HAMMER TIME

PUTTING ON MY BIG PANTS

This is not your ordinary how-to article although if you want to learn how to drill a hole in concrete this shouldn't disappoint. We've spent the last half of the pandemic working on laying out and establishing our backyard gardens. There's now a potager, a cutting flower garden, a new deck, an oval fire pit patio, an extended grilling area and a refurbished lavender garden all in various states of completion. We've never been the type to start and finish one project before we start another.

Since the raised planting beds had to be built and the surrounding areas had to be leveled, lined and layered with pea gravel before we could start planting we are just now beginning to see some sprouts.  With a very short growing season in Wisconsin this is going to be a race against time to see the fruits of our labor and to see if we are going to qualify as true gentlemen gardeners or paupers from the unexpected cash output necessary to qualify as top echelon gardeners. 

Cultivated gardening is a very civil activity separated in tone and fashion from farming, the hardcore bib overall version of growing crops. Gardening done with kidskin gloves, a straw hat from Saks summer collection and a stylish a pair of Wellies is the mark of  the well tooled hobbyist. Those tools for working a garden are mostly miniature and dainty by comparison to what a farmer uses. The essentials you need are a trowel, a hand rack, secateurs for cutting back the roses and something comfortable to kneel on for the in ground planting or a cushioned stool if you're dealing with raised beds. The heaviest tools a gardener might encounter are a shovel and a spade or a rake for leveling out the pea gravel. Anything beyond that is usually hired out to those whose lives depend on doing the dirty work. There's a vast difference between poking your finger in the dirt to deposit a seed and drilling a hole in the ground to deposit a fence post.

I actually don't like gardening. For me it's just one more responsibility that never ends. Sure the results are rewarding. You've made something grow. You've created a vibrant hairy orange carrot from a little tiny seed, but to get that carrot that you could have bought for pennies at your local Piggly Wiggly you needed to spend hours weeding, fertilizing, nurturing and watering it at a cost well beyond the a supermarket version.  

Gardening has been my partner's passion and wanting to be supportive I've tried to be there when needed, mostly to do what he doesn't want to do or thinks he can't do.  As hard as I've tried to avoid most aspects of this caretaker's role I've still been obliged to take on my position in the rotation schedule of who's day it is to spend the hour it takes to water all these needy little plants. Right now the task has it's positive moments of solitude but once summer moves into full swing and mosquito season begins the task and the difficulty of aiming a hose or toting a watering can while swatting those pesky little stingers will take any joy of gardening and turn it into torture.

I am thankful that Wisconsin does not seem to have the No-See-Um version of blood sucking insects we had at our weekend home in New York's Catskills region. Bites from them would cause me to balloon and fester for weeks. Back in my gardening days in the Catskills I had to purchase a beekeeper's outfit of gloves and headgear to protect myself when outside playing my supportive role as assistant gardener first class. For some reason these bugs had an affinity for me but they left Rick completely alone.

My family, sick of hearing me complain about my assistant garden role, has steered me toward other outside tasks to placate my resistance to the nurturing tasks most gardeners enjoy. I have become the stone layer. I tote the dirt. I layout the footprint for the gardens and then rake and level the dirt base of the gardens and patios before laying the fabric barrier and then spreading the pea gravel and edging the spaces with tumbled granite pavers. For a sissy boy this has been a tremendous boost to my masculine inner identity. But for all this machismo I drew the line when asked to attach a galvanized window well to the house's concrete foundation that would make another raised planter for a painted iron trellis we found at a garage sale. I fought this one tooth and nail, literally. Drilling has never been my forte. A butterfly anchor scares me to death. I had to work really hard to convince myself that my doing this wouldn't bring the house tumbling down, or that we wouldn't end up with my making so many holes in the wall that it would look more like the bullet riddled walls of London during the Blitz. 

The decision ended up being made for me. We couldn't find a handyman willing to come to my rescue unless we were willing to wait till the snow starts to fall.

From there my approach was to go straight to Google to find a tutorial on putting a screw in concrete. You can find anything on Google. I went straight to" See Jane Drill" and I didn't make that up. Nothing like a woman to teach me how to screw. First she showed me my options for screws. There were three kinds: removable screws, permanent sleeve anchors, and permanent drive anchors (the only one meant specifically for concrete).  The drive anchor seemed the logical choice and the least likely to go wrong. I would need to drill a hole, clean the hole out and then pound my screw into the hole securing the window well to the wall. Easy Peasy, right? Eight tiny screws, that's all I'd have to do. I was starting to feel my mojo until Jane pulled out the big guns. The only way I was going get those screws into the concrete was with a hammer drill...a hammer drill. All my confidence dribbled down my leg. 

So here's the deal: it was sink or swim, drill baby drill or succumb to sissydom. I took a deep breath, pulled up my big boy pants and grabbed the hammer drill along with our vacuum cleaner to suck out the drilled dust and a chopstick wrapped with a piece of green tape to indicate the depth of the hole necessary for each screw to penetrate the wall to its maximum length.

I put on my gloves (the worn cloth ones, not the kid glove kind) and started the simultaneous action of drilling and pounding. What a rush! Perhaps a larger man could have held this piece of burning metal without vibrating like a plastic plate piled with jell-o on a two-year-old's lunch tray. The process was to simultaneously drill and pound, then suck the resulting dust out of the hole with the vac until I could stick the chopstick into the hole and have it reach the green tape marker. After I did it once I was pretty confident that I could do it seven more times without messing up. Amazingly I did it having acquired several blisters I displayed for all to see as proof of my heroic effort. Then came the test: would the holes I had drilled line up with the holes in the galvanized metal window well? Measure twice, drill once and success came my way. It was now just a matter of putting the well in place and pounding the permanent drive anchors with their accompanying washers into the wall using an actual hammer. 

Sometimes a real wave of accomplishment can come from the most mundane activities. This one was not mundane for me. It was stepping over a line in the sand. You never know what you're capable of doing until you try. I may not have a green thumb or an interest in developing one but I now know I can conquer concrete with a drill hammer and that opens up a whole new aspect of my self-image. Watch out all you HGTV superstars. Lee is out there.

REFLECTIONS ON FATHER'S DAY, FATHERHOOD AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS TO ME

Father's Day means many things to many people and I think that is because Fathers come in many shapes, sizes, guises and demeanors.  My relationship with the concept of the word Father is a complex one, not complicated but complex.  You see I am neither a biological father nor did I grow up knowing my biological father. My history might make me somewhat unique. It might give me a perspective on fatherhood that fosters an insight that few others have but does that really matter?  It's what I know. It's my reality. There are others whose knowledge of fatherhood comes with a story outside the normal. There is the so named "step" Father and in many families the step means nothing at all.  Many uncles step into the roll of father and for those kids uncle is father indeed.  And how many single mothers' best friend takes on the mantle of father? What really makes a father?

When I was young I didn't know my father Raymond all that well because he was so dedicated to the welfare of our family he worked so much.  He was often out the door by 5 am and not home until almost midnight.  As life got more financially stable Daddy was around much more and with this additional time to spend together we got to know each other and our bond grew very strong.  Now Daddy was very handy but I didn't pickup his mechanical prowess though my love for gardening is all because of him.  His roses and dahlias were astounding, his knowledge of shrubs and trees was encyclopedic and I defy anyone to come up with a summer's treat tastier and more sensual than taking a salt shaker into the garden to feast on a sun warmed, freshly plucked tomato.  My Daddy was always supportive and proud of me even when in my early forty's I came out to him because I too wanted to become a father with my loving partner Lee hoping for my father's approval and acceptance.  I never should have even questioned.

Still all my life something in the back of my mind was always nagging at me, I mean something more than my own homosexuality.  I didn't look anything like my four siblings, I seemed to be treated differently than them, no not in a bad way, hardly in a bad way at all just somehow different.  I even remember asking my oldest sister if I was adopted.  It wasn't until my own daughter was born that the answer to this nagging question came.  Mother had been dead for nearly 5 years and I was for some reason alone at our house in the country.  I received a phone call from my brother who told me a man who claimed to be my "real" father tracked him down and wanted to connect with me.  Of course I gave him permission to divulge my telephone number to this man.  Minutes later the phone rang.  "Hello, is this Rick?"  "Yes" I answered.  Rick this is Mike so-and-so and I'm certain that I am your real father".  We talked for a few minutes, him telling about the affair with my Mother and that he had always loved her.  Then came "the" question.  "Can I ask you a question?"  "Yes".  "Are you gay?"  "Yes" I responded "why do you ask?"  "I can tell by your voice."  My knees buckled, his arrow had hit my Achilles heel.  In school I had always been teased that I "talked like a girl". I remained silent as he went on to tell me that he had a granddaughter who was gay and he had disowned her because he did not approve of such a "lifestyle".  Still he proceeded, he was dying and because he had loved my Mother so much he wanted to leave me some money.  Still stunned, anger and rage building at the audacity of this man came my retort: "I have no idea who you are but Raymond Shaver is my Father and always has been and another thing you are not half the man he is."  I slammed down the telephone receiver and sat in silence picking up all the pieces then putting them together.

 

My own chance at fatherhood had come some short time before that enlightening phone call.  25 years ago, after a few years of trying to adopt on July 1st, against our lawyer's advice, Lee and I boarded a flight to San Antonio, Texas.  Emmy's Birth Mother had requested we be with her at the birth.  Our lawyer was strongly opposed to this idea citing how devastating it would be should the mother back out at the last minute.  Still we had promised and so we went.  July 4th was the due date but doctors valuing golfing and vacation over nature induced labor on July 2nd.  It was an agonizing day.  Watching and waiting.  Finally the doctor decided it best to discontinue the oxytocin given to stimulate the contractions and speed the labor and subsequent birth.  Lee and I retreated to our hotel with anxiety and expectation still running high.  At six am the next morning we received a call that they were going to induce labor once again and we should come to the hospital, oh and by the way, the mother would like us to bring a six-pack of Dr. Pepper.   Laughter added levity.

Nurses and the doctor came and went and finally at 11:20 Central Time our daughter Emmy was born.  I always describe it as if she swam out of the womb, eyes wide open looking like a very agile dolphin.  When I asked the nurse if I could hold her she answered, "Of course you can. She's your daughter". I burst into tears. The rest is history and what a wonderful history it's been.  There has been no greater blessing in my life than becoming a father and Lee and I celebrate Father's Day every day of our lives knowing how lucky we are to be dads.