City Slicker’s Guide to Country Living

By Becky Condon

Neighbors: Persons living in proximity to other persons. Everyone has neighbors. Neighbors-From-Hell: Neighbors who are not nice. Have you ever had Neighbors-From-Hell? Neighbors are an obvious arrangement in cities or towns. Good or bad, tidy or messy, quiet or noisy, nice or mean; there are all types. City slickers moving to the country invoke the image of space and solitude, but there will still be neighbors. The space between domiciles might be larger, but a bad, messy, or noisome neighbor can still exist. Even with a country home's space and larger area, there can still be neighbors that won't contain themselves to their own area. Once upon a time there was a young family who had a dream of owning land and operating a farm. They became land owners and cattle ranchers, building their very own dream house on their very own patch of paradise. They worked hard to assimilate to this new lifestyle in a new neighborhood. It was everything they'd hoped for, and they were so happy. Then they got neighbors. They got Neighbors-From-Hell. These bad neighbors were pushy, arrogant, and mean. Their bad attitudes, slovenly habits, and meanness aside, the neighbors would not contain themselves to their own area. They encroached. They took what was not theirs. They forced themselves into the space and lives of our heroes. These neighbors meant to build their house on their property next door to our little family. The neighbors' property had some unfortunate attributes, however, and it became clear that their property wasn't very conducive to building a home. Astonishingly, these neighbors insisted on utilizing portions of property they didn't own to construct their project. There were other solutions to the construction dilemmas these neighbors faced, but these answers would have been costly. They wanted to use our little family's land for free. They wanted to steal the property and property rights of our little family. These Neighbors-From-Hell came on over bringing their messes and problems with them, and embroiled our little family in a battle for their rights and their very lives. When our heroes stood firm on their property rights, these awful neighbors tried it anyway. When the young couple complained, the neighbors lied. When the family sought the help of the authorities, they found out the difficulties of fighting city hall when the local power came to the aid and assistance of their county crony, even in the face of proven and documented lies. The common refrain used as their excuse for lies and deceit was, "Y'all aren't from around here, are you?" This bigotry and clannish attitude was brought to full force against our little family, whose only desire was to be left alone on their own land. When the neighbors couldn't steal the part of the land they were after, they tried to take everything. Using their friends in county authority and the local judiciary, they brought the fight of our young heroes' lives. Does the young family survive? Can they win against the local establishment and seemingly insurmountable odds? What do you do when your neighbors are the Neighbors-From-Hell? What do you do when the Neighbors-From-Hell have friends in high places? What do you do when they threaten your home, your livelihood, and your family? Everyone knows fighting city hall can be a pointless fight, rarely won. But what do you do when city hall brings the fight to you? Sometimes you have to stand and fight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781478771661

Becky Condon

Becky Condon is a veteran Naval Aviatrix and a retired commercial airline pilot. She lives on the small farm operated by herself and her husband. She always wanted to be a writer, but got busy with life and career. After forty-three years in the skies, she now has her feet firmly on the ground, pursuing her next dream of writing.

Book preview

One

IN THE BEGINNING

When Don and I got together, one of the items that connected us was a dream to own property and build our own dream house. We weren’t sure how to use the land at first and were open to ideas, but the idea was of space to raise a family, and freedom to do as we pleased, build our dream house, and have room to play outside, have animals, enjoy privacy, and all the benefits of land ownership that one could imagine. We looked forward to being good stewards of a little piece of earth to call our own.

By profession we are pilots. I was a Navy pilot and Don was a Marine pilot. We met when we were based in the same squadron as Instructor Pilots. It was love at first sight. Our separate military careers were not going the way we wanted. I was hitting a glass ceiling, still strongly in existence in the No Girls Allowed Stone Age as I refer to it, and Don was unable to transition to the types of planes he wanted to fly. He had made himself too indispensable and talented in his earlier specialty, so they wanted him back there. For separate reasons, we both decided to end our active duty service and seek our way in the airline business.

We both scored jobs in two different major airlines. We had the world by the tail. While our beginnings were meager thanks to deregulation, cost-cutting, and other such industry good times, we were on our way to great things.

We both shared the dream of living on land we owned and building our very own dream house. We married in 1987 and moved to the south in 1988. We saved and saved. Our first home, lovingly dubbed our starter dump, was a cute-as-a-bug’s-ear three bedroom, two bath, 1400 square foot ranch house in a relatively new neighborhood, very conveniently placed with respect to the airport where we both worked. Our starter dump was exactly that to us. The idea was to save up enough to buy the land and build the house in cash. It was a conscious and serious saving effort. The realtor that was showing us houses almost had an infarction as a couple of airline pilots passed over and over on pricey houses that were within our ability. We wanted to save, not blow the budget on a starter dump. She finally gave up and we settled on a little place that would serve us for the time being.

We proceeded to save hand over fist, and Don made such delightful little enhancements that our little starter dump became quite comfortable.

Don made a built-in stereo cabinet with a cool window seat that my kitties, Lucky and Molly, thought was divine. He had sections for our different gear with electrical outlets conveniently placed with areas in back for cords that needed connection machine to machine. We were ahead of the time for home theater, but we had quite a cool setup for the times.

I love to sew, but Don hates the look of a project in work. I was a long way from a hobby room, and I lacked proper furniture for a proper sewing area. My dining room table was subbing in but as can be imagined, it became an inconvenient sewing venue come meal time. Don fixed this issue with the most wonderful set of sewing cabinetry ever. Naturally we occupied the master bedroom, and the other two bedrooms were quickly filled. One was a guest room/future baby room, and the other was an office. Mostly it was Don’s office. This was well before the time when everyone in the house had their own computer, and the myriad of devices had not been envisioned yet. Don had a computer which I could barely make heads or tails of, and when he commuted to his airline job in another city, he sported a cellular phone that came in a little suitcase where the handset was connected by a coiled cord. Our office contained a pretty cool desk which was room for him and a small space for me to observe his computer work - not near enough space to sew. I figured I’d be relegated to a card table in the guest room, but he fixed me right up. Since I used my dining table as a layout and cutting table before I set up my machine on it, he decided the best place for my sewing area was the dining room. He built in a long desk along the wall with cabinetry up above that was the perfect size for my patterns and tools. My machine had a special place on the desk. When I was finished for the day, I could slide the machine (and my project) back against the wall and swing down the doors to cover it all. A sewer’s dream.

Then my closet. Ohmagosh, my closet! His was cool too, but mine was the living end. For such a small, affordable place to have two walk in closets was a huge selling feature to me. Two of them! Walk in! Ecstasy! They were set up with your basic hanger rods and a shelf on top and that’s it. Don had other ideas. I’d never even heard of any such thing as a custom closet, but now I know. He made the most beautiful oak cabinet and hanging rods, with sections of double layers for shirts and skirts, plus single layers to hang the dresses, coats, and pants. He lined the drawers with felt, and made carousels for my jewelry and scarves. It was Heaven in a closet.

Don built shelving and benches in the two car garage and painted the sheetrock to give it a pretty look. Working in there on his various home projects soon revealed, this far south, that he needed air moving around to survive, so our garage soon had a ceiling fan. I made curtains for the garage door windows. We had the prettiest workshop/garage in Christendom.

One day, Don was out doing some landscaping on our, so far, plain little quarter acre lot. He found out the scalawag of a builder had done some funny business with our plumbing when he found a wire buried. Assuming it to be trash, he pulled on it. It came up and led from the house where it appeared to go into the house and then out to the middle of the yard where it went deeper. As he continued his investigation, the next door neighbor, Carl, came over. He had a brand new shovel with him that he offered to lend. This neighbor Carl worked at some sort of loading dock. He always had a lot of brand new looking tools. Not making a connection or accusation there but he was a curious fellow. Anyway, Don was well heeled with tools, so Carl stood idly by, leaning on his brand new shovel, while Don dug in the yard. Don’s assumption was that he would get to the end of some abandoned wire from the construction of this brand new house.

As Don toiled, Carl, leaning on his shiny new shovel, drawled, I’ve been wondering what that is down there. He reported to Don that they dug a huge hole in the front yard at night and buried a tank there that looked like a septic tank. This made no sense though since the neighborhood was on sewer, at least we were paying for sewer! And what in the world could the wire be for? The small hole to discover the source of the wire enlarged to a huge hole as Don struck the concrete top to what did look like a septic tank, with a wire coming out of it. Mystified, Don continued digging, unmoved by the total disaster happening to the front lawn. Finally he was able to pry off the top of the tank. The inside was very nearly filled with sewage! Our sewage! Lucky thing he opened it up when he did. The wire went to a pump that had apparently burned out! It was a lift station! There wasn’t supposed to be a lift station! We re-examined our paperwork on the sale of the house and this mess in the yard should not have been there! This was going to cost money to repair! Calls to the builder went unanswered. The builder’s company didn’t know what we were talking about. Their paperwork showed nothing of the sort. Talking to the county inspectors, we did not appear on any of their paperwork to require a lift station, so the builder had done it on the quiet. Inspection now though, revealed our house level was indeed below the sewer level so a lift station would be required. I ain’t never seen it done this way, though, the inspector drawled. Speaking to a lawyer was not much more help, but we tried everything. The builder refused to admit knowledge of the lift station. He also didn’t have any money. All his assets and profits were laundered over to family members, so suing him would be pointless. We were on our own.

Don went to work. The first thing he wanted was better access to this tank in case of future mechanical or electronic issues with the new lift pump we had to buy. He dug and dug.

At the time of this humongous project, I was little help. I was huge with child.

Don got to the bottom of the terrible mess, cleaned it up, got it working properly, installed an alarm to alert us if anything went wrong in there again, had a top door made from steel so the tank could be opened easier than the huge concrete lid in place before. This was the centerpiece to our small front lawn. Don built a removable wooden deck over the lid/door to the lift station tank, and then decorated the area with flower beds, shrubs, and a couple trees. It turned out beautiful!

We had our baby - a daughter, and continued saving hand over fist.

My Mom had come down with Alzheimer’s Disease. Dad retired in the year our daughter, Diane, was born and spent some months packing up the house and getting it ready to sell. He came down to the area and we helped him on a search for a few acres and house. He found just the thing in a small town not too far from the airport. He was so happy. It had an amazing barn/workshop and a perfect area for his shooting range. It was wonderful to have them closer. Mom was really sick, but Dad insisted on taking on all babysitting requirements for Diane. Diane and Papaw had a special deal going and he spoiled the stink out of her. It was delightful.

Two

LANDED GENTRY

Later that year, we had the awful experience many airline pilots suffer – Don’s company went belly up. Don was on the street and I was the sole breadwinner for the family. That was never supposed to happen, but there we were.

Naturally Don tried to find work immediately, but there was none to be had. He attended to a couple startup airlines, but they turned out to seem like more trouble than they would be worth. He tried his application at a few other places, flying and non-flying. Nothing. He was either over qualified or they were afraid he’d go back to the airlines when they began hiring again. He was stuck for a while.

We’d managed to save $100,000 in the four years of our marriage. We talked about it and considered finding a place with some acres and building our own house, which Don could do, or at least manage the contracts and contractors. We could be there 24/7 and he did have some skills in carpentry, plumbing, and electrical tucked into his kit bag.

Early in our marriage he had asked what sort of dream house I wanted. Er, you know, a house, um, design is not my forte. I did try though to express what I liked and for those years, every time I would see something I’d take it, make a picture, write a note, draw a picture, or what have you and give it to him. He saved all those scraps in a folder until he had an inch thick pile of house ideas. He had a drawing program on his computer and proceeded to pull out every scrap of paper in the file and incorporate the idea into a design for a house. It turned out so neat. Different, perfect, and all ours.

We hunted high and low for some acreage, starting a square search from Dad’s new place. Not too far, only four miles away, we found twenty seven beautiful acres and called the number on the sign. They were asking more than we had by a bit, so I sighed and was ready to move on. We knew we’d need a loan for the construction but did not want to go into debt for the property. I’d been counseled to stay quiet and follow Don’s lead. Negotiating is not my thing. I have a bunch of things that are not my thing, but get behind me in all areas of cooking, sewing, and flying airplanes.

Anyway, Don informed the real estate broker, Darren Caldwell, who had his signs all over town, that we wanted to make an offer. Don buzzed to me that he would offer the $100,000 that we had. The whole thing? How could we negotiate if we threw in the whole of our pot? I kept my mouth shut. They were asking much more than that anyway. I figured this was a drill.

We sat down in the office. Darren had a little contract ready for signatures and seemed anxious to make a deal. Don said, We’d like to offer $99,000.

Well, that’s not $100,000! What’s he doing? I don’t understand anything. As I verbalized that last thought to myself, I was able to resist comment, twitching, gasping, questioning stare, or any other type of non-verbal communications. The broker laughed at Don and put his pen down. He shook his head and said we’d have to do more than that. After all the asking price was much higher.

Don said, Well, thank you for your time then. It’s a beautiful property. Have a nice day, as he stood and helped me to stand.

Darren said, Now wait, wait, wait! Can’t we talk? Can’t you come any higher?

Don said, No.

He goes, Why not?

Don said, Because that’s all the cash we have.

I was still musing over the $99,000 versus the $100,000. The broker had been silent since Don’s comment about the extent of our cash. I noticed him then, sitting at his desk looking like he just swallowed his tongue.

Darren Caldwell cleared his throat and said, You mean you want to pay cash for this property?

Don said, That’s right.

The broker started saying how we could work on the financing and Don went to stand again, helping me from my chair, and said, Thank you for your time, and we made to leave.

Darren Caldwell sputtered and said, Now hold on just a minute, and began moving things around on his desk. He nervously picked up his phone and put it back down, aligned his stapler with the edge of the desk, picked up some papers and tapped them to order and carefully placed them on his desk again, touched his writing implements one by one, opened and closed a drawer or two, and then stared intently at Don who had a friendly smile and the patience of Job.

Finally Darren said, Well we can at least call the owner, and picked up his phone to do that. He chatted a moment and then came to the point of our offer.

There was a loud squawk on the other end of the line and then more loud comments intermingled with the realtor emitting, But, but, well you see, but it’s that, but, but . . .

Finally the realtor sort of excused himself to us with a look, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, and ducked to the back of his seat to speak more privately to the owner. I heard the word cash and affirmations of the veracity of what he was saying. After a bit, he hung up the phone and explained that he had to negotiate away some of his commission, which meant nothing to us, and that they were accepting our offer.

Well all right then. This was happening fast!

Darren Caldwell started talking fast then and was busy letting us know when closing would be, that he had a lawyer, and so on. I felt nervous at this, as if we had suddenly lost control.

Don, ever in tune with me, spoke up, We have our own lawyer and would like to close with him.

Stunned, Darren sort of cleared his throat again and stuttered, You have your own lawyer?

Yes, Don said and gave his name, his actual name. We lovingly referred to our closing attorney as J. Dagget Lawyer in homage to the funny little lawyer in True Grit that was used by the lead character Mattie as a frequent threat.

Darren Caldwell listed off several other names of lawyers he recommended and assured us he uses them all the time, and it would be better, as he went on extolling the virtues of his total control over the process.

Don put in, No, we want to use our lawyer.

We had really liked our lawyer we had with our starter dump as well as Dad’s house and had talked about using him again for any other closings. We had not talked to him about this deal. I hoped he would agree to do it. I felt a lot better at the idea of using our own lawyer.

We ironed out the contract, contacted our lawyer, and set the closing for two weeks hence.

Closing came soon on February 12, 1992. We handed over our check for $99,000 and we left our lawyer’s office with a deed. We were landed gentry.

The prior owners were a bit strange. They were a couple, a bit older than us, and they acted a bit hostile to us. All but we and our lawyer seemed very uncomfortable as fish out of water at our lawyer’s office. I was so happy we had insisted on this home court advantage. I wasn’t sure at all what any advantage might be, but the feeling was definitely palpable.

The couple made a couple of strange comments about the hard bargain, and wearing them down, and such. The bargain happened very quickly and we had very little conversation in it. It came out that the owner had two other deals he could complete with this cash. Well it seemed to me it was a great deal if we all went away happy. We were happy. The former owners seemed anything but. It was very strange.

Three

HOUSE BUILDERS

Don worked diligently with our design ideas. I had collected scrips and scraps for years. Little by little he brought them all together into a home design. It was different, but incorporated all the ideas I’d collected along with his own ideas for space and flow. It was fun to work on and think about. I was never very good at this sort of creativity, but once I thought about it, I did have strong ideas about what I wanted where as far as utility for the space. I love to cook so the kitchen got a lot of attention. It seemed my hobby area for my sewing was taking a back seat for our cost goals, but a desk later or even a card table could serve.

I insisted on a great room style. The feature I did not like in our starter dump was the separation of the kitchen from the living room. Another glitch I’d discovered in that small place was that I could never find my husband! Don had a way of disappearing in his focused concentration, so that even with me calling him repeatedly, he would not hear me at all. I had to physically search the premises to find him and gain attention. In a small place like our starter dump - a whopping 1400 square feet on a quarter acre lot - this could surprisingly take up to several minutes. Our dream house was envisioned to be at least twice that size, so I made sure that an open design was fully incorporated. I did not like spending so much time searching for Don. I wanted to be able to spot his whereabouts faster.

We were trying to keep the cost at a reasonable place. We had blown our pile of dough on the land. While getting a construction loan and rolling it to a mortgage later was how we were going to roll, going over budget would be out of the question. Our savings were largely depleted, and we needed to start again. It was not our original Plan A, but developments dictated this new course. We needed to be attentive to our accounts.

The house would be a touch smaller than the original vision so as to save on materials and building costs, but also on future heating and light costs. I was reluctant at first to give up on some of the spaces I’d wanted. Don finally brought me around when he discussed cleaning a bigger space. He got me with that one. I was then firmly on board with the cost saving ideas.

We spent some time trying to find a builder with no success. During this time we decided to figure out how to get our ideas drawn up into plans because it seemed to be a thing some builders balked at - they needed to see the plans. We needed some plans.

Talking to architects proved to be almost as frustrating as talking to builders. They only wanted to talk about their designs. Their prices were astonishing and we had a very real sense that they had a menu of home designs which they would tweak to our specifications, but they were not at all interested in our design ideas. We even had drawings Don had made with a computer drawing program, but they were not blueprints. We could not get any attention.

We read a couple books on building houses and talked to a lot of people who had experience in this type of project. We started to get the idea of how to get this thing going but it was slow at first. We wanted this to be our project. We were not inclined to hand over the keys to someone else’s creativity. We also heard horror stories about skyrocketing prices due to tweaks and changes that seemed innocent at the time, but snowballed the expense.

Never having built a house before, we figured we would need to hire a builder, so we began making calls. We never actually met any builders. We couldn’t find any that would build our house. They wanted to build one of their houses and promised all sorts of bells and whistles in their package. Nowhere in these talks would they address using the plans we had drawn.

Little by little we found out that in our state, a builder does not need any special credentials. Anybody can be a builder! Don did find himself with time to kill after the demise of his company, and it appeared it may be some time if ever that he would be able to fly again professionally. Maybe this idea merged perfectly with our cost-cutting goals. We could save a ton of money by being our own builders! He was very clever with all manner of carpentry, plumbing, and electrical. We learned that the state did require certain jobs to have permits which could only be obtained by credentialed experts in that area. We would need some plans and to hire contractors. How hard could it be?

One of the architects we talked to, who refused to draw our plans, advised us that what we needed was an architectural draftsman. Apparently they don’t design, they just draw. Well all right then.

We looked up architectural draftsman in the yellow pages and made an appointment with Art Armbruster. He had large drawing boards and large sheets of paper everywhere. We showed him what we had in mind and he seemed intrigued by the differences in our design. He was amused by our professions as airline pilots since he himself was a private pilot. He pulled out an aeronautical chart and examined the location of our land. He found a small airport close by and asked if it would be possible to pick him up at that airport and take him to the property so he could see the lay of the land on what he called a site visit. We agreed.

At this first meeting, Art began muttering to himself about the engineering of a part of the house that made construction tricky, and made measurements and calculations on a sheet of paper. After a bit, he gave us a bid for drawing our design as well as his cost for a small engineering study he would need regarding a high wall and the span across an open space. He would not charge us for the flight. He explained that he uses any excuse to fly. This was understandable to us.

Art’s architectural draftsman bid was quite reasonable compared to some of the bids from the architects that were completely uninterested in drawing our plans. For twice the price they planned to smooth out the wrinkles of one of their old plans. Art’s bid was to put our ideas to paper - just what we wanted.

When our architectural draftsman had our plans completed, we couldn’t have been more tickled. It was our own ideas on official looking paper. There were different views and separate pages for the separate floor plans. Don had these similarly drawn out from the computer, but Art had figured out nuances like wall thicknesses and had suggestions for certain types of construction after the engineering study he had done. He also had wonderful ideas as to the look of the house and its placement on our property. I had insisted on a large porch, so he wrapped it around three sides. Excellent. He tried to add walls and enclose some of the spaces within the house but Don’s design had been well thought out by us, and we did not care for his creativity there. He reluctantly erased to our specifications. At one point he put his foot down and we had to argue with him. He insisted on closing in our toilet within the bathroom area of our master suite. We didn’t want it closed up. Don and I have always been open and easy with each other as a couple and never felt compelled to close a door between us when one or the other had to, uh, think things over. We decided our own design would not include doors or walls for our own private space. Of course our downstairs bathroom had all the normal walls and doors of any normal bathroom space. We didn’t want that in our master suite.

Art pleaded, But what about your privacy?

I answered, We’re married. He looked at me like we were nuts. I added, Look Art. Most of the main life decisions we have made together was while one or the other of us was in the bathroom thinking things over. We are active people and we travel for a living. Sometimes it’s the only way we can find the other one sitting still. No door. No walls. I crossed my arms and stood firm.

Art stuttered a bit. He looked at Don who nodded his head in my direction. With a hearty sigh, Art erased the walls and door imprisoning our toilet. We wanted what we wanted.

We did appreciate Art’s attention to how the outside of the house should look, however, down to the angle he suggested for the biggest impact as the house was approached from the road. Spectacular. Our dream house was coming to life!

An early order of business on the farm was to acquire a tractor. Don figured he would need one to operate on a proper farm and we definitely had strong intentions to be a proper farm. He found a used Massey Ferguson tractor that was big and noisy and strong. He loved that thing and to this day is still a Massey man, even though we upgraded a couple times.

Another thing that needed doing, once we had our plans, was to get rid of the cows that were the current occupants of the acreage. Our across the street neighbor Robert Blunt owned the cows, and had leased the property from the former owners for a couple of years. When Don called on him to discuss this issue, Robert said he would get the cows off the property while construction was underway, but asked if he could continue leasing the pastures after we were in our house. Still exploring ways to utilize our land, Don inquired, So how much do you pay to lease this much land for the cows?

Robert crossed his arms and stroked his chin, Well, lemme see, he mused. I wondered why he didn’t know how much he paid. He said he’d been leasing these pastures from the former owners for years. This indicated to me a money exchange. Why didn’t he know how much?

Robert hemmed and hawed a moment or two more and said, Oh, around $11 a year.

Don asked, So $11 per cow? Per acre?

Oh no, Robert said, $11 per year for the pastures.

Why would anyone in their right mind take on the liability of very large animals for $11? I’m sure my eyes were wide and my mouth open in shock, but I tried to stay cool as the men were talking. I had gotten quite quickly that no one in that area wanted to hear anything from me. My husband was our family’s voice. This was all right with me since we were always very in tune with each other. We wanted to blend into this new neighborhood, and while we were learning our way, we were careful not to irritate anyone. I stayed quiet for the most part until we were alone whereupon I shared my opinions, thoughts, and ideas with my husband, who almost 100% of the time had already had and acted on the same exact ideas.

I stood by without input, and was amused as Don gently and calmly informed Robert that we would not be leasing our pastures.

Are you sure? Robert pressed.

We’re sure, Don responded with a friendly and calm smile on his face. Robert and his son Ash came over with cattle trailers and after a couple trips, the cows were gone.

We were going to need to sell the starter dump. We called on the real estate agent who had sold us the house but she was busy doing something else somewhere else. The office assigned another agent to us who came right over to assess and work out a contract to sell the house. His name was Merle Stone - a short-statured, bespectacled fellow with a high voice.

Merle took a very quick look around and took no notes. He wanted to know what we wanted to ask and I swear we barely had spoken our amount when he was going, Oh no! That’s way too much. Y’all are crazy if you think you can get that, and on like that. Don pointed out what we had paid and all the improvements we had made. He also noted some other neighborhood homes, what they were going for, and how their attributes did not at all equal ours. Merle was adamant in his assertion that we could never get what we were asking and he said he didn’t even want to list it for that.

Don said, Ok. Thanks for your time. We’ll find another agent.

Merle back-peddled furiously. He reluctantly agreed to list our price, but assured us we would not sell it for that amount. We figured we’d see about that.

We tidied up the starter dump and decluttered as best we could. We removed our cat Lucky to Dad’s house and he lived out his years there in feline luxury. Molly had earlier retired, sadly, to the Sunny Spot in Heaven for all good kitties.

We also decided to remove ourselves. During Don’s earlier airline job, he commuted to another city. Finding a place to stay was expensive and problematic. We acquired a mini-motorhome that worked beautifully. It was big enough to be comfortable but small enough to almost fit in a normal parking place. We loved touring around that area on our off days in our home on wheels. When Don’s company shut down, he got in the motorhome and drove back up to our house. One of the bits of advice we received from experienced house builders was about the problem of materials disappearing at night. What better way to provide security to our materials than to remain on the job site 24/7? It was a plan and it was all coming together.

Examination of the jobs that would need to be done as we began our building project revealed that first things first - we would need to grade the building site. Don seemed to know what this meant, but I had very little idea. He knew exactly where the house should go and carefully measured and marked the spot. His new tractor was little help for this job as he had no blade or bucket yet, so he hired his first contractor - a grader.

It was so exciting to have this great rumbly machine on our property spouting smoke and tearing our building site to shreds. All of Don’s meticulously placed markers were gone in a flash. I watched amazed. How did they know what flat was? How did they know where the edges were supposed to be? It all looked a mess and I was barely able to breathe. Almost suddenly the huge belching machine stopped. The area was smooth and flat. The corner markers were being replaced. A tidy pile of topsoil was off to the side to be used later, I learned, as backfill, and then I had to learn what backfill was. This was going to be a lot to learn! Lucky for me, Don seemed to know exactly what was going on and had seemed pleased throughout. In the process, the grader recommended a couple foundation people. Step by step! Of course these folks must know each other. We were beginning to enjoy the on-the-job training. We were happily at home in our motorhome, and our vision was starting to seem possible.

The next contractor Don hired was the foundation guy. A crew arrived and I watched as they scurried around like ants laying out lines with string, setting up batter boards, learning what in the heck batter boards were, and digging the trenches to pour concrete footings for the foundation, and learning what in the heck a footing was.

For the interested: batter boards are like a little wooden fence, just outside where the edges of the construction are and allow a string to be strung to mark the edges. The height of the batter boards is precisely calculated so level can be easily discerned when laying the footings; and footings are the solid surface placed underground for the foundation to rest upon. I was learning a ton of new words and techniques every day and we had barely begun.

As the foundation crew was erecting the batter boards, I was watching with keen interest. They seemed to be going so fast! They measured and nailed and measured again, consulting the plans, and moving around quickly, using tape measures and a small device attached to a tripod like a surveyor’s instrument or transit that the foreman looked through, waving instructions to his person across the way. I figured this was a device to check levels or elevations. When it was just so, he’d say, Nail it! I was curious to look through this device to see what it looked like, but I kept quiet. Don came around as I stood mesmerized, and commented for my edification how important it was to get these batter boards straight and square and level. The angles absolutely had to be perfect right angles, and the footings had to be absolutely level.

Well yeah! I gasped. Are they? Are they perfectly square? I imagined in horror a Snuffy Smith-esque ramshackle building.

Yeah, sure, Don answered confidently.

I could see that the workers did not have a carpenter square or right triangle to check the corners in their hands. I wasn’t sure how else one would know a corner was square. How do you know? I questioned.

3-4-5 Rule, Don replied casually.

What’s that?

He said, You took a lot of math in college. You know about the 3-4-5 Rule.

No. No I didn’t. I did take a lot of math in college because it came with my aeronautics courses. I wanted to be a pilot. Unfortunately, I was one of those kids that plugged and chugged procedurally in math. I did catch on well to the physics of aviation, and could understand and use the vector math required to navigate, but I never really did understand the pure conceptual part of math. Calculus was a total mystery to me. Area under the curve? What curve? Why would I want that? Professors and tutors gave me dirty looks when I asked such questions so I kept them to myself. When I would recall the formula by rote memory and perform the steps for solving in the correct order, I would get a smiling, Yes, Grasshopper, response, but I never knew what I was talking about no matter how correct my answer happened to be.

So Don had acted like I ought to know all about the 3-4-5 Rule because I took a lot of math. I looked at him blankly, and he goes, You know, Pythagorean’s Theorem?

Um, you mean the one about the triangles?

You got it, Don said and smiled happily.

What about it? I persisted.

What about what? Don asked, having moved on to monitor other more interesting things.

Pythagorean’s Theorem, I reminded him where our conversation had driven off a cliff.

Don goes, Pythagorean’s Theorem? 3-4-5 Rule? with a look as if that should clear up everything.

It didn’t. What?

He said, What, what?

Exasperated by now, I said, What is the 3-4-5 Rule and how does that make sure the corners are perfect right angles?

Don again looked at me like I was goofing around. I flashed to those bored professors and tutors from my college days. He said, Well you know what the Pythagorean Theorem is, right?

Yes, I answered hesitantly, and resisted asking, What’s that got to do with the price of rice in Red China?

Don nodded encouragingly.

I shrugged helplessly and said, What about it?

Don said to me, What is the Pythagorean Theorem?

You’re asking me? What’s that got to do with the corners?

He asked, Well do you know what it is or don’t you?

I said, Well isn’t it the one where the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides? See? I can say it, but I stink at seeing it.

Exactly, Don beamed, and crossed him arms in concentration of the men at their work.

I said, What is the 3-4-5 Rule and how does that make sure the corners are perfect right angles? for the third time!

He goes, 3-4-5? Pythagorean’s Theorem?

This again? I looked at him stupefied and not a little bit irritated by this time.

Don said, Apply 3-4-5 to the Pythagorean’s Theorem.

Couldn’t he just answer my question? But I muttered to myself as I went, well lemme see, three times three is nine. Four times four is sixteen. Sixteen plus nine is twenty-five, and the square root of twenty-five is five. I gasped, Oh! 3-4-5! Neat, but I still don’t understand how that makes the corners true.

3-4-5, Don instructed, as he took me to a corner with a tape measure. He showed me marks the workers had made on the tops of the batter boards. Along one side the mark was three feet to the corner. The other mark was four feet to the corner. Then he measured between the two marks across the corner, making a hypotenuse between the two marks and it was precisely five feet! How wonderful was that? I was delighted with this little piece of math that I was actually able to use in real life, and so interested that construction workers such as these were so in tune with such a mathematical principle, but I went on that they would have to be, wouldn’t they? Otherwise their buildings would be crooked and they wouldn’t be in the business very long.

Don interrupted my verbal musings with, Well, they don’t really know the mathematical principles, they just know 3-4-5.

Huh?

He said, When you are in this type of job, you learn the tricks that work, but very few investigate the principles.

Huh, I replied, completely captivated by this whole conversation. I was finding the construction of our home, so far, very riveting, and I loved every little bit that I was learning. Don was equally as interested and amused by the process. He already knew a lot, or could divine and deduce way more than I could, but just a few days in and we were both ecstatic.

Don stayed very busy armed at all times with a cellular phone that in those days was the size and heft of a brick. It was a few years before such tools fit into a pocket. As our project got underway, it didn’t take long at all for a constant stream of traffic of various contractors coming up to inquire for hire on our job. In a lot of these interviews, Don did the most ingenious thing - he asked these contractors for various jobs about other contractors for other jobs! He very soon had a load of recommendations from construction pros for jobs he would need to contract for down the line.

As Don made various contracts, he was meticulous about the contract itself. Nothing was left to verbal or a handshake. All was written down, agreed upon, and signed. We acquired a huge three ring binder with dozens of little tabs as divisions to this project presented themselves. We kept contracts, invoices, brochures, our own notes, and any other flotsam and jetsam that applied. Everything but the plans was in the book. The plans were neatly rolled up when not being scrutinized by Don or a contractor and became the rule. If it wasn’t on the plans, we didn’t want it. We got a bit of advice early on that even a tiny little change early on could snowball the changes and the costs later on. The rule was no changes. The plans were how we wanted it. We’d worked really hard on the plans so we didn’t think this would be a problem, but soon found out what a good thing it was Don took this to heart and stood firm against all changes no matter how small. It really made things a lot simpler.

Almost every contractor after the grader had some idea or other, or a way to cover an error they had made by suggesting a change to the plans. Sometimes, the contractor, after being told no by Don would come to me and suggest a change that would be so pretty, or what the women really like, and like that. No, I was able to say with strong conviction since we had verbalized this agreement with each other early on.

I was flying full time during this period, naturally, as the current sole breadwinner in the family, so off I’d go out of town three or so days a week. I would come home and magical changes would have taken place. There were times I wished I could stay home to watch. I hated missing the daily show. I was so happy living in the motorhome. It was so convenient! We were right there on the job site every day, the house we were trying to sell remained pristine, and we were there at night for security, which became a very important job.

Early on we heard about the issue of materials pilfering - sometimes by your own work crews and sometimes by strangers boldly coming onto the construction site and helping themselves. We hated the idea of this! We hoped that the people we hired were honest enough to not do this, but you never can tell about strangers so we stayed alert and armed as the sun went down.

One day we had received a very large order of materials which was neatly stacked in front of the building site on our front yard. Our motorhome was parked on the side on our future driveway. We were in the family snuggle position watching TV after a camping style dinner. I had a full kitchen, but it was small. Big complicated dishes were not feasible for space or ingredients storage. Our fare was simple during this time, but filling and hot.

So as evening fell, the three of us were quietly enjoying our evening, and we heard a rumbly noise as a vehicle was approaching up our driveway. We had visions later of a paved driveway, but for now it was gravel and quite bumpy, giving even the sturdiest vehicles a shake. Don laid hands on his peacemaker, stuck it in his belt and ordered, Stay here.

Sure, but I meant to watch! I peeked out the window as the truck continued approaching even as my 6’2" Marine strode out to greet our visitors. Suddenly the trucks lights must have finally illuminated Don who by this time had retrieved his weapon from the back of his belt and held it by his side. The truck slammed on their brakes. A stare down ensued. I thought I was going to have a heart attack!

Don called out, Hello, can I help you? and Who’s there?

No answer. More staring. Don moved his weapon arm so that what he had in his hand had to be plainly visible.

Don called out loudly, You are not welcome here. You need to leave, and he slowly raised the weapon to defend our family.

The truck lurched into reverse and fish tailed backwards all the way to the road, about four hundred and fifty feet. As they made their rapid exit, Don raised the weapon and fired twice into the air. They (I saw two silhouettes in the cab of the pickup truck) hurtled out onto the state road that was our frontage, stopped abruptly, then peeled rubber skedaddling up the road. They only got as far as our next door neighbors’, the Shermans’ driveway, pulled in and travelled about half way up. They stopped.

Don watched them for quite some time, and so did I when I wasn’t watching him. We never saw anyone get out, nor did the truck move from its spot for a while. Finally, they backed up the neighbors’ driveway, out onto the state road, and continued on up and away from our property.

It was scary, but we were pretty sure we scared those two away for good. Subsequently we had several nocturnal visitors. Don always went to greet them whereupon they would scramble to their vehicle and leave quickly, or on the occasions Don recognized them as work crew from our job site, they would stammer and try to say they wanted to show their friend the house.

On another day after we had gone off the property shortly to procure food, we rumbled up our own driveway and were curious and alarmed at the truck sitting near the house. There were two young men on our deck bending in concentration at the hinges of our rather expensive front door that had been installed just that day! The deck and trim guy had brought a helper with him and they had put in doors and windows all day. One of the men was unknown to us, but the other one was the helper! Good Heavens, the deck and trim guy’s helper is stealing our door! That he just installed earlier! I was so outraged.

As we approached, the two would-be thieves stopped fiddling with the door and took a seat on the front porch, as if to greet us to our own house! They smiled and waved.

I wanted to jump out of the car and let them have it. I was livid. Don stopped the car and said, Stay here.

But they are stealing our door! I tried not to shriek.

Don, in his calm manner, said, No. They haven’t stolen anything. We don’t really know what they were doing.

Come on! I argued, What else could they be doing here after work was over, fiddling with the hinges?

Don nodded and said, Yes. It looks suspicious, but our door is still there. They haven’t stolen anything.

Well not yet! I asserted fiercely.

Don said, We have no complaint. I’m just going to see what they want and get them to leave. Stay here.

Probably a good idea. Don was so much more logical and calm than I was. He was right. You can’t say, Thief! when your property is still intact and in your possession, no matter how sure you might be of their intentions. And on top of that, how can any of us know the heart and intentions of another person? I willed myself to calm down. Diane and I stayed in the car while Don approached our visitors who were smiling goofily from their seat on my porch.

Don walked up and said, Hello fellas! How are you doing?

Fine, they said.

Don addressed the worker he recognized, Did you forget something?

The helper stuttered and stammered and finally got out, I just wanted to show my friend the house. It’s very different.

Don leapt right in, You all did a good job on the doors today, as he went in to inspect the spot, the hinges, where the two men had been focusing their attention when we drove up.

They jumped up to join him and one said, That is a beautiful door.

Don said, Thanks. It wasn’t cheap, but I don’t know that it’s different from many other doors. Now our floor plan inside is a bit different, but we went pretty normal on the doors and windows.

I was starting to snicker. He was egging them on beautifully.

The helper said, Yeah, but this door is especially pretty and wasn’t easy to install. I wanted to show it to my friend. He’s interested in doors.

I thought, now that is a weird fetish. Even though I was some yards away with our dinner getting cold, I was riveted on this scene of which Don had complete control.

Don smiled and said, Oh! You like doors? How wonderful! I like doors too. What is it that you like most about doors?

The guest thief stuttered a bit, and the helper stammered, Well what I meant was . . .

Don happily went on about types of doors, colors of doors, materials from which doors were made, and various other attributes of doors. It was quite hilarious, and I was giggling helplessly.

Both of the would-be thieves were bright red in the face and shifting their eyes in search of an escape route. Don held them conversationally captive with a long monologue on doors. He led them around the porch, to show them more doors, and came with them around from the back of the house and herded them back to their vehicle. Don prattled on and on while the two losers had their hands shoved deeply in their pockets and have probably never felt more uncomfortable. Finally, Don shook each of their hands in a grand and friendly way, patted them on the shoulder, and helped them into their vehicle, patting the vehicle in smiling tribute to his friendly sincerity.

They pulled out and went back out the driveway. I was crying I was laughing so hard. Don couldn’t help but snicker at his own antics. I warmed up our dinner and we settled down for the evening.

The next day, the deck and trim guy showed up alone. Don asked where his helper was. The deck and trim guy said that he couldn’t work that day, so Don came back immediately with, Oh that’s too bad. I have never met a guy who likes doors so much!

The deck and trim man said, Come again?

Don said, Oh. He and a friend came over last night after everyone had left. We drove up and met them after we had gone to get dinner. He explained that his friend really likes doors and that he wanted to show his friend our door.

The deck and trim man looked concerned and a bit alarmed and said, He came back?

Don said, Yes.

The deck and trim man asked another question or two and then excused himself to make a phone call. We can’t know who he called, but we had an idea. Also, we never saw that helper again on our property.

A few years later, we brought in a bad tire for repair to a local tire place. The young man running the shop gave good service for a good price, and Don became a semi-regular for tires on our various vehicles.

As we entered the familiar shop, the owner greeted us warmly and asked how he could help us. As he and Don discussed the tire issue he had, I recognized the person idling in the office, mainly by his deeply red face. I really wanted to say, Fancy meeting you here? Steal any doors lately? I resisted.

When Don finished his business with the tire guy, he turned to go, but I gave him an eyebrow raised head nod at the red-faced chap sitting by the desk studying the ceiling.

Don smiled broadly and said, Oh! Hey! Hello! How are you? and extended his hand for a handshake. The lad returned the handshake but the red only deepened in his face and he kept his eyes downcast.

Don went on, Have you installed any cool doors lately?

He mumbled, Well, no I . . .

Don said, "We built a new barn and it has a really big door! You should see it! It’s huge! It slides on rails at the top. It’s really cool. You should see it, ‘ and proceeded to stare down the young man with a big, friendly smile on his face.

My husband is never ending for high entertainment. I have a cynical edge to my outlook on people, but my husband actually does assume everyone is innocent and true. I’m pretty sure he did have suspicions about the character of who I knew to be a would-be thief, but with no proof, he intended to give him every benefit of the doubt. It didn’t stop him from working to ferret out the truth though, which to me was high hilarity.

The conversational pause was getting pregnant. Don continued smiling. The tire shop owner looked at his guest and at Don and back to his buddy. The shop owner said, So, y’all know each other?

Don said, Yes. He did some work on our house when we built, and I found out he’s a big fan of doors.

The shop owner said, Um, doors?

Don said, Yes. I’ve never met anyone with such a liking for doors. So, back to the door guy, have you installed any good ones lately?

The door guy said, You don’t think that I, you don’t think I was trying to do anything, because I didn’t, it’s just that . . .

Don said, What? Oh no! I really appreciate an artist that prides himself in his work. So you should see the big doors on our barn! They are particularly fine.

The door guy clenched his jaw visibly and didn’t say anything. The tire guy looked back and forth between the two until Don broke the spell by addressing the shop owner, So, you’ll call me when you get a chance to look at that tire?

The tire guy said, Yeah. I’ll probably give you a call this afternoon, as he looked at his guest with the clenched jaw and red face.

Don said, Thanks! See you later, and we left. Once in the car and out of sight from the shop, we laughed ourselves silly. The would-be thief is forever referred to in our house as the guy with the door fetish. My husband can really crack me up.

Pilfering also occurred, we were to discover, by the materials suppliers. I was made in charge of the book. I also made a lot of calls and placed a lot of orders, as directed by my husband, for the next thing coming down the line. On one of the first deliveries made, my husband busily scratched his signature while he had several other things going on at once. Sadly, we found out we were shorted badly on the order. He called the supplier and read him the riot act, but we had been burned. Not again.

The next delivery arrived and Don asked me to check it and sign for it. Oh goody - tasking. My main job was toddler wrangling, but she was a cinch - such a good kid. If absolutely too much was going on for either of us to watch her, she could go in the motorhome and watch cartoons, a thing she didn’t hate, since we were otherwise pretty strict against the whole cartoon thing. Anyway, I was instructed to check the order and sign for it. Neat.

I proceeded to get the original order invoice out of the book and compare it with the delivery invoice. I wasn’t inclined to write a check if the order was incomplete. Sure enough, a whole part of our order had been left off. Oh – it’s back ordered? Well we’ll pay for that part later then, I was noting to myself, or trying to.

The delivery guy was impatiently jabbing the place on the delivery paper where I was supposed to sign. He tried to take the paper away from me so he could get my husband to sign it. He even tried, I need for the man to sign it. This, as my dear ol’ Dad would have said, went over like a turd in the punch bowl. I won the tug of war with the paper and took my time examining the details to find any more holes, omissions, or outright cheats. Then I proceeded to count. Every board, every box of nails, unless a box was open - then I counted the nails. This took some time, especially with an angry delivery guy hovering and grumbling, and then trying to help me count. Don’t count out loud while I’m counting! I’ll have to start