MaineCourse

Write Home

"Where are those kids? It's 5:30, shouldn't they be back in Esteli at their stations?"

If there are any blog readers who have heard from the wandering wonders, please leave a comment.

---

Chris is away at baseball camp and will return for one week of work before he leaves again, this time for trips to Ohio and the Cape with his parents. I figure I have maybe two more stories involving Chris, and this one, which will put most people who are not blood relatives to sleep, is one of my favorites.

For two weeks, we hammered, cut, pried, smashed and sometimes bled, removing all the water-damaged wood from the side of the building. Finally, we began to reassemble what we had torn away. Thursday we nailed clapboards, and Friday when we arrived, I had hoped to continue. However, we found yet more rotted wood, this a heavy timber called a header that formed the supporting member above a window. I desperately wanted to continue the simple task of cutting the clapboards while Chris nailed. I didn’t want to breathe in more dead carpenter ant bodies, or be showered with hot nail filings as we sawed out the offending pieces.

Chris had other ideas.

“Let’s finish with the rotted wood.”

“No, we can work around it.”

“But if we do that, we’ll have to backtrack.”

“But not much. I need a break. I want to do the fun stuff.”

I was also worrying, given how hard we’d been working and how restless my nights, that I was too tired to know if we’d adequately supported the interior ceiling. Each supporting member we chopped away threatened the stability of the wall. On its own, the two stories had sagged to form a dip in the kitchen’s hardwood floor.

Chris, an accomplished hammerer, continued, “If we finish it today, we won’t have to do it Monday.”

At some point I began asking myself the same thing you are. Who is the boss and who is the worker? Who’s the parent; who is the child? How did this child become so responsible?

I weakened.

“All right. Okay. I give. But grant me one wish. Let’s first finish those clapboards ( I pointed to a space between the sliding door and the window). Then we can tear out the header and hope the building doesn’t collapse.

“If we don’t start now, we won’t finish by the end of the day.”

---

From last night's concert at the Fleet Pavilion.
View larger image

Nice photo of two in love! Remember those days? Were you at that concert, you cultural congnocenti you?

Woouldn't it be great if that were Matt talking, instead of Chris? Your duty'd be done!

Posted by smiling.

I’ve learned much from Chris. The man who taught me carpentry said he could find me on a job by following, bread crumb-like, my trail of unfinished details. Which is why Chris’s effortless, let’s-finish-what-we’ve -begun attitude, impressed me. That header was less odious than I had imagined, and we knocked it out in no time, so I’m hoping some of Chris rubs off.

And I’ve learned a lot about the extraordinary young man that(who?) is Matthew. Giving up so much that was comforting to him at home, traveling to a far off place I would have shied away from, adopting and being adopted by his home stay family, sitting in a Spanish class for four hours a day, planning and taking weekend trips via transport that at home makes him nauseous, learning the customs of a foreign country...I mean, it just goes on and on. And all in his sophomore summer! Sometimes children are doing back flips that say, look how good I am, while the parent stares only at what they perceive the child does poorly. I’m guilty of that.

Were Matt and Hil’s most amazing journey an olympic event, even the eastern block judges would give them perfect scores.

Posted by The Proud Dad.

Posted by Michael at August 1, 2004 07:36 PM