Hick is good with a hammer. He's also good for the environment. He loves nothing better than procuring treasures like cast-off wooden boxes, linchpins and concrete saws found on the road, lumber in dumpsters, wooden pallets propped beside the back doors of businesses with "Take me" signs attached, and salvage materials offered in lieu of payment by people who ask for his assistance in wiring and plumbing their newly-acquired rental property.
The first construction project on our land was an outhouse. It was necessary. There was no house yet. Hick had plans to build a barn, and contrary to Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill, the outdoors is not one giant toilet. The outhouse was second only to the toolshed Hick built on his buddy's land and hauled to town by calling in a favor with a guy who owns a towing company. When we built our house, he hauled the toolshed back. Other projects include an A-frame cabin down by the creek, compete with a plexiglas window upstairs. In the loft. Then he built a new cabin, more conventionally rustic. So of course he needed a new outhouse. Then he built an all-purpose shed to sit in while watching for deer. And a little barn by the creek for hay for his goats, which are nowhere near the creek.
Most of the projects are out of sight. But every time we have a visitor, Hick strong-arms them into his Mule, and takes them on a tour. I'm sure they feel like they're stuck on the S.S. Minnow, with crazy Skipper tooling around, no end in sight. A teaching buddy told me, "That's some kind of community he's got there. It's like a poor man's Silver Dollar City."
Hick's current hobby involves putting siding on his all-purpose shed. He dragged it over to the barn, where it can be seen from the road. I'm not even going to ask where he got the siding. The Pony tells me that Hick ran out of siding this weekend. He came to the house and commanded The Pony to assist him. Seems that license plates are the new siding. Uh huh. Use your imagination. Hick needed The Pony to help take a plethora of license plates off the barn door, and attach them to the shed. And they're not even OUR license plates. You know how old people save them and tack them up on the wall of the garage? At least that's what old folks do out here in the hinterlands. But ours are nondescript, run-of-the-mill license plates that Hick picked up at flea markets. Just goes to show you that some people will buy anything.
I can't wait for this shed to go back down to the creek. The village called. It's missing a shanty.
9 comments:
And I'm assuming Hick does NOT ever read your blog?
Very funny, Val. (You must like 'em not-too-bright but exceedingly good lookin', right ;)
Hick soundslike my son-in-law who has a warehouse for all of his finds.
Hick sounds like my younger brother. He's always finding stuff!
Donna
Sioux,
Of course Hick doesn't read my blog. That's why I can write about him to my heart's content. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. And anyway, he would be PROUD that I was advertising his scavenging, hammer-wielding talents.
Hick is very bright in a mechanical kind of way. He doesn't see a need for book-learnin' for himself, only for the boy young 'uns. In fact, Hick once told me a long tale about Betty, the famous author who just died. He was talking about Katharine Hepburn, who had been dead for over two years.
***************************
Linda,
Say it isn't so! I shudder at the thought of Hick building his own warehouse.
***************************
Donna,
And I bet that stuff finds him, too. That's how it goes around here. Hick is like a junk magnet. Only he sees himself as a treasure magnet.
Words escape me.
Kathy,
At least your He Who builds good stuff...like the radio in your golf cart.
Did you say wooden boxes? Cool!!!!
I like his idea of license plates. I have seen some license plates used on the sides of buildings and they were really cute!
Okay--my dad had to buy a LUMBER YARD to hold his stash...but when you need something, it is probably in there!
labbie,
Hick's building are not exactly cute. Not even with license plates forming three rows of different-colored "siding".
I would really love a peek at those too! ;)
Post a Comment