Professionals

Construction continues nearly every day on our project, and it reminds us how fortunate we were to be able to contract with a team of hard-working and very competent builders during this busy time for construction in Highlands.  They show up early – 7:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. – and work until dark, as I have mentioned before in this blog.  And they have no compunction against working on Saturdays and even Sundays, which used to horrify most folks in this part of the world.  (“It’ll never last!” Martha says her grandmother used to say about such work).  I don’t much like working on Sundays, but mostly because I appreciate the wisdom in observing that ancient Sabbath tradition and the benefit to body, mind, and spirit that it promotes.

Yesterday, Sunday, we had understood that a pair of carpenters might work for half a day, so we planned to drive to Asheville for a reprieve.  There was a vehicle in the driveway at 8:00 a.m. and they quickly cranked up the air compressor.  “Adios!” I said as we left.  We were gone until 5:00 p.m. and were surprised to find that the carpenters had been replaced by roofers, who had nearly completed installing the metal roof on the entryway and garden shed.  They did not seem to mind the rain-slick conditions, and they had Mexican music playing at an audible level.  “Sorry about the music!” I told our neighbor, who was out on her front porch.  “Oh, it’s not bothering us at all.  We kind of like it!"

Despite the Sunday work, a language barrier that is more apparent with some of the workers than others, and the inconvenience of scrap lumber accumulating in the driveway, we are thankful for these men, who are invariably polite and helpful.  I served as building inspector in Highlands when we first came here 38 years ago, and I can testify that their workmanship is excellent.  All of them also seem to have the best equipment and are driving brand-new and very large pickup trucks.  It is a wonderful thing to see that our country can still welcome and reward hard-working immigrants, and to see them thriving and getting ahead.

Last week, I was discussing with the crew of carpenters the placement of a six-inch column on a footing (the one which had caused the inadvertent cutting of the phone cable).  The column had to be directly below the point where two roof joists joined.  I dashed down to the basement and proudly returned with my venerable plumb bob, unwound the string, and held it up to the joint.  “See?” I said.  They grinned at each other and one of them returned from his truck with a little black box that beamed a green laser beam directly where I had held my plumb bob.  “Mine is better,” I insisted.  “No batteries!”  They thought that was funny.

Today, between the time I left home to go running in Town a little after 8:00 a.m. and my return two hours later, they had installed all of the windows on the entryway, a project that would have taken me the better part of a week.

I was reminded of what I told the plumber Tim Gibson a couple of years ago when we called him to install an especially difficult faucet on our new kitchen sink.  “A smart man knows how to do a little plumbing,” I said.  “But a wise man knows when to call the professionals!”