'd toe-nail it in place.  Switched off every so often to let the blood return to our arms.  Almost forgot, the icing on the cake was having to rip saw the length of every fifth tongue and grooved board so it'd fit flush with the face board.  Early afternoon closing in on half done.
     Irish Creek crossed under the McFarland Road a few minutes south of Aspen Brook.  I'd have thought a creek would've been bigger than a brook but it wasn't.  What it lacked in size, the stream more than made up for in beauty.  We hiked down stream in heavy shade.  The beaten paths paralleling either side told us we weren't the first to enter.  We kept moving 'til the bower of maple, alder brush and dogwood thinned out.  There we'd reached the last little plunge pool and stood facing the trout stream's death.  What had been a run of rushing water and cascades in a hurry to see what was around the next bend, took a break and settled into a meandering ribbon through a swamp.  We gave it a moment's glance and hiked back, our lines bone dry.
     The far side of the road told another story.  For whatever reason, the paths were less beaten and soon ended in a thicket of dogwood.  Emil smiled,
     "Now this is more like it.  A few hundred less mosquitoes would be nice but they're the price you pay these days for what passes as paradise.  You know it wasn't so much that Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, more that on the eighth day God created flies, skeeters and ticks.  On the ninth day Eve invented the needle and made some clothes to keep the bugs off.  Helped a little but not a lot.  On the tenth Adam said 'to hell with this noise, let's you and me head out on the desert and eat some honey and locusts and procreate us up a storm.  Maybe raise some Cain if we're Abel."
     We bushwhacked our way upstream for a half mile and fished our way back.  Yeah, we caught enough tiny brook trout to make a meal.  But carefully returned each to the water.  We'd not had a lot of rain that year and the flow of Irish Creek was down.  Wasn't much to begin with and now the trout were hunkered down wherever they could find more than a foot's depth of sheltering pool.  Seemed a travesty to kill anything living under those conditions when we had fresh food back in the coolers.  But that didn't stop us from fishing.
     Never fished on my hands and knees before.  Never played hide and seek with trout either.  Even then we spooked half the crystal clear pools.  No way could Emil use his long fly rod.  Or me cast a spinner.  Any movement of a rod and the brookies would instantly fade away like sparks in the night.  Went back to day one and rigged a tiny, orange and black, beetle bug with a strip of pork rind.  Would've used worms we had any.  Emil led the way.  Eased the spinning rod through a stand of cone tipped alder in hopes the trout would think the blue shaft was just a rapidly growing branch.  Then released the bail, let the lure tumble free down a rock strewn chute and into the pool.  Brook trout can be nosy and be willing to swim over to check out anything that just might be food.  'Specially when it came to the possibility of an easy meal in the form of what looks like a grub.  The fight wasn't long.  But we weren't there for the fight.  Just the foolin'.  We'd have been nearly as happy had the beetle bug been hookless.  Nearly, but not quite.  Don't ask me why.  That's just the way it is with fishermen.
     Yes we caught our share of trout that afternoon.  Not a lot but enough to say we'd figured it out and could have had a meal if we wanted.  Days like that make life worth living.  Quiet happiness.  I could easily see why Emil was building along the banks of Aspen Brook.  Would have been happy to do the same but I still had a lot of bends in the road to check out before I was ready.  Us northlanders need to earn our pleasures.
     Finished the eaves on Monday.  It'd been on the cool side since we started clearing the driveway but summer finally arrived with a vengeance around 11:29 in the morning.  Wasn't what you'd call deep south summer but to us it was a killer.  Doubt it made eighty-five.  Doesn't sound hot unless you're used to wearing a sweatshirt after supper and in the mornings before the sun topped the trees.  Keep in mind where we were.  Up in the north of the northland where the birds fall out of the trees whenever the thermometer reached ninety.  Hell, down in Grand Marais they sold thermometers that maxed out at eighty to make room down below for a minus seventy mark.  Hasn't hit bottom yet but they're hoping.
     On the upside our sweat seemed to enjoy the heat a lot.  Squeezed through our pores by the bucketful, ran down our arms and into our eyes as we again spent the day working above our heads.  Cedar sawdust clung to every exposed body surface then washed earthward in sweat rivulets like detritus in a flooded stream.  Not fun but we kept at it.
     Started lunch by pouring buckets of icy well water over our heads.  Good pain that left me gasping but wanting more.  Worked thirsty, went to bed thirsty, woke up thirsty, then ate and went back to work.  Early Tuesday we started on the siding, board and batten.  Boy did it go fast.  I'd hoist a one by twelve into place, we'd check the vertical, Emil'd hammer in enough galvanized finish nails to secure it and we'd move on to the next.  Quarter inch gap between each.  Two hours and we had a long side covered but still short fourteen nails per.  Emil took one end of the wall, I grabbed a hammer and started nailing from the other.  Met in the middle about an hour later.  Still had the battens left but figured we'd do them in one long run.  Two-thirds done by dinner.
     I'd sure like to tell you about every nail we drove over the rest of the week but figure it'd take way too long and be way too interesting for ordinary folk.  Maybe even dangerously interesting.  So for your own self-interest, I won't.  Let's just say  the weather did eventually cool off.  In fact we had frost on Thursday.  And by Friday we were done with the siding and mostly done hanging the windows.  Come Sunday night it looked like we just might be sleeping indoors.  It'd still be sleeping bags and cots but a door beat a zipper by a long shot.  Next week if we put our minds and backs to it, we might even have an outhouse.
     

     

Emil's Cabin XXX - Sheathing and Shingles

     "You know what I'm looking forward to?  Won't be long and we'll be able to sit down to take a crap.  Might not sound earth shaking to the world at large but the idea of having my hands free to hold a book is a giant step toward civilization.  Been giving my house of repose some thought.  Have to fill it with light, give it plenty of air flow, make it my happy place.  Windows.  Maybe some pictures on the walls.  Uf-dah, best stop or I'll get all teary-eyed."  Thus Emil.

     Saturday it rained on and off.  Perfect weather to head to town for our usual resupply and laundry.  Of course we made the obligatory stop at the mill.  Wasn't sure how but Roy already knew what Emil'd come for, "'Spose you're about ready for the Franklin stove and piping?  Picked it up last week down in Two Harbors and hauled it up with the shingles.  Would've said something but I figured you didn't want it sitting around in the open so we kept it here.  Still in the box.  Let me know when you want it.  I'll send my son along with Ted to help you cart it in place.  Yeah, she's a bear.  Must weigh close to four hundred pounds."
     "Roy, could you also order me some rough-sawn cedar?  One by twelves, eights and one by threes."
     Roy pulled out a pencil, "How much, how long and when?  The big ones have to be western red and we don't stock them."
     Emil pulled his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, "Call it a hundred seventy of the big ones.  Same number of one by threes.  Four hundred and seventy, tongue and grooved, eight footers.  The rough sawn one by eights, no, make 'em one by tens, let's say thirty-two.  All of them eight footers.  And however many galvanized six penny finish nails you think I'll need."
     "Four-seventy tongue and grooved, you sure you need that many Emil?  I figure it at fifteen hundred and fifty dollars for the lot of them, nails included and if you're sure, I'll have them on the truck with the stove.  That okay with you?"
     "Yes sir.  We'll be ready for it by week's end."
     Emil pulled out his note pad to see if he'd forgotten anything, "Oh yeah, could you throw in enough craft-backed insulation to do a hundred sixty-eight feet of stud wall and about eight hundred square feet of ceiling."
     "That'll be another hundred-forty dollars.  All told, sixteen-ninety."
     A nod, handshake, a check and we were out the door.
     After lunch at the Hub and my weekly update to Mom, we donned our rain gear and headed down lake to Thomsonite Bay in search of treasure.  Or what passes for it in these parts.  And did find a few small pieces of thomsonite.  It'd take a polishing to bring out all the colors.  'Til then they don't look like much more than pretty rocks, doodads.  Something to put in a drawer and forget about.  To us the fun was in the search.  Emil rented scoops at the lodge nearby.  We spent the next couple of hours getting our jollies by dangling off rocks on our bellies looking for good stuff and trying to not fall in the lake.  Guess we'd been in the woods too long.  Lost our hold on reality.  Those things happen.
     Emil decided should he ever build a doll house he'd install a fireplace made of native stone.  Our pea-sized, semi-precious stones would be the highlight.  "Yup, some little girl, maybe yours Archie, will no doubt take one look at what I'd built and decide right then and there she'd rather have thomsonite on her engagement band than some old chunk of colorless diamond.  And she'd be right.  But first you'd better find yourself a woman so my imaginary work won't be in vain."
     Back at the cabin the rain had slowed to fog and mist.  Putting tar paper on the roof would have to wait, as would sheathing the lookout.  Since we nearly had an indoors to work in Emil set us to hanging windows.  What I'd figured a challenge turned out to be simplicity.  Seeing as how the casement windows were already built all we had to do was lift them in place, pull out the hammer, level, tape measure and shims and go at it.  This was another place where my uncle's attention to detail paid off.  A window fills a hole in the wall.  His challenge was to make that hole just a little bigger than the window.  And Emil's openings were right on the money.  Had they been a half inch smaller we couldn't have slid in either of the double mullions.  Coupla shims width on each side did the job nicely.  Once in place he double-checked for level and plumb, then we nailed the big finish nails carefully, using a nail set to sink the heads.  Yup, they went in slick.  By dinner we had a couple in place.
     "I can smell it.  By the time we head down to the cities for your orientation at the U in August, we'll be living inside just like real people.  Of course we'll be sleeping on stacks of lumber but it'll sure beat the tent."
     The rain stopped for good and a cold front blew in over night.  Breezy and jacket weather once again.  In the years since, I've come to associate those conditions with whitecaps on the lake sundays.  Began the day on the roof by hammering down two by sixes to give us a grip while installing Lookout sheathing.  Some was done with leftover plywood sections and most of the full-sized sheets had to be trimmed to size.  The putz work made both of us happy it was a short day.  Still, early afternoon found us nearly half done.
     "We'll finish tomorrow then begin to button it up.  Start at the top shingling and work our way down.  As for the rest of today, your guess is as good as mine."
     A brief discussion decided us on a trip to nearby Irish Creek.  Emil said he'd heard it wasn't much of a flow and the trout were on the small side but it'd be fun to see new water and be eaten by new mosquitoes.  The end of the driveway was about as far as we made it that day.  A hundred yards in from the McFarland Road we nearly ran into a sky blue Buick Wildcat convertible mired to the hubs.
     A quietly mumbled, "Idiots," escaped from Emil but he was all smiles as he approached them.  Before the couple realized what was happening, my uncle was off and running.  Lord have mercy.
     "My name's Emil Yuntowun and this is my associate Archie Pelago.  We're the rescue crew anticipated and sent here by the DNR to extricate you from your predicament.  Yeah, the DNR is a fine establishment.  Has crews like us wandering the woods at all hours of the night and day just to be of service to the citizens of the State of Minnesota and its cherished visitors.  Now, what exactly seems to be the problem?"
     The pair paused, glassy-eyed, as though awakened in the middle of a dream only to find themselves in what turn out to be a nightmare, "Yes, yes, I see.  Name's John and this is my wife Alma.  We're up here on vacation from Des Moines and were looking for a picnic spot.  Thought the Aspen Brook sounded like a picturesque place and, well, here we are.  It's sure a lot more primitive than we thought it would be.  Any ideas?"
     "Well John, the way I see it we can do one of two things.  You could climb back in your car and set to gunning your engine and spinning your tires some more.  That most always works under these circumstances.  Eventually the Buick would burrow its way deep enough to be of no problem for anyone passing along this trail.  But the way I see it you'd be stuck having to hike back to Grand Marais and buy a new car.  Seems a waste of a new Wildcat."
     "Or Mr. Pelago could go in the back of our service truck and retrieve the length of stout rope and two ton come-along the state has provided us for situations just like this.  We'll winch you out in a jiffy."
     In keeping with the moment I gave Emil a "yes master" and slumped my way to the rear of the truck in my best 'Igor in the woods' manner.  Could be dragging my leg was a bit over the top.
     Wasn't a jiffy.  A mud encrusted hour later the Buick was back on the road, this time pointed back toward the big lake.  Emil was offered twenty bucks for our effort but turned it down,  "Mr. Pelago and I are being paid handsomely to be of service to fine folks like you.  Keep your money and take the Missus out to dinner down at the Naniboujou Lodge instead.  Tell 'em Emil sent you."
     As they rolled away Emil just quietly shook his head, "We all mistakes Archie, sometimes it's just a matter of mud, sometimes you end up in the trunk of a Lincoln with a sock in your mouth and your feet in a washtub of concrete.  I'd take the mud any day.  Honestly, when we first saw them I was royally pissed.  Both trespassing and messing up my driveway.  When I saw the Iowa plates I knew them as nothing more than lost bumblers in the woods.  The routine I struck was nothing more than steam at first.  Then it was fun.  Let's you and me get a couple of wheelbarrows of rock and sand to fill these holes.  Then maybe some dinner and an hour of spookin' trout on the picturesque Aspen Brook."
     So that's what we did.  Guess we were adventured out for the day.  No doubt the couple from Iowa would have a story to tell their friends about the oddballs up in the backwoods of Minnesota.  Made me feel honored to be an oddball.  And maybe remembered as one for years to come.  All thanks to my uncle.
     Over the next week construction sped up a lot.  At least it looked like it did.  Digging holes doesn't look like much is going on.  One hole, ten holes, all pretty much the same.  But sheathing, shingles and windows are another story.  Looks like something's actually happening even though the level of effort hasn't changed.  By week's end the Lookout roof and most of the main roof was shingled.  Emil had left a section of the front untouched for the exit hole of the wood stove's chimney.
     Emil did the nailing, I did the grunt work,  "Archie me lad, I'm looking for a volunteer.  Need someone to carry ten rolls of roofing felt and ninety bundles of shingles up on the roof.  'Tain't but a ton or two.  Whoever it is must be under the age of fifty.  Do it myself but don't meet the qualifications.  Don't look at me that way, I don't make the rules."
     Started by laying out and tacking down the felt.  Double course to begin, the remaining courses heavily overlapped.  When we finished, I began carting up bundles of cedar as we needed them and spread them out and popped the metal bands so Emil wouldn't have to move any more than necessary.  Worked in the shade as much as possible.  If you've ever shingled a roof you know why.  The sun's not always our friend.  We'd start each course by snapping a chalk line.  The beginning, double layed course was done from a jury-rigged scaffolding.  The remaining single rows were done from above with a five and a half inch exposure.  Two nails per each new shingle, each nail a thumb's width in from the side and an inch above the exposure line.
     "By using those measurements there'll be three layers of shingles at any given point, at least four nails in each, over three layers of felt.  Not sure but I think the cedar's there to look pretty while keeping the felt in place.  Fine with me.  Pretty is good."
     Over the week we got into saying things were good.  Food, water, beer, nails, peeing.  Kept at it 'til it died of overuse.  Things were still good.  Except saying they were.
     Had a hard time keeping up with Emil.  Sliding a shingle in place and giving each nail three pops didn't take but fifteen seconds.  Me above, sliding them one at a time, Emil below tacking them down.  Pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-pop.  Quarter inch space between each.  Careful on the last pop to not dent or crack the shingle.  Inching our way across the roof.  Took nearly as much time for Emil to pull nails from his pouch as it did to drive them in.  Pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-pop.  Next.  A break every now and then for my uncle to stretch out and me to work the bundles around.  So it went.  Friday found us staring and admiring.
     "When the rough sawn arrives we'll install the stove and pipe.   Box in the eaves.  Then the windows and doors.  Sometime mid-week next, we'll move in.  Uf-dah, it's close."
   
     

Emil's Cabin XXIX - Perch

     Five days 'til the shingles were to arrive.  I figured we'd be sittin' around twiddling our thumbs for half that time.  And was about right when it came to framing and sheathing the rest of the roof.  But we weren't close to shingling time.  Guess I forgot about having to finish putting plywood on the Lookout's wall.  And pulling all the bracing.  And covering the walls with tar paper.  And installing all the windows and doors.
     Since it was a Sunday we took it easy.  By two our work was done.  We'd spent our time trimming the rafters and sawing a bird's mouth in each.  Not sure why a notch in wood is called a bird's mouth.  Doesn't much look like a spread beak at all.  The idea behind one is to have the rafter grab onto the outer wall and keep it from falling down.  Seems that's the idea behind most construction.  Build it up and do what you can to keep it up.  As it was we had all ninety-two rafters ready to go when we stopped for the day.
     "We could do more but I just don't feel like it.  What I feel like is eating some perch for dinner.  Haven't had a one since our first trip to Canada.  So why don't you and I load up the Grumman and head over to a little lake I know is filled with 'em."
     Twenty minutes later we'd loaded both fishing and cooking gear.  Emil threw in a can of Spam and a half dozen eggs just in case.
     "The best part about this lake is the locals don't eat perch.  They'll tell you, 'da only ting dos wormy little pastiches are good for is bait.  And den dere not so good even for dat.'  Good for them.  Just leaves more for you and me.  First time I ate perch I was afraid it'd poison me.  Took a little nip off the end of a filet and worked it around my mouth for a minute to see if my lips'd go numb or my glass eye'd cloud up.  But it tasted good and from what I'd learned over the years, things that taste good are generally safe to eat.  Still didn't keep me from keeping within trottin' distance of a biffey for a few hours."
     We took the back roads.  Seemed like Emil was in a hurry to take it easy and raised a cloud of dust while flying over the sand and gravel that must have looked a thunderhead to the tourists down in Grand Marais.  Along the winding roads near the vegetable lakes we nearly inserted the Nomad into the backside of a moose.  Seemed the roar of Emil's braked tires caught the attention of the moose as it laid a small mountain of brown eggs on the road before galumphing off into the brush.  Almost expected to see a kingfisher come moseying along.
     Emil didn't bat an eye over our near death, "Been meaning to do that for a while.  Not run into a moose mind you, just do a slam-the-brakes-quick-stop to see if the Grumman's tied on securely."  It was.
     Over on my side of the front seat, after I peeled myself down from the dash, I lit up a cigarette figuring tobacco would take years to kill me and my uncle could do it in the blink of an eye.
     The lake we were heading to was a widening of the Brule River.  Wasn't deeper than six feet but never froze out due to the river's current.  A good fishing lake with more than its share of walleyes, pike and panfish.  Also had a reputation with the locals who'd motor down the mile and a quarter of placid stream into the lake whenever the water wasn't too low.  Borealis Lake provided many a meal in the tip of the Arrowhead but not a one included perch.
     "Archie me lad, back in my youth I could feel this day coming, living in the woods and fishing when the notion took me, then lost that vision when I fell in love with Lena.  Seems I gave up a good thing for a better thing.  Once we were married I figured it'd be forever.  Guess the powers that be had other ideas.  Took a long time to get used to Lena being gone.  Hell, still haven't gotten used to it but it's not so bad anymore.  Sometimes I think people are like sandstone.  Not a solid rock, just layers on layers of something you could crumble up in your hands.  It's those layers on top that keep the ones below from falling apart 'til there's so many the whole thing comes tumbling down.  The cabin's just another layer.  And a good one.  It's my 'someday when I grow up' layer.  And doubt I'll ever be done with it.  I'll just keep on adding in one way or another 'til I can't.  Just like I'll never be all grown up.  Do it right and keep growing 'til I die.  Maybe even after that."
     Not sure exactly how but I think my uncle was giving me another angle on my next few years.  The long run angle.  Deal with my problems as they come up and move on.  Hold onto the important things.  Maybe catch some jumbo perch.
     Emil guided us out, "Feels like a swamp doesn't it?  Probably 'cause that's what it is.  All along to our left it's nothing but reeds, brush, more cattails and dozens of little pot holes that'd be prime spawning ground for northerns.  Pike don't like to waste a minute of the year.  Soon's the water thaws in the shallows they set to making babies.  Should times get tough, they eat those same babies.  Can't say that'd be socially acceptable for people but there's an efficiency to a pike I can't help but admire.  If the water in the Brule'd rise a foot or two, the size of Borealis'd more than double.  From the air it probably looks that way even now."
     "Those bright yellow flowers on the right are marsh marigolds.  Doubt they're actually marigolds but they do like to grow in boggy ground.  By this time of the year they should be bloomed out.  Guess that bunch is even slower than me.  All along here is prime moose territory.  They muck their way down to the river to eat roots.  Don't know why, probably 'cause they taste good.  I've seen 'em eat lily pads and the reeds called horse tails.  Maybe we should have a salad with our perch?"
     The Brule was split by an island, then opened to the lake.  A minute later Emil dropped the anchor.  The plan was slip bobbers and a small, orange-headed ball jig tipped with a bit of pork rind.
     "You think we'll find 'em here?"
     "Maybe.  That's the idea anyhow.  There's a campsite half a mile down where we'll have supper.  With luck we'll gather us some perch along the way."
     And we did.  Couple here, couple there.  Some six inch bait robbers, a few close to a foot.  The eaters Emil slipped into a wire mesh basket he'd draped over the side of the canoe.  Have to admit it was a good time.  Even when the action slowed there was always the bobber to watch and work.  Cast it out, let it sit for a few seconds then slowly twitched the rig in.  The idea was to make the jig and pork rind look like alive.  When the bobber'd go down, I'd give it a three count and set the hook.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  Hard to be perfect when you're going by feel alone, trying to see the unseen.  Also hard to not get bit off once in a while in a lake with pike.  We slowly fished our way down the right hand shore 'til we had a half dozen jumbos.
     "We'll call that dinner."
     Supper was perch and Emil's world famous three can special.  Two cans of sliced taters, drained, salted, generously peppered, splashed with a Louisiana hot sauce and fried crisp and a jumbo can of baked beans perking in a twig fire.  The filets were bathed in cracker crumbs and fried every bit as crisp as the taters.
     "Best part is the two mile paddle back where we can burn off some of the bulk we've taken in.  Any excess gas is good.  Let's you know you're alive.  Melodious and malodorous at the same time.  Even our expulsions love puns."  We were back in camp an hour before sunset.  Puttered a few minutes, cleaned up and were soon sound asleep cradled in the northland twilight.
     Monday began our seventh week of construction.  Rafter time.  And a time to see that errors compound errors.  They weren't big and were to be expected.  After all this was hand work.  No matter how exacting we were, our pencil marks weren't always dead on, saw kerfs wandered a tad, and even though they're machine made, lumber dimensions vary.  All those thirty-seconds of an inch added up.  Some canceled each other out, some compounded.
     How many times have I said Emil was a stickler as to detail?  Probably not enough.  He was above in the Lookout with the stack of rafters.  I was below on the ladder.  He'd slide one down, I'd use a precut spacer to put it in place and we'd nail it down.  Three sixteen pennies up and three eight penny toe nails on the bird mouth.  Emil was humming and mumbling in the glory of how well it was going.  Yeah, we were smoking along at the rate of close to twenty an hour.  Yup, he was a happy man 'til we hit the last rafter of the first side.  Before starting my uncle had marked the finish point on the wall sill below which the last plank should hit if all had gone as planned.  But it didn't.  A full three-eighths short.  Oh me, oh my, I thought the old man was gonna cry.
     "You sure?"
     "Yes sir, almost seven-sixteenths short.  'Spose you want to tear the cabin down and start over?"
     "Believe me I'm considering it.  Damnation.  Should it have been a half inch over it'd be another story.  But short?  I'm surprised this whole thing hasn't fallen down by now.  Archie me lad, we'd best keep this to ourselves.  And make it a point to never stand under the front eave.  Oh well, slide 'er to the mark and nail it down."
     It was pretty much the same story when he sighted down the rafters from the end.  Seems he could see a waviness in their lay.  I sure couldn't.  But then I had the handicap of two good eyes.  Remember back in Canada when we were watching the pelicans?  Emil could see the unseeable.  At least that's what he claimed.  Who was I to say he couldn't?
     And so it went throughout the day.  Imperfections here and there.  Not easy on the old guy but he finally accepted his ever so slightly flawed life in construction.  By dinner we had all but two corners framed.
     "For all it's faults she's prettier than pretty.  A man could live a good life in such a building.  Fortunately that man is me."
     By week's end the roof was framed and sheathed.  Over forty sheets of plywood went onto the roof. But that wasn't the challenge.  Over half of them had to be marked and trimmed in one way or another. Doesn't seem so bad in retrospect but the idea sawing a full sheet of plywood lengthwise still makes my eyes feel like they're full of sawdust.  The upside was we were nearly done with our plywood.  Only the lookout's walls were left.
     "Won't be long and we should be able to take the tent down and move inside with the mice."
     Close to day's end on Friday Ted drove in with our shingles.  Seemed like no sooner would Emil's lumber pile go down then it'd rise again.  Emil offered Ted a beer but he took a coke instead,
     "Learned my lesson years ago.  The more I drank to forget, the more I remembered.  Seemed kind of pointless so I went cold turkey.  Boy was that fun.  For the first few years I fell off the wagon a couple of times and got bruised pretty badly each time.  Finally my wife Emily said it was either her or the door.  We're still together."
     It was then Emil broached the idea of a canoe trip sometime in the future,  "You don't have to say yes or no right now unless it's no.  Give it some thought.  Ain't the end of the world either way but it might prove a good time."
     "Tell you what, I won't say no, just maybe."
 
   

Emil's Cabin XXVIII - More Roof

     The rain grew to a downpour.  No wind just marble sized drops whacking the tent roof, seeking entry.  For an hour it kept raining harder and harder 'til the air would have been solid white had it been daylight.  Fell asleep thinking of what the morning'd bring.  Emil wasn't one to forego work unless he was forced.  My luck the rain would slow to a drizzle and we'd be framing the lower roof in rain gear.  Couldn't for the life of me conceive of anyone being crazy enough to sheathe the upper roof under these conditions.  But with my uncle I wasn't sure.  My ears awoke in the middle of the night and said the rain was over.  Good.
     Morning arrived dressed in deep blue with a tent snapping wind out of the northwest.  Popcorn clouds scudded by on their way to Florida.  Emil figured they'd be over Okeechobee by lunchtime.  Once my body crawled out of the bag it knew immediately a jacket would be in order for breakfast.
     "Kite flying weather for sure.  Archie me lad, this'll prove a fine day to work.  That rain last night told me in no uncertain terms to get this roof on as fast as possible.  Rain makes plywood sad, just tears it apart.  We'll start by sweeping some of the pools off the floor then let the wind finish the drying."
     I grown to love the feeling construction gave me.  Physical, creative and exacting.  That a project might take a long time made it all the better.  There's a feeling of comfort in knowing what the morning will bring.  And since we were jack-of-all-trading it, what the morning brought was a little different each day.  Emil treated me as an equal in his project and the subject of who's boss never came up.  When it came to work we gave it some thought then plowed ahead.  Usually Emil knew a better way to do something but not always.  When a difficulty was in the offing we'd talk it over.  Should I have a better approach, that's what we'd do.
     We'd put our talk under the Sentinels behind us.  Nothing more to say on the subject.  And what was said did me a world of good.  I'd gotten angry and gotten over it.  No reason to be mad at Emil since I was the one who'd screwed up.  My next step was action but I didn't see that happening for a while.  I'd grown comfortable with my guilt.  Knew it'd come back on me in the quiet moments and knew it'd go away after it'd slapped me around for a while.  Guilt's an ugly little beast that likes to be heard.  Kind of an anti-ego problem I suppose.  Me and feeling bad had us a relationship.  Call it a bad marriage.  Still I'd just as soon it wasn't there and there was only one way to do that.  But, like I said, not now.
     Sheathing the lookout roof's last three sides took nearly two days.  It was a bear.  A hip roof called for a lot of sawing.  We'd move a sheet from the floor to the roof, mark it, return to the floor to trim it, haul it back up and nail 'er down.  Up and down, up and down, over and over.  When a side was complete, it was time to move the scaffolding.  Mid-afternoon on Friday we rolled out and tacked down the roofing felt.
     "Doesn't look like I thought it would," Emil commented, "but it does look like it does.  Those things happen.  Guess the picture in my head was too elegant.  Oh well, what can you expect from someone as elegant as I?  When we nail down the shingles, the roof'll be done.  'Done' is good.  If it rains we'll have a dry spot to tuck under.  Tomorrow we'll head to town for laundry and food.  Order the shingles.  We'll be needing them within a week."
     At the mill it came as no surprise to Mr. Berglund that Emil would want cedar shingles.  Could be he'd mentioned them earlier.  Could be he just looked like a cedar kind of guy.  Seeing as how wood shingles were pricey, Roy Berglund had no intention of jumping the gun and being stuck with an order he couldn't move.  Once Emil said cedar, Roy simply asked, "sawn or hand-split, what grade, how much, how long and when?"
      Emil responded, "sawn, B if they look good otherwise As, twenty-two squares, eighteen inch and as soon as you can get 'em.  And Roy, better throw in enough two inch, galvanized siding nails to do the job."
     "Twenty-two squares of cedar's no problem.  Probably have to truck some up from Two Harbors and there's no way I'd do that for a small load without having you pay for gas and wages.  Don't like to do that but money talks.  How does the end of the week sound?"
     Emil wrote a check and we were out the door.  My uncle believed in cash on the barrel, even when the cash was a check and he seemed to have had a lot of it.  Didn't bat an eye at plunking down enough bucks to have bought a decent used car.  For shingles.  Little pieces of wood he happened to think were handsome.  Thousands of shingles we were going to have to nail down, one at a time, on our knees, twenty feet in the air.
     " Just you and me on the roof, for hours and hours, days and days.  Yup, sounds like a good time to me Uncle Emil."
     "Archie me lad, you don't know the half of it.  By the time we're done your knees will hurt and your butt'll hurt worse.  Have to sleep on your back and stand for dinner.  But the roof'll sure look pretty and smell good when we're done."
     Besides food and laundry we picked up a few new books at the library.  Wasn't so much Emil was cheap but said he'd be a fool not to use a resource he was already paying for, "Besides, most of what's on the paperback rack is pure crap.  Words on a page.  Pretty much a waste of ink and trees.  In a library there's a fair amount of decent literature going back all the way to Cervantes.  Hell, they even have the Bible and the Koran."
     "Archie me lad, ever read Huck Finn?  It's not a kid's book as most people think.  Let me grab you a copy.  Would've suggested The Catcher in the Rye but it appears they don't stock it.  Probably the language.  Seems some of the words are a tad too demanding for delicate ears."
     After finishing the laundry and lunch at the Dairy Queen - my choice - we headed back to the woods.  There we began to frame the lower roof.  It'd come to be our work was fun and our fun was work.  It's what we did.  Not quite the same as fishing but close.  The sun burned our necks and arms the same as fishing.  The air smelled the same.  Same sounds filtered through the brush and trees.  Ate and slept outdoors.  No one to answer to but ourselves.  Yeah, we'd grown to love what we were doing.  At the end of each day we'd stop and look at the space that'd not long before been a patch of forest and think to ourselves, "Damnation, look what we've done."  Some evenings it was all we could do to not head back to work but Emil was as much a task master as to rest as he was concerning work.  Evenings were for talk, reading or fishing.
     The rafters were a piece of cake once we got the angles right.  We began by cutting the cripples we'd nail at the base of each stud to support the short rafters.  I marked the two by four stock, Emil sawed off the cripples and I nailed them to the Lookout studs.  We had us a regular two man production line.  Every so often we'd stop and stretch.  Watch the world go by then switch jobs.  By dinner they were up and ready to support the two by six rafters.
     Working above was a pleasure.  It was nice to be on top of things when we were the reason for the thing we stood and knelt upon.  Wasn't like we were in the treetops but the elevation us a feeling of freedom.  Could be the sensation came from not being in touch with the ground.  Definitely added an extra dimension to our world.  On the ground there's no such direction as down.  Your feet are already as down as they can be.  Sounds are similar.  Up top your ears catch tones at an new angle and they don't seem as muffled.  Air even smells better.  Makes a man want to be a bird.
     Our vinegar was up in the evening.  We were done with dinner by six-thirty and had nearly three hours of light left.  Nothing to do about it except hike downstream to see what we would see.  I packed a rod just in case the urge came upon us.
     The Aspen has two separate personalities.  We'd seen enough of it to have an idea but two miles told us more.  There were quarter mile stretches of fast water with their share of plunge pools, riffles and boulder fields.  Once we'd passed onto new water it was the pools that'd hold us for a few casts.  Might have been any number of trout there but the first hookup would usually spook the pool.  Since we weren't there for the fishing anyhow, after one we'd move on.
     On the lazy bends the brook'd slow and the shores bog up.  Emil'd pull out the map and compass, shoot us a course and we'd bushwhack to what looked like good holding water.  Once we'd covered a mile the only paths we found had been made by deer.  The land of innocent fish.  Dumb and unsuspecting.  Seemed their idea of a good time was meeting up with spinning steel and hook.  We'd alternate pools, then move on.
     Finally we came on a pair of beavers doing their best to stave the flow of the stream one branch at a time.  Hard to tell if they were having much luck but didn't seem to be bothered.  Just kept floating new timbers down to where the Aspen narrowed.  We sat and watched for a few minutes in silence 'til Emil couldn't take it anymore,
     "Those beavers'll change the nature of this valley, turn it into a pond.  Probably won't last forever but for a couple of years it'll make for some good fishing.  'Spose you could say the same for the cabin.  That it won't last forever.  But I'll pass on that notion as it's way too simple an analogy.  Scary simple like a romance novel.  Not that I don't care for romance, just not in novel form.  Though some forms of romance are more novel than others."
     "Yeah, things come and go.  The hills surrounding us are many millions of years old.  They're some of the oldest exposed rocks on the planet and even they're well on their way out the door.  Most of the animals and plants that ever existed are long gone.  The dinosaurs?  Phht!  Gone in a relative flash.  But it's the dinosaurs that got me thinking of someone I once saw back in nineteen and sixteen down in the cities."
     "This was back in the days long before the Twins.  Long before Metropolitan Stadium.  Back when the American Association was almost a major league.  Yeah, that year the Minneapolis Millers had a ball club that could've held its own with any of the big leaguers.  It was late september when a couple of my uncles, Edwin and Wilhelm and ten year old me hopped the train down to Nicollet Park to see the final game of the Little World Series between the Millers and the Buffalo Bisons.  Now you won't find any reference to these games anywhere as they weren't official in any way or form but the series did happen.  I know, I was there."
     "Back then the Millers had a manager, went by the name of 'Pongo Joe' Cantillon.  Feisty little bugger who was known to do whatever came to mind with his lineup and didn't much care what anybody or the press thought about it.  On the day in question, that being the deciding ninth game - yeah they played best of nine in those days - Pongo Joe added Casimir Broncewski to the lineup.  Casimir'd come up in the spring as the latest in a long line of phenoms who were to take the baseball world by storm but he turned out to be more or less a cold drizzle with only the occasional bolt of lightning.  According to the Independent most everyone called him Bronto, as in short for brontosaurus.  Like his namesake Casimir was a big boy but that wasn't the reason for the moniker.  Wide spread rumor had it that on off days Broncewski, just like his namesake from another era, could be found down in south Minneapolis wadin' the Minnehaha Creek uprootin' and chowing down on arrowroot."
     "As for power, he had it in spades.  When he'd catch hold of a pitch, which wasn't all that often, fair or foul the pellet would come down on rooftops across Lake Street from the ball park.  And this was in the days of the dead ball when homers weren't all that common.  Problem was Bronto had a problem with a few pitches.  Couldn't hit a curve ball for the life of him.  Change ups baffled him.  But a fast ball?  Yeah, if there was a falling barometer between 29.73 and 29.51 then it was bye-bye baseball.  Five hundred or more feet."
     "Odd thing was Bronto could pummel the heck out of anything illegal.  Grease ball, spitball or snotter, didn't matter.  Pongo said it was due to those pitches not bein' on the level, much the same as Bronto's swing.  'Bout the time the pitch was falling off the table, Bronto's upper-cut swing was roarin' off the deck.  Whammo!  Hello Lake Street."
     "The night before the big game Pongo'd had himself a visitation of sorts.  Whether it was in a dream or some other form of unconsciousness he wouldn't, or couldn't, say.  Didn't matter.  Whatever it was told him that startin' Bronto would be the key to victory and Pongo's ticket to the majors."
     "As it turned out our hero fanned four times that day on thirteen pitches.  Came down to the twelfth inning of a one to one ball game.  The Millers had the bases loaded, two outs and Bronto comin' to bat.  Pongo wasn't having anything to do with what he knew for sure would happen.  Pulled Bruno and grabbed a nun at random from the crowd to pinch hit.  Pongo later said she'd caught his eye on that sunny afternoon as the nun was the only fan in a pool of shadow on that brilliantly sunny day.  And as luck would have it she'd been sitting right next to me.  Never saw anyone finger the beads as fast as that woman.  Like the trooper all nuns are Sister Mary Margaret, that's what the Independent said her name was, took a high, inside, hard one on the bean for the team and the winning run scored.  Crowd went nuts, hoisted the nun's unresponsive body on its shoulders and paraded around the field for half an hour."
     "Years later the Millers tried to get Mary Margaret canonized a saint.  Mother Church said no way as there had to be at least three confirmed miracles in her life.  The Millers rebutted and said for sure there were at least three: 1) Pongo's vision, 2) the shadow sign from above and 3) the fact a hundred mile an hour fastball didn't kill her, only changed her allegiance to the St. Paul Saints across the river.  No comment from Rome.  Didn't matter, to Millers' fans the lady was a saint.  Had a life-sized bronze statue of her erected in front of the main gate.  When Nicollet Park was leveled a decade ago the statute disappeared.  Rumor has it the archbishop of the diocese had snuck it out of town and these days it's stored in the basement of the Vatican.  Whether true or not they ain't sayin'."
     "Bronto slowly sank from sight, back down through the minors.  Last anyone heard of him he was down in South America playin' for the La Paz Tinhorns.  Rock bottom at thirteen thousand feet."
     Through it all I sat there numb.  Pummeled into silence by the hammering of Emil's reminisce.  The beavers below seemed to not care a whit.  Just continued moving limb and patting mud.
 
   
   
   

Emil's Cabin XXVII - The Sentinels

     Could've fished every evening had we the desire.  Sometimes just seeing and hearing the Aspen flow was enough.  A big part of fishing is getting out of the house and being outdoors.  We already had that aplenty.  About the only indoors we'd had for the last month was the tent.  Some nights we just didn't have the energy to do more than read.  More often than not it was pushing eight by the time dinner was done and camp was put in order.  Hard to turn the weight of pages when you've been swinging a hammer for ten hours much less wade and work a rod.
     After the longest days we'd simply sit and talk.  Maybe bring up what was on our minds while we worked.  You'd think we'd have been talked out after a day together but on the job conversation tended toward what we were doing at the moment.  Could be attention to detail is genetic as both Emil and I tried our best to draw every mark dead on, saw each line exactly as marked and drive every nail on the money.  He followed code to the letter with the idea all those exacting measurements and requirements were the result of centuries of thought.  Emil said we were building on the shoulders of those who came before.  It was up to us to show the ancients the respect they deserved.  Also wouldn't hurt if the cabin didn't fall down.
     That evening we took our leisure and last cup of coffee under the Sentinels.  The duff beneath their limbs softened the earth for sitting and their trunks not only provided a place to lean but were also coarse enough so we could scratch our backs like bears.  In short, we found comfort there.
     We sat for a while.  Didn't say a thing.  Just watched the river and listened to bird song, lost in our thoughts.  Emil'd go quiet once in a while but it wasn't his style.  After a few minutes it was time to egg him on,
     "So what's on your mind?"
     "You Archie.  That and your draft situation.  Can't leave it alone.  I get started on it then drift off into my time in the war.  Spent better than two years in the Army and the last twenty reliving it in my thoughts and dreams.  Ask Ted, he'll tell you the same.  Probably shouldn't have gone in.  But I didn't know that 'til after.  War changes a man and rarely for the better.  Changes him deep inside, so deep you don't notice it for a while.  The crap you have to go through isn't something you want to dwell on so you cram it down where it can't get at you and move on to the next hill, then the next beach.  During the day it's not so bad but at night, in your sleep when your guard is down, it all comes back.  It was bad for a few years.  Nightmares about being trapped in the war.  Then trapped in the Army waiting for my discharge that never seemed to come down.  In these last few years, the dreams have grown farther and farther apart.  Haven't had one since we've been up here."
     "Anyhow, all that has me thinking of you.  Odds are pretty good you'll end up in Vietnam in a war that makes no sense I can see.  There's an old saw about not getting involved in a land war in Asia.  It's kind of a joke these days but nowhere near as funny as that domino theory malarky the government is spouting.  Leave 'em alone is what I say.  There's nothing to gain.  But we won't and young men like you'll end up in jungles and rice paddies fighting an army that has home field advantage.  From what I know of you, you'll clear up your mess with the draft and find yourself in a bigger mess.  Such is life.  About the only advice I have is to do what you feel you have to do.  For better or worse.  Amen."
     Sure brightened my day.  And for the moment made school look a lot better.  Didn't need a conscience with an uncle like Emil.  He was becoming as ingrained as a father.  Though I knew he meant well and no doubt was right, I was starting to hope he'd leave my issues with the Army alone.  After all it was my problem not his.
     We sat.  Quiet.  But not in my head.  Three or four voices were going at it in there.  I was mad at Emil for not leaving me alone.  I was mad at myself for putting myself in the spot I was in.  I was mad at the world for giving me the chance to screw up big time.  And all three of them were pointing their collective fingers at me and going, "Nyah-nyah-nya-nyah-nyah."  So I tried to pass the buck,
     "If it was as bad as you say it was how come you and Ted never talk about it when you're together.  Seems to me that's what old guys who were in the war do."
     Emil was quiet for a long time.  Stared off at the stream.  Turned to me, "Archie me lad, Ted knows what it was like and knows I do too.  That's enough.  There's nothing to talk about.  Simple as that.  This is how it goes, I have no interest in talking about being in combat with those who weren't there.  They wouldn't understand.  And there's no need to bring it up with those who were.  As for the old guys who gas about the war and all its glory, most of them piloted desks in Omaha.  Might be wrong about that but I don't think so."
     "That's about all I have to say about that.  'Bout the only thing I know for certain is the sun'll come up tomorrow and there'll be an unfinished roof waitin' on us."
     We went to bed early that evening.  It'd been a cool and threatening since lunch, not unusual in the north country.  Up in the Arrowhead it can frost on the Fourth of July and snow on Labor Day.  Neither for us that night but about the time my toes started to warm in the sleeping bag the first raindrops fell on the tent roof.  Good sleeping weather.  Not so good for building.