Watching

It started at 12 midnight. Then came one o’clock, which slowly slid into two in the morning. I just kept thinking about the seventeen things I wanted to do when daylight got here. I knew full well that one or two of them would indeed take all day. But that mattered not, I wanted them done this weekend. Then all of a sudden a song popped into my head. I knew then, I might as well get up and make that so very important first pot of coffee. This was surely going to be one of those days that calls for that three o’clock nap late in the afternoon.

Then the song began again. “He took one hundred pounds of clay and made me a woman”. “With just one hundred pounds of clay.” I began to wonder how much sawdust and clay would I need to make me a helper. I already have one that is solid wood. But all he wants to do is stand there and watch me. Now this I just can not tolerate. It surely bugs the ba-jeepers out of me to have someone stand there and watch me working. When I lived in town amongst other people, folks would come by and just watch me. I was in the process of raising a house higher to move it back onto a foundation. One older gentleman would come almost every day to just watch the building slowly rise up seven feet off the ground. I will admit, I had a few really hard working helpers. But all this gentleman wanted to do was watch me work. I was in those days one lean mean work-a-holic. I had gone from being an indoor, fancy dressed, office person to a genuine git ya body all covered in dirt and mud. I was now a happier person even though I was single and full of git up and go juice. One day when this gentleman came by, I handed him some tools he would need to work for the day. I explained that no one stands around and watches me work. You either go to the other side of the street or take these tools and help. He turned and left, which suited me most fine.

Many times in this new lifestyle of mine, I had quite a number of folks attempt to watch me working. I enjoyed this physical work, but I always kept one thought in mind, I learned when young, One should work smart as well as physical. On this project of mine, we had to carry many long timbers to safely raise the house high enough to roll it onto the foundation. A lot of these sixteen foot long timbers were quite heavy. I got lucky and found a couple of light ones and decided to show off just a bit I leaned them both up against another pile and scooted under them. When I stood up, I had one on each shoulder. There was no heavy lifting actually because it was all with the legs. I carried them around to where they were needed and threw them down onto the ground. I explained to my helpers, “that is how I like people working”. Now, if I could just find someone to make me a clone with more sawdust than clay, then my present project would be a lot easier. I have to put some small pieces of concrete under a camp, These are only five feet long and weighing a tad over three hundred pounds each. I have had quite a number of folks stop and ask me about those tiny pieces of concrete. They also ask me if I work alone. So, I take a moment or two and explain I am indeed a COB and maintain quite an anal attitude when I work. Somewhere along my journey, I lost the talent of just wiggling my nose and stuff just moves around. I think my first wife hid that from me. So, being an old farm boy, I have had to maintain the “work smart” policy. The fact that I am just a tiny tad conceited, I enjoy bragging rights also. I will indeed move those under the building by myself, stand them up and lower them into a hole that I dug. I may not be young anymore, and I just may be a bit more foolish, but with my attitude, “it will be done”, I have found over the years, about the only one foolish enough to work as I do is that Mexican., Manual Labor and his Mexican banjo. My daughter did help me once in a while. But one day , I WILL RETIRE. But not this year. This challenge is just too big to walk away from.

I have often wondered about this one fault of mine of not wanting folks watching me. This goes way, way back in my life history. Many times folks would just watch me to make sure I behaved properly. But there was no such need on my part to be a normal acting dirty faced kid. My mind was always going one hundred miles an hour to figure what to do next. There were many times, I didn’t want folks knowing I was the one doing the deed. Because there were many things a four or five year old, wild, devilish kid should not be doing. I knew if my sister saw me, I would be in trouble for sure. Getting that rooster drunk on Dad’s elderberry wine was just a small sample of things my mind invented to do. We did not have store bought toys, so we needed something to do. Ken White COB

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