I measure twice and cut the cedar shingle once against a stiff autumn wind. I climb the ladder and drive two nails, careful not to split the wood. The work needs to be done before we close the cottage for winter and head home.
I may look like your typical DIY duffer up on that ladder, but behind the hammer and smile is a man dying to hone his skills and prove his worth.
Like Thurber’s daydreamer, Walter Mitty, I imagine myself, not as the Navy seaplane commander of that story, rather as a skilled tradesman. The guy with the tape measure stuck to his side who never has time for lunch. The guy who knows the two-by-four isn’t exactly two by four.
The illusion began for me when we purchased our summer cottage more than 25 years ago against the advice of home inspector who took one look at the abundant structural problems and said: Run don’t walk away from this money pit.
Where he saw disaster, I found challenge. I began to hang around Home Depot. I bought tools and watched true pros do their thing on TikTok. I was smitten.
My first big job was re-siding the cottage, and I had plenty of coaches and real tradesmen like neighbor Steve who’d wander over to tell me my last row of shingles was off by an eighth of an inch. Really, Steve? I missed by the equivalent thickness of two stacked quarters?
The itch to be that guy with the pencil coming out from under his DeWALT cap went next level when I retired from the news business. I built a new brick walkway for the cottage, visible to folks passing on their way to our beach.
My dream? I wanted someone -- anyone -- to be so convinced that I was a legit mason that at least one would stop and ask: Would you have time on your schedule for me?
As I was finishing the job, two young guys, real pros who were working up the street, stopped and looked at my handiwork. Then, turning to me, only semi-jokingly, one of them said, ``Why don’t you come work for us.’’
Boom! Mission accomplished.
In truth, I’m not really ready for the big leagues – just so much better than I used to be. But there is a serious side to my fantasy. It hinges on that moment I left my full-time job behind, still attached to the idea that people who’ve worked their entire lives can’t suddenly stop.
Since age 14 I’ve cut lawns, cleaned gutters, gutted fish and shucked oysters. I've waited on tables, cooked for tables full of strangers. I pulled sheets of cured rubber out of hot ovens in my father’s small factory.
I trimmed row after row of arborvitae, stocked grocery shelves and for years reported news, edited news, commented on news and played host on radio.
I don’t miss the stress of days that turned into night or balancing time at the office with the hours at home. What is missing now is the sense of purpose that work and its schedule brings. Every living thing from the snail to the CEO does well by knowing what comes next.
The late Annie Dillard wrote: ``Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair."
The projects I do now keep me exactly and quite literally where Dillard says we ought to be.
In midair.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back on the ladder.
