WSSP II

   I put off going back to work for as long as I could. My mom told me not to rush back into anything. After hunting season, she knew how fragile I could be, when faced with four cold months on the work site. Or she was being snide. I couldn't tell. In any case I went back on Monday. Now that WSSP is habitable and Shewho is broke, I'm turning my attention to Chuck, Contessa and Ace and their sweet old farm house. They bought 26 acres literally a mile from WSSP with a house and a barn, circa 1850. Shewho has neighbors and I have a new project.

   This place is a palace compared to WSSP. It's older but in the 40's they did a remodel of linoleum and paneling and it was hermetically sealed. Plus it was always lived in, until very recently. A FULL BASEMENT! Such luxury. This is going to be a peeling and skinning job. We have to undo what was done. I found a full Daily News used as insulation in the wall. It was dated July 3, 1940. NAZIS BOMB FRENCH LINE. I'm ripping, tearing, scraping and breathing the most gawdawful dust imaginable. Then I go home, lug wood, pull the big red pot of venison stew out of the fridge, put it on the woodstove, ladle it onto a piece of stale bread, sit close to the stove and TV with a bottle of cold beer and eat in slurping silence. Ray Gilkey took over the couch. Before bed I bail the tub, ( the drain has been froze up for a week) take a shower, bank the stove.......

     I'm a happy man. Sad that hunting season is over. Cold most all day long. Dirty from the plaster, cobwebs and mouse nests. Sore from pulling down ceilings and shoring up beams. Full from that stew. Coughing from the dust. Grateful that I'm making money at something that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out. I guess you could call it art.