Men Working

My life has entered a strange path, centering around some workers we hired to expand the upstairs of the farmhouse and put on a new roof, a year ago. We got some bids for the roof, were unhappy, were riding around, and finally spotted a pickup truck with an ad on the door – general roofing and contracting. We jotted down the number and called it that afternoon. James, the fellow that came out, took one look at the house and the roof, and said: “Cedar shakes with at least four roofs on top of it – right?”. Yup. Linda and I took a look at each other. Sold! So ensued an relationship with James and his crew that lasted all summer and on into September, as they slaved on our old farmhouse and we watched as James’s situation deteriorated financially. James paid in cigarettes as well as money, and the crew lived totally hand to mouth on meager cash budgets; and had problems making child support payments, to say the least. At one point, two weeks in, we realized they stayed longer and worked harder if we fed them a good breakfast around 10:00. Duhh! Somewhat later I was filling James’s gas tank just so he could run around and pick up crew the next day. And finally, I ‘lent’ James $2700 to prevent repossession of his truck. James died at age 50 a year later – did I mention they each had some kind of health issue and (of course) no health insurance?
Anyway, the resulting job was beautiful – absolutely lovely roof, incredible job on the upstairs, and a new (surprise!) front porch roof made from boards scavenged from the attic. Doug, the carpenter with the crew, was a creative genius who easily transformed our (often changing) thoughts about the upstairs into a pleasing reality.
Finally they finished and left; but this summer Doug and Linda were facebooking and we decided to have him start on the Garage, which was in danger of collapsing. Thus began phase two of Farm Renovations. Doug decided to just flip the paneling boards of the garage, which saved us $800 – money that I was happy to give to him as wages instead. I worked alongside Doug and watched as he read the lean of the building and gradually corrected it, corner by slanting corner. We had Doug work on many other things this summer, culminating in a massive list of preparations for Linda’s brother’s wedding this October, all at $12 an hour. Our lesson having been learned from the summer before, we tried to feed him well and kept his gas tank full. Frankly, this man was an answer to a lingering prayer – so many things here falling down! So many of those fixed! So, my retirement took on a different flavor – instead of killing myself working on awful projects, I’m managing renovations at a reasonable rate of cash outflow. And, I’ve acquired some insight into our working neighbors of Newton County – financially these are truly desperate folks, but they carry that amazingly well. I’m glad we could keep a few of them (barely) afloat, with the work to do around here.