“All the King’s Horses...”

Prologue:  I have been waiting for some rainy days to head inside and do some writing, but they do not seem to come this year.  Not only does the writing not get done, but more projects are getting attention outside.  I’m way behind!  Actually, I am way ahead.  It’s you, Dear Reader, that is way behind.  I would like to NOT apologize for my previous post that strayed far afield of my DIY wonderland.  In truth, much of the time I might spend writing these past weeks has been absorbed by scrolling social media, clicking in turn the sad emoji and the angry emoji, trying to refute individual comments of ignorance and racism, and inevitably bubbling over to post something of my own.  While the fight against racism and support for Black Lives Matter is not over, in this corner of the Internet, where all are welcome, I’m going to get back to some of the myriad projects in process here at our Freeport homestead.  If you were only here for the previous entry on race and are not staying, I appreciate you checking out the most important entry of this entire blog.  For the rest of you, there will be further wanders off the central topic in the future, I promise, but for now, let’s catch up with our ongoing saga…

“All the King’s men”, I understand, but how useful are the King’s horses when attempting to reconstruct a man-sized egg?  Really?  The pieces are not heavy, so they should not require actual horsepower to move.  I would think the horses might try to slurp up some of the yolk and risk swallowing key shell pieces needed for the overboard ovate’s resurrection.  [Can one be considered to have digressed if one had not yet started out on the topic in the first place?]

This weekend (well, now a couple weekends ago) saw the tackling of a very peculiar project at the homestead.  It is too bold to call it a resurrection.  Much like the mythical Dumpty, the injuries were too extensive to expect a full restoration to previous state, but that was not the intent of this project.  This falls more along the lines of a repurposing of an old friend.

It was quite a few years ago that we purchased a new Hearthstone woodstove to heat the main areas of our Freeport home.  In fact, it was enough years ago that the new Hearthstone was picked up by none other than my little white Mazda pick-up truck which earned fame in this blog by faithfully hauling a literal ton of stone out of the Topsham woods for a stone wall project in the driveway.  Yes, I hauled that stone ten years ago.  No, you did not miss that project in the intervening years when I wasn’t writing.  Let’s just say that I have been letting the stone acclimate to our Freeport climate to avoid settling once built.  And thanks to the quarantine times, the rock wall is on-deck as our next big outside project!  The Little White School Truck, as it was known, was retired some years ago now, but its last major job was hauling the new 565-pound woodstove home from Rockland.  We apparently were lucky to make it, as a week later, I was told (and shown) that the frame was about to fall apart in that old truck.  Last ride, indeed.

The new Hearthstone replaced an older Hearthstone model that had lost its oomph, its ability to burn efficiently.  It saddened me to have to let it go.  That is a recurring theme in my life:  sadness over the end of life of inanimate objects.  I get awfully attached to things.  Maybe I didn’t have enough friends growing up, I don’t know.  The older stove was a 765-pound box of cast iron and soapstone, and it had no realistic path out of the house in one piece.  Deconstruction was the only option.  The memory is fuzzy now (another recurring theme in my life, I think), but the vital parts like doors did not make it.  Upon taking it apart, we realized that the gorgeous soapstone bricks could likely be used for something, the top could someday be turned into a very nice, albeit heavy table, and the frame could possibly serve as an outdoor fire pit.  The stone was stored in piles in the garage.  The potential table served nobly as the spot on the garage floor where two recycling bins held the redeemable bottles until we made the occasional trip for some cold, hard cash.  The frame, still holding its own at roughly 150 pounds sat outside of the garage, where it was in the way.  Eventually, I rolled it about 20 feet down the banking (pronounced bankin’ in Litchfield where I first came to understand the concept of rural stuff depository) where it would lay for years, sadly collecting a cozy layer of pine needles and crunchy brown oak leaves.

The new stove is great.  It is pretty.  More glass, less soapstone, and one notch smaller.  It is not quite as good at burning all night or reaching every corner of the house in depths of a Maine winter, but it has served us well in meeting our heating needs.  The various piles of the old stove have become scenery, background for our lives in that they are rarely noticed for what they once were.

Enter the quarantine of 2020.  After an immensely busy period of time in which I was involved in transforming North Yarmouth Academy from a respectable college prep day school to an online-only entity in two weeks, and then getting into the rhythm of teaching my own history classes from my home office, I started to find some free time.  By May, weekends returned to my possession.  Projects long penciled into various lists over the years began to feel possible.  Kris and I decided to invest some time, energy, and money into this house where we are mostly trapped.  That included purchasing an Ooni Karu.  Ooni, derived from the Finnish word uuni for oven, is the company name.  Karu?  No idea, other than the specific model of portable dual-fuel pizza oven made by Ooni.  When we get brave enough, we will mess around with the wood-firing, but for now, gas-fired oven has made some incredible pizzas for our quaranteam.  

A portable oven needs an appropriate perch on which to operate.  That perch should be of an appropriate height for a middle-aged man whose lower back has always been a sore spot.  I further believe that as your wife works to aesthetically improve the backyard patio area, the perch should be attractive.  It should be rugged enough to survive the temperature swings of whatever climate change is doing to Maine’s already temperamental weather.  Kris’s bright idea?  A resurrection of cast iron and stone was the order of the day.

The pieces present at the reunion.  Not everyone made it.  RIP doors.

Merely gathering the pieces may have been the most difficult portion of the process.  Rolling the 150-pound base up the 20-foot bankin’ and around a quarter of the house was easier than you might think, but still not easy.  I could have benefited from renting one of the King’s horses.  All the soapstone blocks and random metal connectors were unearthed and spread out.  The first bit of assembly was reattaching the four corner pillars.  I rummaged through my collection of machine screws until I found four of the right size.  At this point, it seemed quite precarious to place a roughly 100-pound top onto four corner vertical corner pieces attached with only a single screw in the bottom.  That’s where the walls of stone come in.

Progress, but this was just like trying to figure out how to transform the Transformers toys of the 1980s.  RIP Jazz (the only one I had).

As I mentioned, the key components of the front glass door and the side loading door did not survive the demolition.  That meant that not only would there be gaps in the news walls of the 2.0, but the puzzle pieces were not going to be returning to their original positions.  Combinations were tried, adjusted, and tried again.  Stone was slid into place like pieces in a game of Connect Four played at the speed of a championship chess match.  The individual stones had slots in some of their edges where thin metal bars would hold adjacent pieces snug.  Because the understudy stones were not completely prepared for their new places, we had to be creative in the positioning, and no, those walls are not quite as sturdy as I would like them to be.  The true test came when Hilary and I each grabbed an end of the top and maneuvered it into place.  Its weight rested solely on the four pillars, now bolstered by varying combinations of soapstone.  

The end result?  On the function side, the top is not shaky.  The walls stay in place.  The Ooni Karu works flawlessly atop its perch.  The former firebox of the stove is now wood storage for the outdoor firepit and the Ooni itself.  Functionally, our repurposing was a complete success.  On the form side, well, I will let you weigh in on that.  I will say that if Kris thinks it looks good, then it really does look good.  She is a woman with taste.  And frankly, it is nice to bring back an old friend for a new line of service.

Beer by Maine Beer Co.  Oven by Ooni.  Pizza by Hadley, Kris, and Hilary.  I merely spatulate things into and out of heat.

So, when the pandemic stupidity ceases, and I mean actually ceases (not “hey, let’s all rush to large events and forget that masks were ever invented), give us a little lead time for our adept doughmaster Hadley to whip up some dough balls, and come on by for house favorites such as pear and brie, margherita, prosciutto and arugula, and good ol’ pepperoni!  My team of Kris, Hilary, and Hadley are master pizza makers.  I just put them under flames for roughly three minutes and cut them, so be sure to give them the credit.

Where to now?  Well, there are updates on the shed and on the birds living in the shed (spoiler/teaser, they aren’t anymore), there is a new chainsaw to talk about, there are dreams of how to put that chainsaw to use up off the ground, there are homemade flower planters to describe, a new deck in the back with a specific style of warm water reservoir placed on top of it, a minor bathroom reno starting up, and don’t forget, those rocks are going start moving soon!  

I hope you’ll come back.  I hope I have something for you soon.  And I hope you are busy putting good into the world around you.  You can’t do it all yourself, but you can do what you can do, and if we all do, that adds up.  Trust that process.  Thanks for hanging out.

Dave

Kris and Hilary enjoying the patio.  From the sweater and fleece, this is NOT from this week!

What Will I Do?

[Sorry, the world has become too real to talk about home renovation projects right now.  I promise I will return with some new projects soon.]

We are now in the second week of nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.  What does that mean to my life?  My initial reaction is to hope that the growing movement does not lose momentum, but that movement can seem pretty far from my life.  I am a middle-aged (have I previously admitted that even to myself?) white man living in the whitest state in the America.  I have barely left my home over the past three months.  I “participated” in the social media blackout yesterday, and as I read what I wrote next to my all-black image, even that seems self-indulgent and privileged.  “I will be taking time for self-care…”  And what did that look like?  Retreating into my home amidst the forest of southern Maine, listening to the birds, taking in the sunlight, breathing, and trying to catch up on my end-of-the-year grading for my day job as a high school teacher.

Protesters yearning for the equal rights that were promised by the Constitution, clarified by the Civil Rights Amendments, and further codified by the various civil rights laws passed since the 1950s and 1960s?  They are still out in the streets.  They are still shouting as I breathe in the late spring air.  They are still marching while I sit down to write words that will be seen by few, and sway even fewer.  I believe that most in my audience already think a lot like me.  Why would I have racist friends on social media? 

I have felt powerless for most of the week since Mr. Floyd’s death.  I fought the urge to magic myself to Minneapolis (because there is no way I’m flying – it’s a pandemic) to participate in peaceful marches and bridge gaps, to make the unaware see the urgency and the pain that people are feeling.  I have been heartbroken, I have been angry.  Soothed and inflamed.  From my safe perch on the Internet, I have seen beautiful protest and heated riot.  I have seen attempts to sway the conversation in certain directions, some downright misleading and sinister.  I have been uplifted by images of kneeling police, of black citizens hugging white uniformed officers.  I found hope in the words of the Chattanooga Chief of Police David Roddy who said, if you are a cop and have no problem with George Floyd’s death, turn in your badge right now.  I don’t want you.  Powerful.  Turn in your badge.  What a bold vote of support for racial justice from a person of power in the system that is the subject of all this criticism. 

Yet I feel powerless.  I am stuck in my house, and I do not wish to risk my own health or the public health in this pandemic.  Watching protesters walk the familiar streets of the Old Port in nearby Portland, Maine, I could only think of how many people were unknowingly spreading the Covid-19 virus.  Will this pandemic suck the life out of this latest episode of marching against injustice?  It would seem the opposite actually, that there was so much pent-up energy from the quarantine that when something bigger popped the bubble, many burst out in response.  Perhaps it is a blessing that the pent-up energy is being aimed at injustice and not some capitalistic commercial venture marketed to the masses in a timely grab for cash or market share or attention.

And still I feel powerless.  Worse, I feel comfortable in my privileged life.  I understand racism.  I understand injustice.  I abhor both.  I am disgusted by unwarranted police killings.  My stomach turns at the endless tragic stories of “insert present-tense verb here” while black.  Recently we can add going to the neighborhood market and bird-watching in Central Park (NYC) to that list.  Driving.  Walking.  Running.  Not running.  Driving a crappy car with a taillight out.  Driving an expensive car (that is clearly stolen from a wealthy white person [this is sarcasm, Internet]).  Playing on a playground.  Pleading your innocence.  Being a successful pro athlete.  The list really could go on for paragraphs.  Every one of these things are activities I could do without fear of being killed by the police.  It wouldn’t even occur to me.  And yet I know that it is a constant on the minds of black Americans and other minorities, as well.  I know that proud black mothers try to teach their young sons to somehow walk the line of being proud of their heritage while also doing nothing to put themselves in a potentially deadly situation.  You know, like walking down the street looking black.

Awareness of all these things does not make me special.  It does not make me an ally.  It does not save anyone’s life or change anyone’s biases, or fears, or mis-educations.  All I can do is pat myself on the back.  I have seen exactly one black person since the death of Mr. Floyd.  One.  A teenage boy was in the checkout line at the Ace Hardware with a middle-aged white woman.  How does one actively be anti-racist when out in the community?  Should I have shouted, “I’ve got your back, buddy!”  Should I point out that it’s safe for you here, most of us 97% white people in Maine are pretty nice?  Do I rush over and give him a big supportive hug?  No, that’s a bit creepy and it’s a pandemic.  But that is what I felt like doing.  All I could do is look while trying not to look like I’m staring as a pondered my role in it all.

It is clear to me that there is no one way to do this.  I can be fairly criticized for growing weary of scanning the news and social media for the latest updates, positive and negative.  I can be fairly criticized for participating in a “blackout” day that basically says I’m going to honor this movement by not saying much today.  And while “self-care,” a term I hate for its self-indulgent connotation, is very necessary for all, it sounds horribly self-indulgent.  But we can’t all do this in the same way.  My path is not to march down to the Portland Police Headquarters and shout insults at cops that I do not know, as I watched from the Internet last night.  I am not aware of their racial transgressions.  I do not have anger at them.  I have the hope that they do the right thing when they put their badge on each day.  To some, the officers lined up to protect the police station may merely be the closest image of the law enforcement system, and it isn’t personal (although it sounded personal to me).  I would like my anger to be more narrowly targeted.  I imagine that it must be pretty difficult to stay calm when hundreds of voice are yelling “YOU are the problem.”  Actually, I cannot imagine.  I do not think I would handle that well.  It must be difficult to know (or at least hope) that the “you” they are shouting is the system, not you the individual.

What will I do? 

I will write because I like it.  It helps me process.  Maybe, just maybe, it helps others frame their thoughts or even sway them, but I am not so self-indulgent to claim that. 

I will actively seek out black-owned businesses in this area and work to support them. 

I will look for meaningful opportunities to volunteer my time, energy, and whatever intelligence I have. 

I will try to find a meaningful way to influence the political system.  Ultimately, we live in a republic where we hire people (I almost said professionals and then thought of the misogynistic, hateful fraud that found his way into the White House) to do the work of government for us.  This is not a democracy.  It was not designed that way.  We do not ALL get a vote on everything.  That is too complex and so we hire fellow citizens to do that work for us.  It is a democratic (note the adjective) republic in that we can vote on those people.  We can freely make our opinions known to those representatives.  But democratic is only an aspiration, not a defining characteristic of this form of government.  Therefore, we as individuals need to influence those we have chosen to do the work for us.  Or we need to become one of those representatives and do our best to represent all of the people. 

That may be the biggest letdown in America right now, and possibly for quite some time.  Despite glowing platitudes penned on parchments, engraved into monuments, and proclaimed in bold speeches, our government does NOT work for all the people.  It picks winners.  If it does not actively pick losers, it certainly relegates many to less fortunate positions.  Sometimes that means a heavy tax burden or a poor public education.  Sometimes that means being killed by a hateful human masquerading as a police officer who has sworn to uphold one of those parchments, sworn to serve and protect all the people.

I will, in my position as a high school history teacher, continue to teach about bias, racism, genocide, injustice, inequitable distribution of resources, and other negative themes that course through history like a pulse that hardly seems to weaken over time.  I will hope that my profession can shape the next generation of leaders, and more importantly, of voters, to be more compassionate, to have the interest of all people in their hearts and actions, and to live their lives not as bystanders or quiet beneficiaries of a system of privilege, but as active participants in the path towards justice for all.  Opportunity for all.  Kindness for all.  I will never understand the patriots who wrap themselves in the flag and demand freedom is for them individually, with no obligation to the larger community, and certainly not to anyone not resembling them. 

I will teach.  One class at a time.  One student at a time.  One personal relationship at a time.  I love doing that.  It is frustratingly slow.  Teachers do not always see the end product of their collective efforts.  We are an educational assembly line, each using our talents and interests to work on one specific part of the young human for a limited amount of time.  Frustratingly slow, like using the fictional Andy Dufresne’s rock hammer (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, great Stephen King book--read it, then see the excellent movie) to try and alter the path of plate tectonics.  Why do we do it?  Faith.  Faith in our community.  Faith in our collective future.

I will be kind.  I will try to spread positivity.  I will work to call out injustice where I see it.

What will you do?  Let’s all talk about it.