On a typical day, for instance after I wake up in the late morning or early afternoon, I get dressed and stumble over to the house to put in some work. Unless I have some clear objective I find Greg, the builder, and ask him how I can be a blessing. He usually gives me a task or at least gives me a status update and I go from there to stay ahead of his crew with demolition or cleaning something up. This particular day I noticed a new crew member but had not yet welcomed him to the site and gave him the waiver. Greg says, “Well, you can give Chris a hand in the basement cleaning things up.” Contractors (plumbers, electricians, heating) were due in the coming days and I had been derelict in picking up down there over the last couple months. It was work I was not looking forward to doing. And, once I heard his name, I recognized him and not someone I was looking forward to working with.
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| The basement this summer. |
I spent the better part of three hours in the belly of the whale with Chris. The majority of garbage in the basement was insulation that had fallen through various holes in the floor as well as plaster pieces and lath. There was some old copper wire and pipes. A few dozen paint cans, some metal shelves rusted beyond use, and dirt. Literally, dirt. One of the windows had broken at one point and dirt had fallen in. The window was long since repaired but the dirt remained. Everything had to come up a six foot step ladder and fit through the new doorway which was once just a simple closet. It was a two man job. But I did not want to do it, there was other more fun and exciting tasks that could have been done.
For a time one of Colt's (our oldest son) favorite books was a short, toddler version of Jonah. Jonah was a prophet that God had sent to Nineveh. Nineveh was a place he did not want to go. So Jonah got on a ship headed for somewhere he wanted to go and he ended up in the belly of a whale for three days. Then he got spit up and went to Nineveh and made a difference for God's kingdom. I have read this short book so many times I find myself calling places I don't want to go Nineveh.
For instance. A while back I was working and looking for a suspect that had an old address at our men's mission. I was checking the parking lot for his vehicle when I noticed that it was the time in the night when the majority of the men are out for one last smoke before their curfew forces them to be inside. In times past (and present) I will pull my cruiser right next to the and talk with them. Show them that I am just a guy and reinforce to me that these are all just men that made one or two mistakes that became insurmountable. But this shift something in me did not want to go talk to them, so when I got to the end of the lot, just where they were gathering, I backed up and acted like I was still checking for the vehicle I was looking for. Then I backed into a box truck. It made a lot of noise and drew attention to myself in a the exact manner I was trying to avoid. If I did not want the attention of 40 homeless guys before I had it now.
So Chris and I had some initial small talk and I went over what goes and what stays. After my first load to the dumpster I came back and he asked, “you still working for the city?” There it is. “Yup” I says and he replies with thankfulness to be getting work in the weeks before Christmas around Thanksgiving and he understands that I may be nervous to have him working in a “cop's house”. I gave him my “God's grace covers my sins and his equally” speech and we proceeded to talk the next several hours about the gospel, church, 70x7 ministry, Muslims, and what it means to work hard unto the Lord. By the close of the day we got things cleaned up though we spent a lot of time talking. He did not work as hard as I would have liked, he is skilled at broom leaning, but it was an afternoon well spent.
He was back for one more day but I was not around until the end of that day and I noticed he spent his time sitting on a stack of plywood. He knows better. But that was his last day on our project.
The basement was one of the first projects I tackled inside the house. Two large fuel oil tanks sat under the main floor bathroom. The bathroom with flooring issues that needed to be addressed first (again we had intended to live in the house much sooner and needed a working bathroom). If you get bored do some google research on “removing fuel oil tanks”. You'll find everyone recommends hiring out a professional or risking an errant spark igniting some residual fumes and sending the man on the reciprocating saw to shake hands with Jesus.
Well I did my share of research and took careful note of the points of safety discussed according to each professional. The main points: drain the fuel, vent the tanks with fresh air, keep your blade cool. Only one of the tanks had any residual fuel oil in it, and not even enough to drain out. I took all the pipe fittings off the tops of the tanks and blew fresh air into the tanks using an air compressor. I then drilled a series of holes in the top, enough to get the blade of my sawzall through it. I used “torch” metal cutting blades. Six total. I kept the blade dipped in a bucket of water every few inches and ran water over the tank where I was cutting. Never a spark. Sort of.
As I was literally cutting the last inches of the last tank I was holding the Sawzall in such a way that I noticed the large, strong arching spark that goes on inside electric power tools. I laughed as I finished the cut. I was so concerned about the spark from the blade that I did not think of the spark from the inside of the tool. God is good. (He would still be good if I had blown up).
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| Water, electricity, fuse boxes. Flammable gas, sparks, and a 130 year old tinderbox. What could go wrong? |
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2020 Update:
Wear masks and wash your hands.
This post apparently got stuck in the dregs of Blog drafts. I’m on dayshift now which is better in some regards for the family. The work is terrible but it pays the same. And I only see builder Greg once in a while at church, and I try to make it a point not to talk shop at church. By-in-large I miss our time together terribly.
Chris and I have updated our relationship status as well. He stabbed a neighbor the other day and myself and the tactical team took him into custody after a bit of a standoff (Romans 3:23). The last time I talked to his brother, the painter, (another post) was when his step-son was barricaded in a closet trying to kill himself after doing other things that required us to talk to him. Shrugs emoji. These events are like a 4/10 when it comes to “interesting things for me to talk about” in the past 5 years.
The basement remains a thing of moisture but in good shape since it partially collapsed. It's on the short term list of major projects. In the meantime we set mouse traps every fall and winter and do our best to keep a "spider stick" close by to clean up spider webs wherever we walk down there.
