Guys
by Donna Schoenkopf
Putting water, power and phone lines in when you’re building in the country has been enormous fun, thanks to the humor and intelligence of guys. Manly guys. Guys who do guy work.
I love guys.
They rarely talk to me when they’re doing their jobs. They talk to each other. I am the little lady. I am to be rescued from my situation. It is their job. I should be quiet, still, wait, trust.
Let’s go back a week.
The rain had let up. Time to go back to work. I hadn’t heard from Peewee that day, so after dinner, about 7:30 pm, I decided to go out to “Chigger Lake” (daughter Rebecca’s name for my property) and just gaze at it as the sun set.
When I drove up, there was Peewee, still working. He had dug a trench down one huge hill and up the other. He had laid water pipe next to the trench, and was gluing sections of it together and duct-taping “locator wire” on the pipe. He was all alone, which is the way he likes it. I yelled hello and he said hi and I asked if I could help. He knows I want to help. He knows I want to make the building of the house as much mine as possible. So, being a gentleman, he said sure.
I got to tear duct tape for him and then when all was put together, we stood looking at the white two inch pipe winding down the hill. It looked just like the Great Wall of China. I said so, and Peewee laughed. It DID look like the Great Wall of China.
Then he gave me a shovel and he laid the pipe in the trench while I threw dirt on it. Up one hill and down the other. It began to get dark and the moon came up. Peewee got on his ’dozer and I watched as he pushed the red dirt into the trench. Finally, it was so dark all I could see were the headlights working down the hillside.
The water pipe was in.
But we still needed power and my job the next day was to make an appointment with Phillip the rural electric guy. I called. Phillip could come on Tuesday. Nine o’clock. I was also to talk to my two neighbors about easements for the power line. So I called them, too.
My neighbor Orville, who had lived on his property for 17 years, had told me that he really didn’t want any trees trimmed at all because the last time he had let the electric people trim, they didn’t clean up after themselves. And I knew those trees had to be trimmed to allow a fifteen foot clearance on each side of the line “from the ground to the sky,” as Phillip had told me the week before.
My other neighbor, Dave, said he wouldn’t mind IF I buried the line. And laughingly added, “and five hundred dollars and a case of beer.” Peewee and I laughed. Dave acknowledged he was just jokin’.
Tuesday, 9 am arrived and so did Phillip. Peewee and I were there waiting for him. Then Greg, another electric guy, drove up. He wore a baseball cap and had a large, well-groomed handlebar moustache. Then the conversation began.
It was a thing of wonderment. They talked for three hours. They talked about all kinds of things. They talked about the power. They talked about the money. They talked about which trees had to go. Greg measured off different routes for the lines. Should we go underground? Up and down the hills? Through the woods? They talked about their families and other jobs and rules and regulations. It was funny and interesting and I was to listen. Not talk. This is not an easy thing for me to do. But I did it.
(This was the best story of the day. Peewee told it.)
He said he was driving his ’dozer when something happened ... I don’t know what ... too technical for me ... but a large metal tooth grazed the side of his head, entering at the temple, traveling under the skin over his ear and out the back of his scalp. He couldn’t take the metal out because it would really bleed so he was stuck to the ’dozer. He took off his glove and put the index finger in the hole in the back and the thumb in the front and dislodged himself and drove to his daughter’s.
She got him to the doctor’s.
Peewee said, “Doc, I don’t have no insurance so do your cheapest job.”
“Do you want staples or stitches?”
“Which is cheaper?”
“Staples.”
“Then staples.”
Out came the staple gun and snap, snap snap up the scalp he went. WITHOUT Novocain. Peewee said, “Hey, Doc, how much is the Novocain?”
“Seventy-five cents. You SAID you wanted the cheapest treatment.”
The guys all laughed. I did, too.
In the long run, Peewee gently let them know that my beautiful driveway needed to be preserved and that he just might bring in his “cooker” and let it be known that he was gonna barbeque that day and that there would be plenty of food. Everybody laughed.
So did I.
I love guys.
donna@fourstory.org
Comments
No comments.