Front Yard-Hobe Sound

Four o’clock. That’s dog walking time. She knows it and gets excited when she hears the tinkling of the keys and sees me taking my hat off of the hat rack. I grab one of the leashes, there are small, black plastic bags knotted loosely in the loop of the leash handle. The parks department has a dispenser at the park a few blocks away where you can dump a bag of poop and resupply with more bags. I only have on bag tied to the leash so I think we’ll head toward the park and replenish.

Outside the front door the wind is whipping and the clouds look ominous but I’m almost certain it’s not going to rain. Before it rains there is a feeling, and a smell to the air that lets you know that it is coming. There is none of that, just wind. It is strong enough to blow my cap off my head but I catch it just in time and pull the bill down lower and tighter as I lock up the front door. I get a peasant feeling as I walk through the yard. It has grown up around the house so that it looks completely different out there. Different than when we first bought the house four years ago when there was only a single coconut palm anchoring the center of the yard.

I don’t feel guilty in having spent so much time and money on the yard, this feeling of being enveloped by the growth pleases me no end. Liz put a throttle on the money for the plants and I did put a little too much into the Christmas Palms and the pairs of date palms but I never regretted it. I certainly don’t regret the assortment of other plants that I “rescued” from the hedges and out of garbage cans and begged for from neighbors…that I planted and watered and weeded in the “islands” that float in our sea of sand up front of the house. The first of those “islands” I formed out of scraps of concrete paving stone that were being thrown out by a contractor building a house a few blocks away. I saw them while I walked Gurler and asked if I could have them. I hauled them on a tarpaulin in the back of the SUV. I laid out a kidney shaped planter and used the stones as a border. I had doubts as to how it might look but blindly forged ahead until it was done. Then I filled it with plants that I found in the wild hedge on the south side of the property, mostly ornamental palms and orphaned bromeliads. I was rewarded with their happy growth and the border of up-turned, oddly shaped paving stones, now that I look at it, mimics the skyline of a city. It reminds me of how much I miss my life in New York some times. Sometimes.

One island led to another, this one sporting a twin Robelini palm with its mane of dry fronds that makes it look like a lion, and a carpet of purple succulent plants I found in a garbage can one day. While I was picking through the discarded plants in the trash can in her front yard a lovely woman who saw me picking through the living swag asked me if I needed a bag to tote them and I said thanks. I’ve seen her many mornings since then as she walks her two little dogs, one barking harmlessly and the other glassy-eyed and blind. Gurler pays them no mind. I try to pet them but they won’t come near me. They know me well but their instincts will not allow them to come close. The woman, who is always in a hurry to finish her dog walk, has to go to work but she takes her time to alert me of her plans to weed through some of her other plants and “would I like them?” I’ve become a little bit more selective as my “islands” have filled up, sometime I take them and plant them and sometimes I take them just to be friendly. Giving feels good but giving requires a taker.

Another donor to my accumulation is “Bud”. He’s lives  up on Eagle by himself in a primly kept house surrounded by a well tended selection of shrubs and trees. He’s an iron worker. I found this out because I knocked on his door one day and said “I hope you don’t mind  but I just wanted to say that you have the nicest yard!” Not only did he take the compliment to heart but he gave me some beautiful multicolored bromeliads. They are not uncommon but they are hearty and slowly filling up a small section of the island around the original coconut palm. I planted them there because I saw how lush they were in the shade of Bud’s tree and how they climbed the hump of the palm and seemed to hug it as they multiplied. Bud and I talk a lot whenever I can catch him at home. He works a lot and wishes he was retired like me. I listen to his stories about his job and I could match him tale for tale with my own parallel experiences, but I don’t. I have warned him not to wish for something-like retirement-because you just might get it. Often when I leave his place to continue my walk with Gurler I am envious of his job and his work and a little sad that those days are past me. Now I have my front yard and that must suffice.

Cal, a couple of blocks from me, is a retired black smith originally from the Miami area.  Went to Miami High and worked all his life in the Redlands shoeing horses. He’s never said as much but I think he left and came up here to escape the burgeoning Cuban population down in Dade County and the onslaught of development . Not too many horses left to shoe down there any more. He has a little beer belly and sandy white hair that reminds me of many of the farmers I met down there when I was growing up in South Dade and going down to Homestead to work with my dad. His yard is filled with junk and he has an anvil and torches and welding machine in the jungle of his garage. When he heard I was from Miami we spent an hour comparing notes and trying to connect our common experiences growing up in the fifties and sixties down there. He can talk the color out of your eyes and the teeth out of your mouth if you let him but he loves my dog and seems to like me a bit too. He gave me a nice looking mango tree which I planted in the back of the house and some coconut palms which I didn’t need but took anyway. Indeed I planted one of them! Coconuts grow faster than you’d expect and if you turn your back on them one day you’ll be surprised with fifty foot tall giants that deposit hundreds of bowling ball sized coconuts on you house and lawn and car every single year. Nope. One or two of that kind of tree is plenty for me.

So, the dog walk leads to people you get to know. People lead to talk and generosity and plants and plants lead to a jungle in the front yard. I love my jungle. I like some of the people. I love my dog.

Installing a Door with Stanley

My hands are swollen. I ache all over. I am in the office for a regular check up but I am experiencing worse pain than usual. It is what they call a “Flair-up”.

A conversation with my favorite doctor, Dr. Artur Rand…

“Have you been taking your regular medications?”

“Yes”

“Have you been doing any unusually heavy work lately?”

“Not really, Doctor. I did paint the living room this week.”

“How long did it take you to paint the living room?”

“Oh…I did it in one day,” I said proudly.

“Next time take two days.”

 Installing a Door with Stanley
 

Stanley, the neighbor across the street, on the corner, has been coming here for a couple of days helping me install the side door. That door has been sealed shut with caulk since we bought the house. It was an old, hollow metal door that was completely rotted at the bottom, the ants and the rain had rusted and decayed both the door and the frame. I have put off the job of replacing it for these past few years but finally stiffened myself for the expense and effort. I am glad to say that the new primed, fibreglass door is now swinging and secured with a new stainless steel entrance lock. It still needs to be painted and the masonry opening still needs to be stuccoed as well. That is to say that the job is about 75% done and I am out of steam-for the moment. Stanley is a good chap. From Belize and lived in the U.S. for most of his life. Hard working and willing. I hope I paid him enough for the help but he would not name a price so I had to guess how much to give him and almost force it on him at the end of the day. Also it is hard to tell how he felt about the money as he is perpetually smiling and happy and I doubt he would express disappointment regardless.

I am not bragging when I say I am/was a good carpenter. It is work that I have always loved and for a good part of my life I earned my living doing carpentry, all types-trim, concrete form work, framing, hardware installation, etc. One does not do this work well unless one studies and enjoys it. Also, once a good carpenter always a good carpenter, the only restricting factor is one’s body which is bound to eventually “give out” as the trade is a strenuous one. I have never met an old carpenter who is not bent and busted, swollen with arthritis, unable to ply the trade except in the most limited way. Years of splinters and cuts, lifting great weight, twisting into difficult places and configurations in order to get to the work done takes its toll. Until recently I worked like there could be no end to me. Now I see that I am flesh and blood and the requirements of many tasks are beyond my capacity so I must get help from others to do what I need to get done, thus Stanley. I asked him to “help” me with the door because my swollen hands and aching back insisted but enjoying the aid of another presents another problem, this one mental and psychological.

Every mechanic (I use this term to include all who have mastered a trade and might earn a living at it if they choose to do so-it is a union term for a competent craftsperson) works in his own way. They use tools in a peculiar fashion, plan a job according to the way his or her own mind works and according to the training he or she has received. The job is either well or poorly done and describes the person who has done it. Within a range of possible techniques each mechanic works very differently. Also there is a pride that goes with doing a job and pride can be difficult to maintain if someone who works differently than you is overly critical or even takes such a different approach to the job so as to confuse you. A clash of personality or technique may ruin a job or a relationship when two dissimilar mechanics are trying to do the job together.

As we set up and began removing the old, rotted door and frame there was a dance of sorts. A respectful aligning of abilities. Stanley and I, I believe, found a stable state of equilibrium fairly early on. I had to work harder at scoping out Stanley’s methods and means than I did at installing the door. I know that earlier in my life-when I was in better shape, my hands were not swollen, and my bones and muscles were more compliant- I would have had that old door ripped out and the new door installed all by my self easily in a couple of work days. In my present state I decided 1) that I needed help to do the job and 2) that I needed to take a back seat and allow Stanley to work in his own way. Let him make the job move. If he did something that I felt was not wrong, but not the way I would do it, I had to let him take the lead. I consigned myself to the position of “Stanley’s helper”. That’s not an easy path for me. I’d spent the last thirty years of my life deciding how everything should be done by every trade on every job. That is what a superintendent does and it is very difficult to do, especially if one doesn’t want to alienate everyone on the job. Being the “helper” especially in my own trade was tough. Stanley, I am sure, was struggling with his own pride and his own desire to fit into the situation. We are neighbors, just beginning to appreciate a little friendship, trying to make a team of ourselves to get the job done. In the end we did the job without a negative word and I think a bit of respect for the abilities of the other.

 

My goal was not just to install a door it was to install a door and make a friend. To install a door and not hurt my aging body. I hope I have done that.

Waste Management

Waste Management

I know it is a new month and a new year but I’ll be damned if I know what day of the week it is. Wait, I hear the trash truck out front. Must be Thursday. It is 6:00 am and our house is the first stop for the garbage pick-up. I’d like to go out there and give the assholes on the truck a piece of my mind. No, actually I’d like to go to the Waste Management offices and let loose there, verbally, of course! The guys on the truck are just worker bees. It’s the bosses and the politicians who are to blame for this pre-daybreak disturbance.

 

Just for the hell of it I did some research into the noise regulations of Martin county to see what laws are being broken by starting an industrial strength noise in a neighborhood at 6 o’clock in the morning. There are tons of reg’s. Everything from allowable decibel levels and noise crossing a property line to hours of work allowed. These laws apply to individuals, manufacturing establishments, construction operations, birthday parties, etc. This was a not a surprise to me but what was a surprise was that none of it applies to the garbage pick-up operation. This comes under the heading of “except for county authorized waste removal”! So, this monster vehicle with horrible brakes and ear shattering reverberating motor and transmission can do its damnedest as early as it wants to…It can cruise up and down the street at 6:00 am in order to clear the yard waste or crush living room furniture or empty bins of bottles and cans that clatter with the impact of tympani. It can sound its beeping back-up signal-which can be heard as far as the launch pad at Cape Canaveral- and the sleeping residents of the community be damned.

Also ridiculous is the fact that the truck crew consists of two men. One driving and one doing all the picking up. The truck cruises down the street in one direction getting all the cans, etc from that one side and then it cruises back the other way picking up the other side. On days when there is both a trash pick up and a recycle pick up that behemoth comes through four times!  I suppose the company would claim that this is so the picker-upper does not have to cross the path of incoming traffic to grab the cans, and I suppose that may be true BUT, how does the crew that rides the truck up north do it? There are two guys riding the back of the truck there and I presume they have an acceptable safety record. I think safety is not the real issue. I think it is economics. I think an analysis of the operation would show that the additional time, wear and tear on the truck, and gasoline is less than the cost of a second crew member on the back of the truck. I might be wrong but I am pretty sure the discomfort of the community is not a part of the equation.

Trash/garbage is an interesting topic for me. I am not sure why but it fascinates me. I think we make too much trash and waste way too much. I find the name of the hauler used by this community-and many other communities through out the country- to be incongruous. “Waste Management” implies there is a real plan behind its operation and a goal of some sort, which is partially true. Its goal is to make money. Its plan is to make the trash disappear. Aside from that there is no management involved. Judging from the mountains of our landfills there is far too little actual though or management where waste is concerned, and waste management doesn’t begin with the trash truck cruising our streets at 6:00am weekly. It starts with controlling the ungodly amounts of packaging we consume and discard, the plant material we discard so we can have manicured lawns and trees, food we throw away, endless streams of home furnishings, office supplies, toys, clothing, you name it, we consume that all ends up as trash, and so long as it disappears we feel we have managed it. We have not. Perhaps we’re not thinking clearly because we were awakened at 6:00 am by the trash truck on its forth pass through our neighborhood.

Division Street (Aluminum Siding)

I don’t imagine Division Street* was ever “grand”. The structures that line the street are modest homes and a few storefronts. Originally clapboard sided, two storied, simple roof lines and trim. As you head north up Division you will notice that the east side of the street is up-hill while the west is down. On the east the builders fashioned garages cut into the hillside, perhaps poured a slab roof over the excavation and back-filled it. On the west the homes are clinging to the slop and parking is on the street. Either way the small lots push into the street seemingly hanging over it or falling away from it. Trucks and cars screech to a stop and speed away from the traffic lights, the noise slightly echoing off the canyon walls of the buildings. Since Division is partly commercial most of the houses look to be rentals, with two, three or four families in each according to my quick count of the electric meters and the mail boxes. If you are looking for finer, nicer houses they are around the corner and a block away. Big Queen Anne’s with wraparound porches, decorative cornices and gable ends, large garages (carriage houses) out back are decorated to mimic the grand theme of the main house. Their lots are flat or gently sloping. But one thing all of the homes in the neighborhood have in common is vinyl siding. Or aluminum siding and trim.

When I built my home I had no spare dough. I mean I scrimped every which way to put this house together. I suppose that almost everyone struggles with a budget when they build. Back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s when the homes along Division Street were built siding meant wood and wood means painting and maintenance. That was understood back then but Man is a lazy beast and cheap too. He’d do anything to get out of painting or paying someone else to paint that damned siding.  Along comes The 1950’s and aluminum products are all the rage. You’re watching “Have Gun Will Travel” on the black and white R.C.A TV one night and the commercial by Alcoa aluminum tells you that you don’t have to paint that old siding any more! Cover it up with their siding. It’ll look the same as if you’d done a bang up job of painting and you’ll never have to paint again! Then comes the 1960’s and plastic! And you’re watching “Bewitched” on the color, SONY TV one night and commercial by Dow Chemical tells you that you don’t have to paint that old siding any more! Cover it up with their siding…etc.

Almost no one paints an old house any more. Walking down the sidewalk of Division Street my casual survey counts one house out of thirty or forty that has the original wood siding and trim. All the rest have been covered with aluminum or vinyl. In my opinion the one with the paint usually appears to have a weather-worn dignity while the plastic covered homes look cheap and unkempt. The aluminum roofing trim might be flapping at the seams with the original carved cornices and rafter ends peeking out of the gaps in the loosened metal cladding. Outside and inside corners made of metal or plastic look fake and the radical expansion and contraction of the clad siding causes it to pull loose over time. What the manufacturer didn’t tell us was the “baked on finish” on the aluminum  would “chalk” over time and become powdery and dull. That the vinyl would sag in the heat of the sun and ultraviolet rays would cause it to become brittle in just a few years. It will chip easily. Mold and mildew grow easily on the shady side of the building and it takes a pressure cleaning every couple of years to clean it, and even then it still looks dull and cheap. Given the track record of the aluminum and plastic products, painting doesn’t seem to be too high a price to pay for a good looking, nicely sided house any more.

As I mentioned, I built my house on a budget. I wish that budget had included nice, clear cedar siding but it didn’t. I used vinyl. I picked a color that would fade with a modicum of dignity. I tried to install it properly so that it would stay in place and age well. But plastic is plastic and it has developed some cracks and holes where the brittle product has come into contact with my children’s baseballs and other insults. I have to pressure clean the north side every year as it turns a dirty green with mold. Occasionally I need to re-secure a length of trim or siding where it “popped” off of the building because of bad nailing or extreme expansion/contraction. But I did one thing that I am proud of with the vinyl siding on my house, I didn’t put it on the walls anywhere near where people could touch it or get up close to it. I used vertical ship-lap cedar siding on the porch and both the front and rear entryways. Those locations are under cover of the roof and a sealer has been all that I have applied to it over the last twenty five years. It has become dark and warm with age. Sitting out on the porch feels comfortable, like sitting in an old cabin surrounded by wood. Twenty feet away is a Disneyland of futuristic plastic but right up close is the warmth of wood. I feel like I balanced the budget with something aesthetically pleasing.

For the most part Division Street has given that balance away. Short of pulling all the plastic and metal off the old buildings, and repairing and repainting all the old hidden siding there is nothing that can reclaim the dignity of those buildings and that street. It would be great if the lessons of aluminum/plastic siding could be learned and applied to future renovations but it won’t. People will always look for the cheap, easy way out. If one is looking for clues to the future, look no further than the big box retailer’s display of plastic fencing…Watch it as it turns into land-fill before your eyes.

 *Division Street is located in the town of Peekskill, NY.