We are salvagers.  Kinda.  Not really.  Partly.  It is not like we get into our old truck dressed in old, dirty clothes and go about looking for junk we can utilize or anything.  It is just that we are always in old dirty clothes and our truck is also kinda beaten up and we do notice things that can ‘come in handy’ as we drive along.  It is a subtle difference, I know, but there is a difference.  It is basically one of commitment.  We are not committed salvagers, we are just opportunists.

Mind you, we are committed opportunists so it is a slippery slope.

Over the past few weeks we have accumulated plywood.  We need plywood.  Bad. And so, when the opportunity presented itself (Sal’s dad wanting rid of some.  Doug Fleet generously donating to the community woodworking shop) and the other odd source (they don’t get much odder than Doug or Sal’s dad), we took it.

But plywood is heavy and awkward and we have enough barnacle and kelp covered slopes to climb with loaded arms as a rule and so we left it to accumulate in the utility trailer we have at the end-of-the-road for a while.  We had a haul.   

And Sal, of course, had plans.  “Sweetie, it is time we went over and got all the plywood.  Get out of your housecoat, stop drinking tea and playing on the computer now.  Now is the time to schlep plywood.  Come along, sweetie.”  

I don’t know what power has been harnessed in that ‘sweetie’ word but shortly thereafter I am transferring plywood on the beach into Sal’s small boat.  It is 11.5 feet long, 4.5 feet wide.  Plywood is frequently at least 8 feet long.  There is not much room in the boat for dancing when it is just her and me.  We were getting pretty crowded in the vessel and the two saw horses we had also obtained didn’t make it easier.  I’ve been in bigger hot tubs.  Once loaded, we headed over the bounding main to our house.  And then we unloaded over the aforementioned barnacle and kelp covered slippery slopes.

We wrestled the ply under the boat-shed and, when done, considered it a job well done.  It is also a portent of things to come.  As I look back on my last six years, I realize that I have been salvaging almost from the beginning.  Indeed, salvaging without a purpose was the way I started.  I was roaming junkyards a few years before I ever thought about building the Read Island home.  Maybe junk is my destiny? 

I am a junkman, coo-coo-ca-choo.