“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.”  John Lennon

After six years on the mountain, Linda came home from work and said, “I’ve had it.  After nine years of teaching junior high students, I have finally cracked.  This class is the worst class in the history of junior high.  They are disrespectful, self-centered, and lazy.  I love teaching, but this class is pushing me over the edge.  I know you have wanted to open a restaurant and if that’s what you really want to do, then you should do it and do it now before our kids get any older.”

Holy cow!  Talk about mixed emotions.  We lived in a spectacularly beautiful area.  We both had decent jobs, even if there were moments of frustration.  We were finally getting our budget under control.  Life was good.  But Linda was right.  I had always wanted to open a restaurant.  So, I thought very carefully for a second or two and blurted out, “yes, let’s do it.”

Research and Development

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!  Live the life you’ve imagined.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I discussed the possibility of resigning my position and opening a restaurant with my boss, George.  George’s advice consisted of the following.  5% of restaurants are successful.  Nearly all fail because they are under-capitalized.  If you choose to do this foolhardy adventure, be sure to have at least one year’s worth of expenses as a back-up fund.  Great advice.  Completely unrealistic in our case.  We had no where near that kind of start-up capital.  But, never-the-less, good advice.

Linda and I talked about possible locations.  We liked living in north Idaho.  The mountains, lakes, rivers, and streams were spectacular.  We first looked at Coeur d’Alene.  We had friends in Coeur d’Alene and arranged to meet them to get their ideas on suggested possible locations.  We met with a commercial realtor to see what restaurants might be for sale, and toured various properties; none of which seemed right for what we wanted to do.  The realtor suggested we talk to the Coeur d’Alene Economic Develop Office for additional suggestions.  We made an appointment and had a very helpful meeting.  The gentleman we met with suggested we walk across Sherman Avenue, Coeur d’Alene’s main street, and talk with a developer who was renovating the old city hall building.  They also offered to help with financing when we were ready to go.

The developer was converting the classic, brick building with high arching windows into 4 floors of luxury condos and two floors of retail space and was looking for a restaurant to anchor the retail space.  The timing was perfect.  The agreement was contingent upon financing, and we went to work designing, Chelsea’s Restaurant.  The design team understood what we wanted to do.  Maintaining the old brick, and adding finishes of etched glass and brass.  We wanted the space to be light and airy.

Once the design was completed, we put it out to bid.  The bids came back and were within the expected cost range.  The Economic Development Office helped us put together a financing package to take to the bank with proforma financial statements, marketing strategies, graphs, and charts.  We met with a local banker, presented him with our financing package and I’ll be damned if he didn’t approve us for a Small Business Administration Guaranteed Loan. 

After reviewing our revenue projections and the cyclical nature of Coeur d’Alene’s tourism business, we decided the venture was going to be too risky and we backed out of the deal.  The risk was not perfect. 

Our disappointment was quickly dissipated by a call from Linda’s brother-in-law, who discovered an existing restaurant in Mukilteo, Washington that was for sale, for cheap, fully furnished, and ready to walk in and operate.  We tweaked our financing package, sold our house and in a matter of months we were in the restaurant business.

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”

Linda and I were married in the fall of our senior year in college.  Following graduation, we embarked on a job searching, camping adventure from the furthest northwestern tip of Washington and traveled the coast highway to Los Angeles.  We piled all our camping equipment into the back of our 1967 Volkswagon bug and headed off to La Push to begin our southward adventure.  We were broke, with barely enough money for gas but we had each other and that was enough.  Our plan was to stop at resorts along the way and apply for jobs at each stop, hoping that through some miracle someone would actually hire us.  Linda was a teacher or at least hoping to become one and I with my degree in hotel and restaurant administration was looking for a job, any job, in the hospitality industry. 

Each day, we would drive along the coast, stopping to picnic on a beach or hike through the rainforest.  When we came to a resort area we would stop and introduce ourselves and fill out job applications and occasionally get an interview.  While campfire smoke infused clothes may not have been the most suitable interview attire, it was what we had and most interviewers pretended not to notice.  At night we would find a campground, pitch our tent, build a fire and relax in our tent.  Linda wanted to learn to play the guitar and so we set out with a cheap guitar and a harmonica and we would hang out in the tent, attempting to play music.  But like most beginning musicians we sucked.  We weren’t just clumsy and bad; we were genuinely awful.  But none-the-less we persisted in the misbegotten belief that we would miraculously get better.  We didn’t.

One night on the Oregon coast by Humbug Mountain State Park, we arrived at the campground after dark, set up camp, ate dinner and crawled into our tent to practice our musical skills.  The night was soft and warm so we left our cardboard boxes of food and cooking gear on the camp table and retired to our cozy tent.  With the glow of a lantern, we began singing out of key and strumming chords that were discordant at best. 

“What’s that?”, asked Linda in a nervous voice.  “What’s what?”, I said, now slightly more attentive to the surroundings.  “That snuffling sound”, said Linda.  “Don’t you hear it?”  “Shit!”, I exclaimed and just then pots and pans came crashing to the ground.  Through the tent, we saw the giant rounded shadow of the bear as it bumped into the side of the tent.  “Let’s get out of here”, Linda says.  “Right”, I say.  “Let’s go.”  “Wait”, said Linda.  We could hear the bear right behind the tent, scarfing down whatever it had just stolen off the table.  I wondered how hungry it was.  It sounded quite hungry.  “Go get the car”, said Linda.  “And bring it around to the front of the tent and then I can just jump in.”  “Say what?”, I said in amazement. “You want me to go out, confront the bear and gallantly drive your carriage up to the tent so your highness can escape?  Is that your plan?”  “Exactly”, said Linda.  “Now hurry before he finishes eating whatever it is he has and starts drooling over fresh maiden.”  “Seriously?  So how is your brave knight supposed to defend himself?, I queried.  “Here.  Take my guitar.”  “What, you want me to sing him a love song?  Is that your plan?  You, know, music to soothe the savage beast.  Blah…blah…blah?”  “Shut up.  Take the guitar and smash it over his head if you have to.  Hurry.  I think he is through devouring whatever it was he was eating. Run!!!”

Feeling totally ridiculous, I grabbed the car keys in my left hand, grabbed the guitar in my right hand and raised it over my shoulder, ready to strike the monster if it came after me.  I unzipped the tent, dashed toward the VW, started the car and pulled in front of the tent so that my bride could dash to safety.  We heard the bear snort, slammed the doors and gunned it out of the campsite.  It was about 1am and being the good citizens we were, we drove completely around the campground waking people up and warning them about the bear.  It turned out that not everyone was asleep at 1am and there was one couple in particular that didn’t fully appreciate our intrusion.  They seemed to feel our good deed interrupted them at an inopportune moment yet we were quite proud that we may have just saved their lives, even if their initial response wasn’t very gracious. 

We slept in the car, the rest of the night.  Volkswagon bugs aren’t necessarily the most comfortable sleeping accommodations and we were a bit grumpy in the morning.  After we packed up all of our gear, minus the rest of the week’s food supply, we stopped at the ranger’s office to report the bear attack.  Once the ranger stopped laughing, he gently informed us that there were no bears in the area but that the raccoons were notorious for getting into camper’s ice chests which is why there were signs in every campsite requiring all food to be stowed away and not left on tables.

“Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.” – Dante Alighieri

With both our parents living in western Washington, and Linda and I living in northern Idaho, we had many trips back and forth through the rolling hills of the Palouse, the high desert of central Washington and the magnificent Cascade Mountains separating western and eastern Washington.  I tend to be a quiet, introspective driver.  Not that my attention is riveted on the road, but more that my mind just tends to wander.  Was tumbleweed designed specifically to tumble?  Does its tumbling serve some purpose?  Does it help it to propagate?  How come coyotes are known to hunt in packs, but you rarely see packs of coyotes?  Almost always you see a lone coyote trotting across a field.  You know; that kind of mind wandering thing. 

Just when I got to thinking about the world’s best nachos or maybe sex, Linda quietly asked me what I was thinking.  Her timing was always wrong.  I’m sure she wanted me to share some deep insight into our relationship or philosophy of the meaning of life, but my thoughts are almost always much shallower than that.  So, quickly my brain said, “don’t say sex and nachos.  Say something else.  Anything.”  And so, with my pulse starting to quicken, I began to panic.  If I don’t quickly respond, maybe she will misinterpret my silence.  She is a worrier.  Maybe my delay will cause her to worry that I’m thinking some worrying thought.  Shit.  Don’t say nachos or sex.  “Did you see that coyote?”, I finally say.  She looked at me like I was mildly crazy.  I’m sure she was thinking, it took you that long to come up with, ‘did you see that coyote?’  “Yes”, she says.  “It was a scruffy looking coyote.  Must be slim pickings out here in the desert.” 

My pulse began to slow.  “What would you like to talk about?”, I bravely asked.  “Life”, she says.  “Ok, I say”, as I felt my pulse start to quicken again.  “What about life?”  “Are you happy?”, she says.  “Yes, of course”, I say.  “I have a wonderful family, great job, a new house on top of a mountain with an amazing view.  What’s not to be happy about?”  “It just seems like we are going through the motions.  We go to work, our kids are raised by babysitters, we cook, we clean, we pay the bills, we go to work.  It’s an endless cycle.  There has to be more than this.”  “I thought you loved teaching.  You’ve made some great friends.  You are making a huge difference in the lives of the kids you teach.  What’s wrong?”  “I don’t know.  I guess it’s just me.  I want more out of life.”  Sensing that this conversation wasn’t about trading me in for a new model, I asked, “Do you want to quit teaching?”  “No, we can’t afford for me to quit.  We can barely make it to the end of the month as it is.  You may have noticed that the last few days before pay day are solidly devoted to mac and cheese.”  “Yes, but Kraft mac and cheese”, I say.  We only buy the best for our kids.”  “Ok, Mr. Smartass, that’s not helping.  I feel trapped.  I don’t see a way forward.”  Now my pulse really starts to race.  Is my wife depressed?  Maybe she does want a new model after all.  Where is this conversation going?  My mouth feels dry.  What can I say?

I heard myself say, “It sounds like you want something to change.  What would make you happy?”  “I don’t know”, she said.  “I’m glad you are in my life”, she said.  “Ok.  I’m glad you are in my life, too”, I said.  And just like that my mind is back to thinking about coyotes, tumbleweed, the ingredients in the world’s best nachos, and sex.  Wait a minute.  “Maybe we could leave the kids with your folks for a couple of days and just go off by ourselves for a romantic weekend”, I say.  “That would be nice”, she said and she smiled like the world was now a better place.

“Oh give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in…I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences. Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses…Don’t fence me in” – Gene Autry

Winter on the mountain was magical.  The first snowfall blanketed the fields with hushed purity.  The moonlight sparkled on the snow crystals like diamonds on a wedding gown.  The bracing cold air, almost electrified, was exhilarating and calming at the same time.  Simply magical.  The bright stars twinkling through the heavens, the light breeze blowing puffs of powdery snow off the deck railing in the moonlight created a silent fireworks display as the crystals drifted into the ether. 

The silence of the night, the glow of soft light on the fields of snow below the house, faded away to the lights of the city, miles away.  Magical.  Simply magical. 

There is something about the scent of snow that is captivating and energizing.  The air smells alive and clean.  All of the impurities of life are somehow blanketed in a soft quilt of pure, dazzling white.  The sins of the muddy earth made holy.  With the children in bed, the house is quiet.  Linda is working on lesson plans for her class tomorrow.  She will need to leave extra early due to the heavy, drifting snow on the highway.  I am alone on the deck, enchanted by the beauty of the world before me.  I feel powerful and at peace.  All is well.

A few weeks later…

It’s minus 20 outside.  It’s been minus twenty for two f…ing weeks.  The driveway has been drifted closed with a 12 foot drift for nearly a month.  It will be March before we can drive to our house.  All our groceries are packed on a toboggan and dragged over the drift and down the driveway to the house.  The icicles on the eaves are now three feet long with each deadly spike ready to break off and stab some poor person, probably me, to an untimely and terrible death.  With all evidence melting away in the cold sun, my death will be a mystery for the coroner. 

The once pure snow is now a brown frozen sludge alongside the county road leading to our miserable, prison driveway.  The peaceful, quiet nights have been replaced by terrifying howls of packs of coyotes getting ever braver and nearer to our house.  What have we done?  What were we thinking about when we built this frozen garrison on a mountain, miles from civilization? 

From the birth of children to building and financing a house, from family holidays to summer vacations, the challenges of husbanding mix satisfaction, distraction, confusion, and shear panic.

Family Camping

“The wilderness holds answers to questions we have not yet learned to ask.” – Nancy Wynne Newhall

The weather is generally predicted by meteorologists using the Turnbull camping calendar as a scientific predictor.  Regardless of weekly forecasts, the weather always managed to change as we loaded the van to head off to enjoy nature and burned pancakes.  Our family of four; husband, wife, 4 year old son, and 1 ½ year old daughter set out from Seattle with clear blue skies and a forecast of nothing but sun for the next week.  We were on our way to Fort Stevens State Park on the Oregon coast.  As we drove over the coast range we encountered a little coastal cloudiness which was sure to burn off in the afternoon.

We checked into the campground, set up our tent and began getting stuff ready for dinner.  The kids were getting a little hungry.  I needed a beer after the long drive singing 100 verses of the “Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round”.  It began to drizzle a bit.  No worries.  Just a little coastal mist.  I was pretty sure it would burn off in the morning and we would have a gloriously beautiful day on the beach tomorrow.

“Maybe we should eat in the van”, my wife gently said as the mist increased to showers.  “Don’t worry.  It will blow over in a few minutes”, I replied.  We finished eating slightly soggy hotdogs and decided to retire to the tent and play silly games.  Soon, with the gentle pitter-patter of the rain bouncing off the tent, we fell asleep.

3:00 am.

“Look dear, our daughter’s swimming.”

“She’s not swimming, her air mattress is floating.”

“Isn’t Eric cute the way he is blowing bubbles?”

“He’s blowing bubbles because he is drowning.”

“What time is it?  It’s really dark in this tent.”

“I’m not sure.  My watch says 3am but it might have stopped.  It’s not waterproof.”

So, in the middle of a torrential downpour in the dark of night, we hustled the kids into the van, turned on the heat to try to dry out their soggy pajamas, rung as much water out of the sleeping bags as we could, crammed the tent, sleeping bags, pillows and clothes into the back and headed out.  We didn’t know where we should go.  But anyplace that was dry would be ok with us.  On highway 101 we could go north or south.  We chose north.  The constant shivering from the back seat was getting annoying so I turned on the radio and Linda climbed over the seat to try to find dry clothes in a suitcase that was buried under a wet tent and soggy sleeping bags.  The news was on the radio and it was reported that five inches of rain had fallen in the last few hours and many roads were closed due to mudslides.  We kept on going north, hoping that we would avoid the slides and eventually came to Astoria where we discovered gold.  The brilliant gold sign of a 24 hour laundromat.  I was overcome with joy.  For a few quarters we could dry out our children, our clothes and our sleeping bags.  Life was suddenly beautiful.

Camping on the St. Joe

“Oh, darling; let’s be adventurers.” – possibly Zsa Zsa Gabor (but possibly the famous poet, Anonymous)

The next summer, my parents called to say they would like to come for a visit.  Linda’s sister, Kathy and her husband, Steve had also just called to say they wanted to go camping with us.  I asked my parents if they would like to go camping and fishing on the St. Joe River and they responded affirmatively.  Prior to their arrival, I scouted out a couple of campsites along the river and found one that was a little primitive but at least it had a pit toilet and a fire ring.  And it had space for three tents.  When the big day arrived, we set out in three cars, with two dogs, four kids under six, and six adults, three tents, four ice chests, six folding chairs, two camp stoves, six fishing rods, 10 sleeping bags, 10 pillows, 4 boxes of food, enough firewood for two nights, Coleman lanterns, multiple flashlights, several rolls of toilet paper, a shovel, an axe, a bucket, and all of the paraphernalia required for a successful two night camping adventure. 

The camp site was right on the river bank in a fairly narrow canyon carved over the centuries by the force of the river’s current.  Granite walls rose from the river and we were awed by the majesty of the surrounding forest, the constant roar of the river, the deep blue sky, and the general awesomeness of nature.  Once the tents were set up, we began the preparation for dinner cooked over the campfire.  The kids were happily playing; skipping stones in the river, gathering kindling, and giggling as kids do. 

After dinner, we all sat around the fire, toasting marshmallows for ‘smores, grandpa telling stories, grandma pointing out the constellations as night began to fall.  “Look, there’s the big dipper”, she said.  “What a beautiful evening.”  “Look at those flashes of lightning”, said grandpa.  “They are a long ways off”, said grandma.  “Probably sheet lightening.  Nothing to worry about.  Look how beautiful the night sky is with all those billions of stars.”  And so, awed by the beauty of a clear night’s sky and the occasional flash of sheet lightening, whatever that is, we retired for the evening.

Boom.  “Jesus Christ!”, said Linda.  “What was that?”  “Sounds like thunder I said.”  “It sounds like it is right on top of us. What time is it?”, she asked.  “About 2:00 am”, I replied.  And then the storm hit.  All of a sudden.  Lightening followed immediately by thunder echoed down the canyon.  The wind was howling.  You could hear branches snapping off of the trees.  The rain was torrential, quickly devolving into hail which blasted against the tent walls, and pinged off the roof and hoods of our nearby cars.  “Quick”, I said.  “Everybody up.  We need to pack up and get out of here.  We don’t want to get trapped in this canyon in a flash flood.  Come on.  Move it.” 

Just then, we heard a tree go down.  Everyone was scrambling to get tents down, and stuff packed back in to their cars.  The dogs and I were barking, kids were crying and finally doors were slamming as we eventually loaded everything and everyone into the 3 cars and in a caravan began driving out on a very muddy, slippery road.  Several times we stopped to move small trees out of the road so we could get through.  Branches were sailing through the air. The ground was white with hail.  The rain returned in torrents, blowing across the narrow, one-way dirt road in sheets.  And then, I began to laugh.  “What could you possibly be laughing about?”, asked Linda.  “The last thing my mom said before we went to bed was, “look how beautiful the night sky is.”  “She didn’t factor in the Turnbull weather equation.”

Winter Camping

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

Several years and many camping trips later, my darling daughter, Jessica,  announced near the end of Christmas vacation, that she had a senior English class assignment due that required an outing to Honeyman State Park.  I have no recollection of the nature of her writing assignment other than it had something to do with exactly that.  Nature. 

Her announcement was much like my son’s announcement in fifth grade that he had a science project due the next day and would I please help him with it?  “Sure, Eric, what is it?”  “I need to build a volcano”, he says.  “A what?”, I say.  “A volcano.”  “You need to build this tonight?”  “Yes, it’s due tomorrow.”  “When did you learn of this assignment?”  “I dunno.  Maybe a month ago?”

Being the amazingly resilient person I am, I began assembling our camping gear using the list that Linda had created.  Linda was a Virgo.  According to some book on the signs of the Zodiac, Virgo’s are adept at list making and Linda was the quintessential Virgo.  She had lists for camping, and nearly every other human activity.  She even had lists of lists.  But the camping list was particularly useful and in no time, the van was packed and ready to head to the coast.  It was winter and it was cold.  It rarely freezes on the Oregon coast, but this particular weekend it was well below freezing.  Linda, Jessica and I rented a yurt which had a heater.  There was snow on the ground and despite having a heater in the yurt we all slept in our clothes wearing ski parkas, ski gloves, and knit hats and we nearly froze to death.  I had never been so cold.

In the morning, I got up and went outside to get water to heat on our camp stove in order to make coffee.  All of the pipes in the state park were frozen.  Workers were out with propane torches, trying to thaw out the frozen and broken pipes.  That meant no coffee.  Now I was pissed.  This was the last straw.  Camping without coffee is like skydiving without a parachute; the end is not pretty.  There may have been some undadlike words used as I muttered my way through cooking bacon and eggs.  After breakfast, we all climbed into the van to thaw out.  We drove down the coast a little way to a trailhead, and hiked through the snowy dunes to the location Jessica was using as the subject of her nature paper. 

The Oregon dunes are a magical place with the shifting sands offering an ever-changing landscape of exceptional beauty.  This frozen morning was no exception.  The white, snow-covered landscape, punctuated by clumps of green beachgrass, stretched to the horizon where it merged into the blue-white margins where land meets sky.  And the gradient blue of the sky grew ever deeper and darker as it reached its zenith.  Ours were the only human tracks on this crunchy trek through the dunes.  There were other tracks though.  Perhaps rabbits, some bird tracks, and wait!  What is that over there?  Those tracks are quite large.  What kind of animal would make cat-like prints that were that big?

The human imagination is quite a marvelous thing.  The shift from serenity to fear can happen quite rapidly.  Suddenly every sound was accentuated.  The pace of our movements increased.  There was danger behind every grove of shore pines.  I began rehearsing in my mind the proper protocol for meeting a cougar.  Get large.  Don’t run.  Remain calm.  I began searching around for large sticks to use as a possible defense.  No hope.  No cougar-worthy sticks to be found.  Don’t show fear.  Don’t let Linda and Jessica know that we are surrounded by potentially deadly carnivores.  And finally, we were at the end of our trail and ready to head back home.  I desperately needed coffee.

Sainthood

“All virtues are purifications whose term is perfect purity.  The Soul has all virtues by way of purification.  If it did not, no one of them would attain perfection.  Whoever has the virtues under this higher form possesses necessarily – in potency – the virtues under their lower form.  But one who possesses the second does not necessarily possess the first.”  Plotinus

My wife was a saint.  She was raised by a saint.  Her mom, Thelma, sits at the right hand of God and acts as his advisor.   She shares her insights with him even though he may not ask for her advice.  She is such a giving person.  She imbued many of those same generous, giving traits to my wife who throughout our marriage sat at my right hand and gently, persistently shared her advice with me.  Both women are in heaven now and I’m sure the Lord is greatly appreciative of their generosity as, of course was I.  After my wife’s father died, her mom, a devout Catholic, decided she wanted to join the Carmelite nuns and take a vow of silence.  Being a very supportive son-in-law, I encouraged her to follow her dreams.  My wife and all six of her sisters selfishly intervened to convince their mom not to join.  They used the argument that they had just lost their dad and couldn’t bear to lose their mom as well.  Despite her argument that each of her daughters would be forever in her prayers and that she would continue to live in the local convent, the daughters won and convinced their mom to remain an active lay person in the church.

While I’m sure Thelma appreciated my support, I was quite surprised that my wife was not as appreciative.  My argument that I was only offering my support for the dreams of her mother was met with a counter argument that my argument was full of holes.  Which was my first mistake.  Lesson:  don’t argue with your wife.  Even when she’s wrong, she’s right.  Because I’m the type of person who looks at the bright side of things, I’m sometimes blind to the notion that there are alternatives.  Apparently, there is a downside to the vow of silence.  Being an intelligent husband, I, of course, immediately prayed loudly for God to make me mute.  I didn’t see the Bible coming as it whacked me alongside the head.  So much for praying.

“Accidentally went grocery shopping on an empty stomach and now I’m the proud owner of aisle 4.” – Anonymous

Speaking of aisle 4, how do you know which aisle to attack first?  Many stores have designed their entrances to direct you to a certain section first; like produce.  You walk in the entrance door, grab a grocery cart and you are faced with a wall that forces you to turn right into the produce department.  So, you look at your grocery list for produce type stuff, stuffing it in cheap bags, and then what?  Personal care aisle for deodorant and shampoo?  Condiments?  Canned goods?  Pasta?  Coffee and tea aisle?  Ethnic?  Meat and fish?  Cheese?  Paper goods?  Bakery?  Cleaning supplies?  Pet supplies?  Beer?  Wine?  What’s the proper shopping order?  Do you traipse up aisle one and then go down aisle two and then up aisle three, etc?  Do you shop in the order you have stuff on your grocery list, possibly criss-crossing across the store?  That seems terribly inefficient to me.  Do you use a paper list?  Or do you make a list on your phone?  I see people all the time on their phone, I assume talking to their significant other, asking, I suppose, about the proper brand or package size.  I don’t really know what they are talking about.  Do you shop with your significant other or do you shop for groceries alone?  It seems like either approach is fraught with danger.

Other stores’ architecture isn’t nearly as directive.  You walk in and immediately have to make a decision.  The whole store is laid out before you with aisles parallel to your position.  You can see right down the aisles the instant you walk in the store.  Now what?  Do you still go to the produce department first?  I do.  I want to get the best bananas before the next customer comes in with their virus covered hands and touches them all and before they squeeze all the avocados to get the only one in the store that isn’t hard as a brick.  And then I go to the fish counter to see what fresh fish just came in.  I snag the freshest looking fish in the display cabinet and feel like I just out-shopped the hundreds of people who follow me and will now have to choose a lesser piece of fish because of my shopping prowess.  Then I hit the canned goods or bakery aisle for whatever non-perishable food items are on the list, then head to the dairy section for milk and fresh juices, and finally the wine department to select the perfect wine to go with my perfect fish.  I am a shopping pro.  Or at least I thought I was, until I went shopping with my significant-other. 

We entered the store.  She said, “I have to pee.  I’ll catch up with you.”  I grabbed a cart and turned left to the produce section.  Ten minutes later, I’m still in the produce section when she catches up with me and says, “where were you?  I’ve been looking all over the store for you!”  I calmly and bravely replied that I went straight to produce as all good shoppers do and that I had just found all the produce items on our grocery list and was ready to head to the meat counter.  She exclaimed indignantly that I was doing it all wrong.  Why didn’t I go down the deli aisle, get the cheese for tonight’s appetizer and then go to the dairy section?  I looked totally puzzled and had no quick comeback.  “Why would I go backwards I wanted to know?”  “You went clockwise.  I always shop counter-clockwise when I come to Market of Choice.  You are supposed to go through the deli area first.”  “Huh?”, I cleverly replied.  “Are you telling me there is a right way and a wrong way to shop?”, I queried.  “Of course, you should always go counter-clockwise.”  “Wait, when we go to the Saturday Market, you go clockwise.”  “That’s different.  I have a specific order of booths that I go to each week.”  “Do you shop counter-clockwise at Safeway?”  “Hmm.  Well, that’s different.  But at Market of Choice you must go counter-clockwise.  It is the way the store is designed.”  “It’s designed that way to make you walk past their delicious bakery items, their ridiculously over-priced cheese and salamis and all their high profit value-added items.”  “Trust me.  Your way is just wrong.”

Life is so confusing.  Men don’t stand a chance.

“Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.” – Margaret Mead

Not long ago I was in Las Vegas visiting my sister-in-law, Bev and brother-in-law, Dave.  One morning, Bev asked Dave and I if we would go to the market and buy some groceries.  On the way to the store I mentioned to Dave that he should choose the checkout line because I have a near perfect record of choosing the slowest line.  Even if it is the shortest line something is bound to go wrong.  It will be a shift change just as I reach the cash register and one cashier will exit as the new cashier counts the cash in the till, or the cashier runs out of change and has to call the manager and wait for the manager to come, or the person ahead of me picks something off the shelf that is missing a scanning label and someone needs to go to aisle 22 to do a price check.  It’s always something.  Dave disagreed and said that no one on the planet had a worse record than himself and he began to detail the litany of delays he experienced and the resulting psychic pain caused by those tragic checkout experiences. 

So, we agreed that each of us would pick a lane and the person with the slowest line would have to buy the other a beer.  When we entered the store, we each got a grocery cart and divided the groceries between us.  When we had piled all of the requisite groceries from Bev’s list into our carts, we headed off to the check stands.  Dave chose cashier #6 and I chose #4 because there was just one cart ahead of me.  The cart ahead of me was overflowing but a lot of the bulk was in the cases of soda, giant bags of chips and a dozen or more frozen Totino’s Pizzas.  I figured the scanning would go quickly.  And I was right. 

The woman with the cart was a very large woman wearing black spandex shorts that didn’t quite reach above her butt-crack.  It’s really not good form to try judge a woman’s weight, but I couldn’t help but think she weighed close to 350 pounds.  If she was a foot taller, I thought she might be able to play center on a football team.  The Seattle Seahawks needed a new center and I began thinking of the bonus I might receive by providing such an outstanding lead.  To get the spandex to stretch as far it must to provide coverage over such a large caboose, the fabric was stretched quite thin and I began worrying about what might happen if there was a wardrobe failure.  If it split in the back could the force of the resulting explosion force her back into my cart?  I took a couple of steps back to give her more space.  Soon all her groceries were scanned and bagged and loaded back into her cart.  The cashier informed her of the total sale, the lady opened her purse and searched and searched for her credit card.  I looked over at Dave and began thinking about the cold beer he was about to buy.  He still had one cart in front of him.  Piece of cake.  I had finally won. 

Then I heard the cashier say, “I’m sorry maam but your card has been declined.”  “How can that be?”, the poor woman said.  I began to sweat.  “No problem”, the lady said.  “I have some cash.”  And she reached into her purse and pulled out a few twenties.  “You are $127.43 short”, said the cashier.  “How embarrassing!”, says the lady.  “How can that be possible?  Oh well, I guess I will have to put some things back.”  And pizza by pizza, soda by soda, chip bag by chip bag the contents of the cart diminished until the total was pitifully reduced to the amount of cash the poor woman had.  “Manager to checkstand 4”, I heard the cashier say.  Slowly, the manager appeared and very brightly asked, “Hello Michelle.  How may I help you?”  Michelle said, “My machine has just run out of tape and there is none in the back-up shelf.”  “No problem,” said the manager.  I will be back in a jiffy.  I watched as he turned to leave and began to talk with another employee.  Dave had by now, cashed out, and was signaling to me that he was getting quite thirsty.  A few minutes later, the manager returned with a fresh roll of tape and the cashier slowly, but carefully, began threading the tape onto the cash register.

“What is your favorite beer?”, I asked Dave as we finally exited the store.

Home Construction – “Hammer Man”

“A house is made of walls and beams.  A home is made of love and dreams.”-Anonymous

Linda and I decided to place our kit home over a basement, thereby doubling the total square feet of house for not that much more money.  So, the first Time-Life volume I consulted was on staking out lot lines for the foundation walls.  With wooden stakes and a ball of twine, we marked the area of the basement to be dug.  Thinking that digging out the basement would be a lot of work and quite time consuming, I never-the-less bought a pick and a good shovel and began digging.  I raised the pick over my head and smashed it into the ground.  The pick bounced back at me and a tiny chip of granite flipped into the air.  Solid rock.  Feeling very religious, I invoked the name of God and immediately remembered a bible verse about building your house on rock and not on sand which reassured me that I had chosen the perfect location but perhaps the wrong tool.

So, I called on friends who had friends who owned an excavator and for a couple hundred bucks and a cooler of cold beer I had a 24 X 48 foot hole in the ground with a little notch for the future woodstove and chimney.  In addition, he also dug a trench from the well to the house.

If I was going to be a general contractor, I thought I should dress the part.  So, I bought my first pair of denim overalls, a plaid flannel shirt, a leather tool belt, and leather work boots with rawhide laces.  I also bought a Stanley 25 foot measuring tape that clipped to my tool belt.  I felt like a super-hero.  Call me ‘hammer man’.

The next book to consult was “Plumbing”.  I hired a plumber to rough in drain lines for the bathrooms, laundry room and kitchen.  Next came crushed rock by the dump-truck load.  With a brand new shiny wheel barrow and rake I spread the gravel evenly over the future concrete floor and rented a compactor to compress it. 

I called three concrete contractors for bids on pouring the basement walls and floor.  The low bid was from Dave Booth in Troy, Idaho just a few miles east of Moscow.  I met Dave at the property and discussed the project.  He seemed very knowledgeable and I was confident I made a good decision.  We agreed on a start date and he was sure he could get the walls poured in two days and the floor the following week.  After the walls were poured, Dave commented that everything was perfectly square and I was happy with the job.  Then came the floor.  I drove up to the building site and the floor looked spectacular.  But, wait.  Where’s the plumbing?  “Dave, you poured over the plumbing!”  “The plumber should have boxed that out for you.  That’s not my job.”  “Huh?  Did you think those pipes were just for show?”  “Like I said; my job is to pour concrete.  No big deal, though.  You can just rent a concrete saw and cut out where the pipes come up.”  “Huh?  Did you bother to mark where those pipe ends are?”  “Oh, hell no.  That’s not my job.”  “How will I find where to saw?”  “Probably should have had the general contractor ensure the plumber boxed them out.  What a bummer.”  “Dave, I’m the general contractor.”  “Well, don’t that beat all.  You can make the check out to Booth Construction.”

Dang.  This general contractor thing was harder than I thought.

I called the plumber who did the rough-in plumbing prior to pouring the concrete and he marked off where the concrete now needed to be cut in order to access the buried pipes.  He reinforced the notion that the general contractor was responsible for boxing out the plumbing connections even though I was quite positive that the plumber should have taken care of that.

I had witnessed walls being built.  You simply nail one 2 X 6 to another 2 X 6 spacing studs every 16” on center.  Piece of cake.   You have your basic footer, studs and header and you frame in space for windows, doors, etc.  I was pretty sure the Time-Life book on framing would have all the details I would need.  While it was pretty informative, there were many questions left unanswered.  Exactly how does the footer get attached to the foundation?  How much space is needed for a window that is 3 X 6?  Exactly 36 inches by 72 inches or maybe a little space on each side, top and bottom?  The more I looked at the floor plans, the more confused I became.  But as general contractor, all I needed to do was find a reliable framer.  Enter the Mosely family.  Father, sons, and maybe a cousin or two.

“Dick, whatcha think it’s gonna cost to frame this little house?  You can see we designed it to be really simple.  And I’d be glad to help out.  I’ve got a brand new hammer.”  “Well, it’s gonna take us a couple of weeks.  I figure about $12,000 plus materials.”  “What if I help?”  “Well, in that case, it’ll be about $16,000 plus materials.”  “Hmm.  Ok.  I think I’ll go with option one.  And see that big pile of lumber and stuff?  I think all the materials you’ll need are right there.  Here’s a set of plans.  When can you start?”  “In a month.”  “No. No. No.  That won’t do.  I need to have this closed in to the weather within a month.”  “Well, sorry Rich, I’ve got a couple of other projects I have to do before this one.”  “What if part of your crew started on my project while you knock out the other ones?”  “That will cost me more, because each project will take longer to complete.”  “Wait. Wait. What if I pay you a little more and you push the other projects back a little bit?” “Well, I could check with my clients to see if that might work for them.”  “It’ll cost you another $4000.00.”  “Wow, you came to that number pretty quickly.  Perhaps we should negotiate that just a little bit.”  “Negotiations are just fine and dandy.  I charge $500 an hour for negotiations.”  “Geez, you drive a hard bargain, Dick.”

And so the Mosely crew began framing.  The little house began taking shape.  Basement walls, first floor walls, loft walls, roof rafters, chimney, stairwells, deck joists, etc.  The available funds for my construction loan were diminishing fast and I still needed to buy cedar siding and redwood for the decks.  Soon, the little house on the saddle of Moscow Mountain was framed in with windows and doors installed.  Amazing!  Now Linda and I were really anxious to get this house completed and every spare moment was spent working on the house. 

“Rinnnng”.  “Hello.”  “Hello, this is Anita from Cascade Loan.  We’d like to schedule our inspector to meet with you.  Your construction loan is due soon and since interest rates are currently rising quite rapidly, you may want to consider locking in your construction loan rate.”  “Wait, what?”  “Your construction loan is due and payable within two months but the terms of your contract provide you with an opportunity to lock in your construction loan rate.  Currently, the market has increased 3 percentage points and the economic signs point to a continued raise in rates which could affect your monthly mortgage payment by several hundred dollars.  Now, when can we schedule the inspection?”  “What?  Shit!  Sorry, did I say that our loud?  Ok.  Ok.  Let’s see.  How about 2 months from now?  When did you say the construction loaned matured?” 

“Babe.  You know that construction loan agreement we signed?  Turns out we should have read it.  We have to have the house completed in two months.”  “That’s impossible.”  “We’re going to need some help.”

“Hi Dad.  It’s great to talk to you.  Yes, I know I haven’t called in a while.  Guess what?  Our house is almost done!  We just need a little more help and son-of-a-gun, we’ll be living up here on the mountain in no time.  Hey, remember when you and Uncle Jack replaced the roof on the cabin at Juniper Beach?  Well, I could use a little help on our roof.  Any chance you and mom could drive over this weekend?  Really?  You can?  Awesome!!!”  And so, with a little help from my dad, mom, and brother we got the roof tarpapered and shingled.

“Hey, Loren.  You know about building stuff, right?  I need some help getting the siding on our house.  I want to make sure I get the bottom row on straight.  Could you help me out this weekend?  Oh, and you might want to bring your chop saw when you come.”  We had a work party and invited teachers from my wife’s school, in-laws, and friends to come do an old-fashioned house raising and the siding went on.  And the house took on a whole new dimension.   Thank God for friends and relatives.

“Hi Krisitie.  How’s school?  Linda said your boyfriend is an apprentice electrician.  How’d he like to do a little apprenticing this weekend?  I could really use his help.”  “Sure, maybe.  I’ll check with Chris and get back to you.”

“Hi, Chris.  Thanks for coming.  I could use a little help stringing wire and connecting switches and outlets.  I read the Time-Life book on Wiring but I’m not sure exactly where to begin.”  “Hey, no problem, man.  I’ve been working for an electrician for several weeks.  I know exactly what to do.  I can’t make the connections to the panel, though.  You’ll need to hire someone to do that shit.  You want a toke?  This is some good stuff.”  “Uh, no thanks, Chris.  I think getting the wiring right might require a clear head.”  “Dude, this shit will clear up almost anything.”  “Well, let’s get this party started.  Where do I begin drilling?”  “Dude, we’re having a party?  Right on!”  “No, I meant let’s get this house wired.”  

So, Chris marked where to tack on switch boxes and I began nailing boxes to studs and then drilled holes through the studs for the wires.  Chris ran the wires between outlets and switches and ran the “home-runs” to the electrical panel in the basement.  He determined how many outlets there should be on each circuit and how many circuits we needed.  He showed me how to wire each box and how to wire a three-way switch.  It turned out that he actually knew what he was doing and I was happily surprised.  And then, just before he floated home, he went ahead and wired the electrical panel and made me promise to be sure to have it inspected.  No problem. 

Despite numerous calls to the electrical inspector, I received no response.  So, I marched into city hall, told them that I had wired my house and needed an inspection.  “Ok.  Let’s see your electrical permit.”  “I thought that was what the inspector was for.”  “You can’t just wire your house without a permit.”  “Ok.  How much is the permit?”  “$200.00.”  “Ok.  I want an electrical permit.”  “It’s a little late for that now that you have your house wired.”  “Ok.  Better late than never.”  “Well now you need to pay the fine for not having a permit before wiring.”  “Wait, let’s start over.  I’d like to buy an electrical permit for the house I’m building.” 

“Ok.  That will be $200.”  “Ok.  Here’s a check for $200.  How soon can I have the wiring inspected?”  “Not for at least two weeks.  The inspector is on vacation and he has quite a backlog.”  “I need to get the sheetrock on before then.”  “Did you wire the house yourself?” “My almost brother-in-law is an electrician and he and I wired the house.”  “Well, since it was done by a professional, you can just have the inspector make the final connections to the electrical box and sign off on it.”  “Groovy.”

Linda and I screwed lights into the light fixtures and voila!, we had light. Since winter was coming on fast, we also had some heat from space heaters and working in the house became much more pleasant.

It would be even nicer, once we had the furnace installed.  I read the Time-Life book on ductwork and furnace installation.  I uncrated the furnace, set it in where I thought might be the most logical location and then tried to install the plenum on the furnace.  It turns out that sheet metal connections aren’t as easy as they appear to be.  Despite reading and re-reading the book on ductwork, I had no idea where to begin.  So, we needed another sub-contractor.  This whole build your own house thing, was starting to get expensive.  But we persevered.  And in no time at all we had heat.

Our kit house came with 4 X 12 sheets of sheetrock.  The advantage of such large panels of sheetrock is fewer seams to tape, mud and sand, but dang they were heavy.  There was no way I could do the ceilings.  The cathedral ceiling in the living room was 20+ feet high.  We needed scaffolding for that and someone much stronger than me to lift those panels into place.  So, once again my now general contractor expertise was required and with a few phone calls I hired a sheetrock crew.  These guys were amazing and had the sheetrock up in a week which was good because we were down to a week before the inspector was due to sign off on a completed house and transfer our construction loan to a permanent financing instrument.

While the sheetrock crew was busy rocking, I screwed the redwood 2 x 6’s to the deck joists and built a railing.  Linda had pre-stained everything so when the deck and front porch were done, it looked pretty spiffy.

I cut and laid linoleum in the front hallway, upstairs bathroom, downstairs bathroom and hired someone to lay the carpet in the living room, bedrooms, and upstairs landing area.  The day before the inspector was to arrive, I began laying the tongue and groove flooring for the kitchen and family room which went in fairly easily.  Except that I hadn’t bought quite enough and the lumber store was out and had to special order.  So, we covered the floor with a tarp and hoped the inspector wouldn’t notice.  We weren’t sure what the definition of “complete” was and hoped it didn’t include moulding and a few other finishing touches.  We still hadn’t connected the waste pipes to the septic tank because the ground was way too soggy.  So, we filled the toilets with water and hoped the inspector didn’t flush.  We were terrified that we wouldn’t pass inspection.

“Hi Rich.  My name is Bob Stevenson and Easybuilt Homes uses my services to ensure that their kit homes are complete and ready for move-in and permanent financing.  So, are you all ready?”  “Of course, Bob, come on in.  Don’t pay attention to the tarp on the floor, we don’t want anyone walking on it for a couple of days.”  “No problem.  What a beautiful view you have.”  “Why thank you Bob.  Linda and I are delighted you were finally able to come do the inspection.  We are ready to move in.”  “Well, it looks like the house is ‘almost’ complete.”  “Yep, just a couple of minor things to finish up.”  “Do you have all your inspection documents?  You know…plumbing, electrical, etc.”  “Why yes, Bob, we do.  Would you like to see them?”  “No, just wanted to be sure you had everything checked out.  Looks good to me.  You all have a nice day.”  And just like that we had a house.  There was a huge collective sigh of relief and then the champagne flowed.

“If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.” – Terry Pratchett

“Good morning Bruce.  Beautiful morning!  Thanks for your help yesterday.  How can I help you?”  “Well, no big deal really.  I just need to get a few bales of hay into the barn.  It’s supposed to hit about 105 this afternoon with possible thunder showers later, so getting an early start would probably be good.  Ever buck hay bales before, Rich?”  “Nope.”  Well, it’s pretty easy really.  A bit dusty.  You probably should have worn a long-sleeve shirt ‘cause they can get a bit scratchy.” 

We drove about a half mile to his neighbor’s hay field in a flat bed truck with 8 foot high rails.  “A couple of truck loads and that should do me”, says Bruce.  “The rest we’ll put up for my neighbor.  He has some back issues and I promised to load up his barn in exchange for my hay.”

I learned that each hay bale weighs about 55 pounds and a fully loaded truck holds 480 bales.  I began to understand how his neighbor developed his back issues.  After an hour or so my arms hurt.  After two hours, my shoulders hurt and my back was killing me but we kept heaving bale after bale into the back of the truck and carefully stacking the bales so they wouldn’t shift as we loaded one load after another, drove to the barn and unloaded and restacked bale after bale after bale.  I had hay debris where hay debris should never be.  My hair, face, skin, ears, nose, and mouth were covered and filled with dust and hay chaff.  I cannot remember a time when I was so sore, so miserable, so hot, so dirty, and so tired.  I began to understand religion and the concept of hell.  If this is what possibly awaited my fate after death, I was going to turn my life around.

By this time, Bruce had improved the financial model for his cattle ranching business and had figured out how to get free hay to over-winter his cattle herd which had now grown to four.