I live in a beach shack. That is not quite true. I live in three beach shacks that were haphazardly shoved together to form most of the floor plan of my home. How this all came about is unclear. According to an old former neighbor of mine, there was a logging railroad that ended across the alley from my present abode. On that property were two railroad shacks. These buildings were added to a large tent platform which is now Judy\u2019s sewing room and our laundry room. When this was accomplished, I do not know, but the logging railroad was abandoned in 1935.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The architect responsible for this combination should have been fired, imprisoned for life, then have his dead body eaten by rabid dogs. None of structures were leveled to each other, nor can they ever be. When we moved into our home, the laundry was connected to the kitchen with a ramp. A large portion of the house is supported on creosoted 20-foot long 6X6 railroad tie stock. Need ventilation under the house, why just put a two-inch notch in the 6X6. Who needs to have a crawl space under the house when the average male in the late 1930s was 5\u20196\u201d and weighed in at a whopping 140 soaking wet. Oh, and let\u2019s put the 4-inch sewer line directly under railroad tie so that 60 years later I have to exhale and shove with all my might to get my fat body to the water pipe leak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have had to crawl under the house too many times. When Carter was president, I stupidly signed up for the weatherization project. To take full advantage, I dug out the crawl space to provide and extra 6 inches needed. In the process I had to replace all the pillars (mostly bricks) with concrete ones, and all the old posts with pressure treated ones that were 6 inches longer. Took weeks even with the help of my two sons and a German Shepard who would silently crawl under the house to check up on me. I\u2019m in the dark, on my belly, digging in a claustrophobic space, when I feel hot breath on the back of my neck. Damn! Time to change my underwear again. But after a few times I got used to it. That was until I reached back to pet her and found that the hot breath belonged to a ferret who had escaped from the neighbor\u2019s house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But my worse under the house experience was time that the sewer pipe leaked. Actually, the pipe itself was fine, the leak was at a \u201cT\u201d in the pipe that had one time been attached to a toilet. It looks like the location of the toilet had been moved 3 times before I bought the place. Take out the old shitter, then stuff some newspaper in the hole and secure it in place with plaster of Paris. Worked just fine for 50 years until the once in a hundred-year cold snap. Plaster cracked and popped the makeshift plug out of the \u201cT\u201d. The really bad part of this break was it was under the plastic moisture barrier (thank you Jimmy Carter) and I did not know anything was wrong till the following spring when sewer files started coming out of tub drain. I looked under the house while Judy flushed the toiled. The plastic moved slightly upward right in the middle of the house. The next day I had to follow the sewer pipe till I found it. Yep, the same sewer pipe that was dead center under the railroad tie support beam. I crawled along, cutting through the plastic ground cover to expose the pipe as I went. This was made so much worse, not by the smell, eventfully you get immune to the smell, but by the presence of a gazillion sewer flies that coated every surface just inches from my face. Judy and kids were worried about me, bless their hearts. Every minute or so, one of them would pound on the floor over my head asking if I was OK. To reassure them I needed to open my mouth, at which point in time, several flies would enter my mouth. Somehow, I survived that one. And no, the German Shepard did not follow me. Even a doggie love for her best bud has its limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve reroofed the house twice. The big storms come in from the southwest. Three-tab roofing does not hold up to 100 MPH gusts. After a particularly bad winter storm year, every summer thereafter I was up trying to replace damaged tabs without doing more damage myself. After 10 years of doing this, I replaced that 15-year-old three-tab with metal. This finally solved my wind damage roof problems but added some other issues. If I ever need to go up on the roof, I can\u2019t, without the aid of mountaineering paraphernalia. I am not joking about this. About a month after the metal roof job, I heard an awful sound just as I was taking the garbage out. I looked up just in time to see a cat falling off of the roof, screaming the whole way to the ground. I do not know cat languages, but I think it was something akin to the Will Smith, Chris Rock exchange at the OSCARs, minus the slap. My climbing on the roof gear usually consists of a rope with loops tied in it at one-foot increments. Up the ladder, grab the first loop, pull my self up on the roof far enough to get a foot in a loop, then manage to turn myself onto my back and inch, or more precisely foot my way up to where I need to paint an eave or fix a metal chimney support that has rusted out. After the job is done, I need to reverse the process working my way down to the ladder. The up and down climb usually takes longer than the actual repair job. Seems like a nice compromise from having to spend hours each summer fixing broken 3-tab roofing. Did I mention that I am 74 with an old man\u2019s bladder? Did I mention that I also have occasional problems with explosive diarrhea? I can live with pissing myself but shitting my pants too! At least the roof is a dark red to hide the skid marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interior of the house also has its stories. Every room has been down to studs, some more than once. I\u2019ve rewired the whole house, added 200 square feet to the living\/dining room, redid the bathroom twice, remodeled the kitchen, put in an on-demand water heater, and added a sunroom. I\u2019ve had to dig a new drain field, replace the septic tank, redo the water pipes. I even added a half bath in what was once a closet when my mother had to move in with us. I raised 4 kids in that house with only one bathroom, but when Dorcas moved in, we never got to finish a shit or take a shower before she was banging on the door telling us to hurry up. I hired a good friend to put in the bathroom, but he refused to do the plumbing citing some shit about certifications. So, there I was under the house again, sweating copper pipes together, catching the insulation over my head on fire with the propane torch, and generally having a good time. Lucky for me that infamous sewer fly \u201cT\u201d was in the perfect spot to hook up the toilet. There is a God in heaven and he had punished me enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hardly a year goes by without some major indoor or outside project. Being on the coast is hard on structures. Being 74 is hard on my body. It\u2019s been several years since I have been under the house. I\u2019m older, fatter now, with arthritic knees. Although I don\u2019t believe that there are jobs that Americans won\u2019t do, I have come to understand that there are jobs that Americans can\u2019t do. But there are millions of Central Americans who are willing to and can squeeze between a 6X6 and sewer pipe without having to exhale. So, I am in favor of opening the broader and letting as many of the asylum seekers in as possible, as long as they are skinny and not claustrophobic. Mountaineering experience would be a plus as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I live in a beach shack. That is not quite true. I live in three beach shacks that were haphazardly shoved together to form most…<\/p>\n