Another Project, Brick Laying and Hazard Pay

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Saturday I started an addition on the deck in our back yard. I am well aware that the first deck is unfinished. That is why I started the addition. It all made sense to me if not to my bride or anyone else.

In order to finish the back deck I needed to build scaffolding. And yes, I remember I have scaffolding sitting in the barn I could have used but using scaffold bucks on unlevel ground can be dangerous and as I repeatedly say, “I am not a risk taker.” Not only that, I would have to move a bunch of stuff to get to it.

It only makes sense to build a split-level deck so I can work on a safe and secure platform. The only problem was that since I was working by myself I still had to build a scaffold to support my new deck.

On a positive note, I once watched an old guy build a wooden scaffold. When I was about 14 my father was restoring an old home. He bought it after the police destroyed a large illegal moonshine still in it. Apparently the price was right as the owners were pretending they didn’t know what was going on and the operation had severely damaged if not totally destroyed the home. This did not deter my father in any way.

He hired a bricklayer to build the chimney. He arrived with his brick laying tools, a hammer, a crowbar, handsaw and a few other necessary tools I could not identify at age 14.

I suppose I should add here that all of the bricks my father used for this chimney were salvaged from old foundations mainly using child labor; a practice I opposed at the time but fully support now.

After laying bricks to chest height, the old guy started rummaging in our burn pile. I watched, amazed, as he built up to ten feet with rotten, broken boards using nails he pulled from the boards and straightened. Then he borrowed a few boards from the construction saying, “Don’t worry, you can have them back when I am finished.”

For the next thirty feet he cut saplings in the woods and nailed them together with used nails and added discarded electrical wire for extra stability. I noticed the higher he got, the higher he got. It turned out the unidentified tools were bottles, which he said, “lubricated the job.”

I also came to realize that his every morning comment of “It’s the finest smell in the world” did not refer to the woods, mortar, or any of the other natural smells. He was referring to the thousands of gallons of “likker” that had been poured out of the back door. It was years before that smell totally dissipated. On the other hand, the old gentleman was totally dissipated from the beginning.

His scaffold had over five feet of slow-motion horizontal sway. When it swayed to the right he would take a drink and butter a brick. As it returned he would place the brick and level it. As it passed left to right he adjusted until it was perfect.

Fortunately for me, my deck job does not involve bricks so I can skip the bottle without damaging tradition. Last night I finished setting the posts and installing the racking. Today I realized there is a better location and a better design so as soon as I finish the old deck I will be moving the new one.

This may explain several odd comments my bride Management made earlier this week. Someone asked us how many children we have. I said three, and Management said four. Surely she wasn’t counting me.

Then he asked how long we have been married. I said 25 years-she said 50, He understood right away. Apparently being married to me counts extra like combat or hazardous duty pay.