In theory, I work every Wednesday renovating the old Quonset hut up on the community grounds with a bunch of old geezers. I say, “in theory”, because we don’t go in if it is cold, snowy, too rainy or we are busy doing something else. It is not a job so much as a pastime (we pass-the-time semi-constructively). Nobody showed up the last three weeks. Too cold. Our working policy is: if it’s not fun, don’t do it!

It should come as no surprise that we have been working on (and off) the Q-hut for about a year now. We are almost done. Kinda. Fer sure by 2012.

We are slow for more reasons than weather delays and the desire for fun. We are all a bit eccentric, it seems. Independent. Lone wolf-types with a bit of extra ‘wolf’ thrown in now and then. Makes for interesting team dynamics.

In actual fact, each guy is a great guy and has a lot to offer. But each also has their own style and, at our ages (everyone is 60 plus except maybe a couple of 55 year-olds)that style is not particularly social or team-oriented nor is it necessarily even similar to another guy’s style. Their urban counterpart encounters dozens of people a day. Our guys encounter dozens of people, too, but it takes three months to hit those numbers. You can lose a little on the tact and diplomacy scale that way.

But the real rift in our cohesion is the simple fact that everyone but me is hard-of-hearing, deaf-as-a-post or somewhere in between. I am the leader-of-sorts for no other reason than I can hear.

So, if Bill says something like, “Hey, isn’t it time for lunch?” and no one answers, it is because no one heard him but me. So, knowing Bill wants to stop and have lunch, I go around and yell at everyone, “HEY!! LUNCHTIME!!”

Everyone thinks I am the boss.

The truth is: each guy is more skilled, equipped, experienced and knowledgeable than me by either a reasonable amount or by a country mile. One of the Dougs builds boats (that look great!) and starts by heading off into the forest to cut the tree down for the wood he is going to use! Another guy machined up his own bearings for his diesel! A third…………well, as I have said before; these guys can do just about everything a homesteader needs doing.

Except talk.

Well, they can talk. Of course. They just aren’t too used to it. When you head into the forest to get your boat building materials, you do so at the cost of conversation at the very least. Who ya gonna talk to?

Throw in deafness and you have a bunch of eccentric semi-deaf-mutes trying to ‘work together’. It’s not easy.

Well, actually it is easy. They are a lot of fun. I like Q-hut days. I just have to remember to look at each guy directly, over pronounce my words at a high volume and look like the boss.

The ones who can hear the best think I am weird when I do that.

I told you we are all a little eccentric.