It was that time again yesterday.  Go to the Q-hut to work on the transformation of an old one-room school made out of a Bailey building just after WWll into a community woodworking shop stopping at lunch time to hobnob with neighbours down at the dock.  That and Sal’s yoga session is part of our weekly routine.

Before and after the lunch-break, we guys work slowly and crack stupid guy-jokes.  It’s quite fun.  Plus we are getting something done.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Well, it did, actually.  It was a beautiful day and it was additionally graced by two young public health nurses trying to flog vaccines on a paranoid rural subset of humanity.  They had encounters.

I decided to be one of them for the time I was with the nurses.  It’s kinda fun acting like a curmudgeon from the sticks.  “Wouldn’t be doing this if t’weren’t for wife, you know.  She’s the big cheese ’round these parts.  Resistance is futile.  Still, I don’t usually have what the government is offering.  It’s all a trick, you know.  You gals have trouble sleeping at night knowing that you are injecting that nano-robot, mind-control chip technology into the people?  Or did they inject you two first and now you think it is all good?”

“Uh, sir, you don’t have to have the shots, you know.  It’s a public service.” “So, they say.  But I hear tell them nano-things are in all of us nowadays.  The only real reason to get another shot is to get your nano-things updated, you know, like an update from Microsoft.  Once you are into the system, you gotta keep up or else your programming will go all whacked.  That’s where Alzheimer’s came from, you know.  Old people forget to update.  We’re all programmed by Bill Gates, you know!”

By this time their professionalism is kicking in and they are going with the flow.  “Yes, sir, but you know Bill and Melinda are into eradicating diseases, right?  And so this may just be part of that plan.  Now that would be good, wouldn’t it?”  She says that with a lovely smile in an obvious effort to keep the customer calm and relatively relaxed while she and her assistant start doing their task with amazing speed.  They are going to keep this encounter brief.

I take another tack.  “Can I have this shot in my butt?  You know, I get to drop my drawers and bend over?  It’s always more fun that way.”  “NO!” They say in unison getting that worried look on their faces and working even quicker.

Sue, one my neighbours shows up just then.  And I say, “If you’re wanting one of them nano-probes here, Sue, you gotta get ‘neckid’ first.  These here nurses want to see you in your altogether ‘fore they’ll stick you with the new technology.  Don’t you worry ’bout me, I won’t look.  But they sure do!”  The nurses fix me with cold stare and a sharp jab and tell Sue that it is not necessary to disrobe and that I am just some sort of old trouble maker. 

“Can I get the shot in my butt?” Sue asks.  “It’s always more fun that way.”

Welcome to Surge Narrows.

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.

It is a strange feeling, this one.  I am now old and stale, I am now out of it.  No longer hip.  A fuddy-duddy in a cardigan sweater (I just got one awhile ago to Sally’s chagrin).  I am simply not cool.  Not anymore, anyway.  Who woulda thunk that?!

My first inkling of this happening was my lack of interest in the gene pool.  I found that I didn’t care to even walk the pool deck to look anymore.  I mean, a prime breeding sample can still turn my head but it’s mostly out of habit now.  I am simply not a participant.  Not even part of the audience, really.  And it is the gene pool competition that keeps you on your toes, so to speak (well, elbows and toes to be more precise).  One becomes less ‘with it’ when there seems no point. 

I also seemed to lose interest in gadgets.  I mean, I still like them and all.  Gimme lots of toggle switches…………….mmmmmmmm, boy!  But, if you are really in the gadget game, you follow the latest news, the latest models, the new inventions.  I don’t even have a TV anymore.  There are all sorts of things out there that ‘connect’ me to faces, tubes, text and  tweeters and I just don’t care.  How does one stay hip when one is so apathetic?

All this slapped me upside the head when I went into Vancouver for the first time in almost 18 months.  Cost me $75.oo to get on a ferry and it was one I had never even seen before!  It used to be that I knew each and every ferry better than members of my own family and I found myself on one that doesn’t even look like the others.  The floor plans were different.  I didn’t like that.  Fussed a bit.  You know?  Like an old grump?  Sally and I even ‘lost’ each other when we agreed to meet at a certain location.  Default result: met at the car.  Man, that is sad!

Then there was the Canada line.  Too much for me but Sally took it.  Bought tickets willy nilly not having a clue as to how much she really needed or even where she was going.  Don’t forget: the skytrain stations are in locations that we didn’t use to hang around before.  She once found herself at the foot of Cambie!  A few short years ago, the foot of Cambie was nothing.  Empty.  Nada.  Now there’s a loop and a station and things go off in different directions.  We didn’t know.

I suppose being hip is less about things and novelty than it is about attitude.  I still have a ‘hip’ attitude but, to be fair, it is all about being ‘hip’ in other things now.  I was ‘cool’ when it came to talkin’ wood.  I know something about wood.  More than the average urban guy, that’s for sure.  So, I could talk ‘trusses’ and stuff, edge-grain, heart-wood and things of that nature.  But, I confess that there were few overlaps in the urban/rural conversation and it was painfully obvious that I was listing more to the rural side. 

I am really glad I left my gumboots in the truck. 

I am embarrassed to admit this but I am not as hip as I used to be.  In fact, I may be ‘out of it’ as so many of my friends have alluded previously.  This is hard to accept but I think it is true.  First off – before the rumours fly – I do know (of course) what an I-phone and a Blackberry are.  Honest.  I have no idea how they work, what they do or why I would want one but all that was clearly illustrated for me during my recent week of work.  Seems I can’t function in the city without one.

This truism first manifested when I picked up my old friend, Larry McFarland, to go see the old building I was involved with.  Like most guys, I drove out to the unfamiliar area of Queensborough confident that I could find the site.  After all, it was 80000 square feet on ten acres.  Not easily missed.  I was just going to ‘feel’ my way there, you know, like guys do.  Larry looked at me like I was insane and, utilizing his I-phone, instructed my driving right to the front door.  Hell, with Google, we didn’t even really have to go in.

But we did.  The building is amazing.  Built by Boeing in 1943 to repair airplanes, it has some considerable history.  But is no longer useful in any other way.

Boeing built the structure using old, first growth Fir beams.  Some of them huge!  There is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1 – 2 million board feet of clear-grain, non-heartwood, rock-hard, perfect Fir in the trusses.  Of course, like most things, it costs almost as much as the wood is worth to dismantle the structure and salvage it.  But there may be a way to end up on the plus-side of the ledger after the dust and rubble have been cleared.  And that is what I was asked to figure out.

As most of you know, I am not much good at anything in particular.  My main assets are my friends and, of course, Sally.  So, I worked them.  Called ém all.  Told them stories, bought some lunches, dished out hugs willy-nilly and pumped them for their knowledge.   They were great!  Everyone I called helped out and, after a week, I had some idea what I was going to do.  

Get me a Blackberry for starters!

We’ll take the building down and go from there.  I’ll likely have to come back to the city for a bit but I am hoping to minimize that.  I loved seeing people but just didn’t warm to the traffic and the rules and the stresses…….you know?   Still, I will come back.  I am not so sure that I can drag Sal back with me, tho.  She did her token ‘shopping’ thing and had had enough of restaurant food for the year. 

She likes it on Read.

I am working again.  Kinda.  Not really.  A friend has a problem and I am trying to help and the first thing I am doing is going about seeing my other friends and sharing the problem with them.  I picked the ones that were smarter than me this time so that I could make some progress rather than pick any of the rest of you and end up making things worse.  So, if you haven’t heard from me, well…………you know.

Actually, the real truth is: I have friends from all walks of life and the ones I am seeing right now are from the ‘real estate and politics’ section.  I have the techno-weenie, quasi criminal, business, mediation, old school and weird character sections, too – not to mention some really ‘out there’ sections I am too ashamed to admit to.  ‘Course, the ‘back country section’ is by far the strangest (except for family, of course).  The nice thing is that all my friends, regardless of how we know each other are cross referenced in the ‘wonderful people’ file.  

Actually, I can’t really call it working.  It’s visiting with people I care about but don’t see often.  As you can imagine, I have few occasions to mingle in the real estate and political streams anymore.  So, this is great and having something really interesting to share (another friend’s problem) makes the get-togethers even better.  The only reason I am calling it work is that I am exhausted at the end of the day!

I am no longer cut out for the rat race.  I really am not!  The first thing that hit me was sensory assault.  I saw more colours, moving and shaking and flashing and blinking (on Donner and Blitzen) in the first hour than I had seen in the past six months on Read.  It was like being taken from solitary confinement and dipped in Disneyland.  I was confused.

Then I parked the car downtown!  I thought that I was negotiating a down payment on the stall when they gave me the parking ticket!  I was paying $3.75 a half hour or portion thereof.  “Can we do this on a lease-to-purchase plan?  I leave the car here for two months (= to $11,000 in fees), and then I own the stall?”   “Sorry, sir, I do not believe we sell parking stalls”.  Of course, half the time spent in the parkade was going around and around trying to find a spot!

The challenge may take longer to resolve than the time I have allocated but I have either started the ball rolling or else I am going to have to come back to the city for a few months.  Sally is frightened.  “You know what will happen, don’t you?  It will get us.  We’ll be trapped again!  We’ll never get back to Read!  I may have to leave you.”   “The city will never trap us.  Not again.  This will be a one-off contract that may show up now and again every two years or so but, basically, we are Read Island residents now and only short term winter gigs have any chance at us.”

She looked doubtful.  But she needn’t.  There is no way………..

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my blog has ads.  Given that I don’t pick ém, I have been a bit curious as to what Blogspot (the blog host) picks for me.  I do know this: the Blogspot machine reads my submission before publishing it and, based on keywords, throws up an ‘algorithm-deemed’ appropriate ad to accompany it.  This latest one is a real head shaker.  Seems you, the reader, are being urged to vote for Rebecca Kaplan for mayor of Oakland.  Seems Becky represents real change.

Is that what I am writing about? 

The only connection I can see to the content of the blog is that ol’ Beck looks a bit like Sonny.  That’s a helluva algorithm if they can do that!  ( I just checked back on Outboards ll and found that Becky had been replaced by an ad for food.  Do you suppose the algorithm read this post and changed the ad?  Gawd, that’s creepy).

We’re ensconced in the sumptuous LaQuinta Inn in downtown Richmond.  It’s an extra star or three up from the initially selected Arundell Mansions in New Westminster.  Since my work requires I be in New West for most of the time we are here it only seemed logical to stay in that city and save the commute.  But a quick check of the available Inns proved disappointing to say the least.  They were all popular ‘bar’ scenes and the crowds congregating at the doors were not those amongst whom I would normally seek company.  In fact, I would only seek distance and hope to be ‘upwind’ at that.  New Westminster is not very charming in that regard.

But the Arundell Mansions looked good on the internet.  It is billed as a restored 1910 Heritage site that used to serve as the Provincial circuit judge’s quarters when they were ín town instead of circuiting.  That means that each accommodation is a small suite and the decor is antique.  I love that kind of thing.

Sadly, it did not live up to it’s billing.  It was simply really old and not just a bit ‘tatty’.  We were both considering giving it a ‘try’ anyway when the skytrain rolled past – a foot and a half from the window!  We were on the third floor but if we had been on the second, we would have been able to see the passengers within their very own personal space, albeit for just a flash.  They, of course, would have seen me, too.  In a flash.  Given that one spends some time un or at least scantily clad when in a hotel room, we would have been the equivalent of commuter-flashers had we stayed.  So, despite the temptation to flash thousands an hour, we didn’t stay.

I confess to just a bit of disappointment with our decision.  Just think of the blog entry! Title: ‘Stuck to the Hotel window naked’.    

When I informed our more-than-eccentric host, Glynn, of our intentioned and immediate departure, he suggested that we give one of his Heritage homes a look.  So we drove a few blocks to a narrow, brick and stucco house of the same era as the Arundell Mansions.  The house was just a notch up from the mansions and we were tired so we decided to stay.

The next day we left.  The house was good enough.  Hell, I have lived in Mexico and Belize and Guatemala.  I know cockroaches from New Orleans to New York.  I have even slept head height on the #2 sleeper to Chiang Mai from Bangkok.  I can handle minimal, rustic, run-down and even uncomfortable.  This was all of that but not as bad as some.  It was bad but it was ‘good enough’.

But (gasp), it did not have internet.  I have learned to do without martinis.  I have even delayed showering for a bit.  Now and then.  But NO internet is now unacceptable.  We left in a huff!

Spent the day doing some chores and getting settled.  Tomorrow – work.  Appointments and such.  Could be good.  I hope so.  Our outboard motor/RV fund could use a shot in the arm.  Sal asked,  “Is it worth it?”   And I answered without thinking, “No.  No, it isn’t!”  We’ll see.

Wrestled the damn thing, grease and all, into the back of the truck.  Lucky ol’ Sal is as strong as she is.

We kicked the big, dead motor up on the tilt and used the little ‘rescue’ trolling motor to get the boat over to end-of-the-road where I positioned it with the back to the beach.  Then, driving the truck down the dirt slope and onto the rocky shore and into the water just a little bit, we opened the back and pried the ‘ol’ dead pig’ off the transom.

It weighs about 200 pounds which is nothing for Sal to throw around but she needs good footing for that kind of thing and the slimy boulders of the beach meant I had to help.  So we got the engine off the transom using a 6 foot pry bar and then, slipping and sliding a few feet got it to the back of the truck where we managed to lever it into place onto the dog blanket.  A little shuffling later and we could close the back door.  Put luggage on top of the dead pig, got in and headed for town. 

A few hours and a ferry later we were at Sonny’s.  Sonny is our outboard motor repair God.  He is great.  Sonny is about my age and makes me look young, handsome and slim.  His shop is his single car garage in the old, small-house neighbourhood he lives in with his wife, Sandra.  They reside in the old part of Campbell River.  He’s a legend out here.  Been there, doing that outboard-thing for well over 25 years. 

Everyone knows Sonny. He’s got that crusty, surly nature affected by many older guys many of whom are really very nice and funny.  They just like the image, I guess.  Sonny’s one of them.  Funny, grouchy, just a great guy doing his job fairly and honestly and well.  We’d falter badly out here without the Sonnys. 

“So, what did you screw up this time?  I sure hope you didn’t try to fix something, eh?  Nothing like trying to fix something to guarantee breaking stuff.” 

“Nope.  Touched very little.  Honest.  Maybe got a bit close to the carbs but didn’t touch ém.  I swear.  Ya see, Sal drove my boat.  It was runnin’ just fine.  Then she drove it.  Then all hell broke loose.  So, ya see, t’weren’t my fault.  Not this time.” 

Sonny looks at me with narrowed eyes.  He didn’t believe a word I said but he appreciates me blaming Sal.  Like most guys he’s smitten with Sal and putting the blame on her is like pumping sunshine into his colon but he loves that kind of banter.   

“So, then what?  After Sal broke your liddle motor, poor baby!”

“Well, I did what any guy would do, eh?  I checked things out.  You know……..looked at everything a bunch o’ times and then emptied the water out of the filter.  Hadda start somewhere.  Water in the filter should be removed, right?”

“You running one o’ them new carbs that runs on water?”  I shook my head.  “Then ya done the right thing.  Then what happened?”

“Well, you know, tried a little of this, tried a little of that.  Used the battery up in the process.  Nothing would start.  So, I gave up.  Decided we were overdue for visiting you anyway.  We miss you, man.”

“Check for spark?”  “Nope.  Told ya.  By then we missed you too much to waste any time messin’ with it any longer.  Just got ourselves over here lickety split.  How ya doin, man?”

Sonny eyed me carefully.  More sunshine in all the wrong places.  “Wanna come in for a coffee?”  “Nah.  Thanks, tho.  Gotta fly.  You know how it is.  Busy, busy, busy.”  “Yeah, right.”

With the banter and the mea culpas out of the way, we sorted out the details and left Sonny to rescue us yet again.  We’ll get it Friday when we get back from town.

The weird thing is…………..we really do miss Sonny.  He’s a great guy.  And he likes Sal.  That’s for sure.

Outboard is not running right.  This is not good.  Outboards are yet another challenge out here.  Without them, you are greatly inconvenienced and usually it takes great gobs of cash to get them running again.  Not to mention more heavy lifting. 

They are not like car engines that deliver miles and miles of service between cranky spells.  These things deliver miles and miles of cranky spells before needing servicing.  Usually in the dark.  Often in the rain.  Always when it is totally inconvenient.  Nothing like an outboard not starting to measure the maturity and equilibrium of a person.  

I shared my outboard dilemma with the Q-hut construction ‘guys’.  “OH, Jeez I had that once.  The head was all cheese, it was.  ‘Lectrolysis, eh?  Just ate that old head practically right off the engine.  Could be you’re hooped on this one, bud!”  “Yeah, that happened to me, too.  Head was just gooey muck, really.  Amazin’ it ran as long as it did.  You are doomed, man”.

Frankly, I think it is just a bit of water in the carbs but one is obliged to suffer the horror stories everyone has to offer when you ask their advice.  They never tell you of the time they simply forgot to open the gas line or the kill switch was stuck in the ‘on’ position.  No that would be too easy a fix.  No doom – no humour. 

I’m not worried yet.  Not really.  A smidge uneasy, perhaps, but not feeling doomed quite yet.

That is the way it is with Outboards.  Some of the stories are not just doom-mongering.  Some are truly dreadful.  There is a new outboard design available right now called an E-Tec.  It is a high-tech two-stroke and brilliant in so many ways.  Became popular fast.  But it was not good – not in ‘execution’, anyway.  Seems they are poorly made.  Things keep breaking. 

These puppies start at about $10,000 depending on the size (around here 50hp or more) and go up.  Of course, the company stands behind them – as soon as you get them into the shop.  But a non-functioning 300 pound outboard stuck on the back of your boat in the rain and in the dark going nowhere is not in the shop, is it?  It’s far from the shop.  And we are talking a day of travel one way and no other motor to substitute (who has a spare $10,000 motor sitting around?).  E-tec owners got fed up just as quickly.  There are not just a few of them sitting in sheds relegated to the bad decision department. 

Outboards have other problems, too.  Sal was flying along in her little boat one day when the motor just up and jumped off the transom!  There she was doing 15 knots with the tiller in her hand and only the spinning of the prop keeping the engine anywhere near the boat.  It was ‘free’!

Now, ol’ Puddin’ ain’t the type to let an outboard motor escape on her watch.  So, with one hand on the accelerator twist handle keeping the engine going, she reached around with her other hand and grabbed it.  This caused the motor to slow and start to sink but, before it could do that, she had wrestled it to the boat (slewing to and fro) and, in a swift and acrobatic WWF manner, re-positioned the engine back on to the transom.  Carefully tightening the clamps extra hard, she fired it up and carried on.  Total elapsed ‘down time’ about three minutes!  Not easy. 

“You won’t believe what happened to me on the way to book club she told her friends.” And she told the story.  All the women looked at her like she was a ‘newbie’ and said, “Oh, that has happened to us.  Happens to all of us.  That’s why you are supposed to thru-bolt the engine onto the boat.  Those clamps are not good enough.  Anything bigger than your engine and it is gone in a blink.  Sinks right before your eyes.  One second you are motoring along.  Next – no motor.  Gets annoying after you lose two.”

Seems props ‘spin out, too.  Didn’t know that.  I was zooming along and it felt as if the ‘clutch was slipping’ but, of course, there is no clutch.  “Oh, probably spun the prop”, said Rob when I got to his dock.  “Well, duh.  Isn’t that what one does with props? You know…………spin ’em?”

“No this is different.  The inside hub spins off the outside hub that holds the blades so that your engine power is not transferred.” “Oh.  Didn’t know that.  What do you do?” “Why you take in to the propeller shop, of course.” “Uh, but the prop doesn’t work to get you there…………?” “Well you gotta use your spare prop, don’t ya?”

Spare prop?  You are going to learn your lessons out here.  No question.  And the learning seems to take place in the middle of the problem – not while reading about it in the comfort of your Laz-y-boy.  You only learn about outboard motors hopping off your transom when one hops off.  You only learn about spinning your propeller when you ‘spin’ one.  There is no easy way – only the hard way. 

I am in the process of learning about my engine.  I just hope it doesn’t rain.  It usually does when you are working on it.  Gets dark fast, too.  Ya know why?  Learned this lesson the hard way, too: outboard engines don’t break down in the summer.  Only when the weather is bad, don’t you know? 
 

The best part of working at the Q-hut on Wednesdays is the humour.  Stupid-guy construction humour.  It’s the best.  “Hey, you gonna stand there all day looking at the mess you created or get the persuader (sledge hammer) to work and put the finishing touches on it?”

I know it isn’t funny but standing there, in the rain, having just screwed up something and this old geezer with a deadpan expression giving you a friendly criticism…………well, it is funny.  Somehow.

I was talking to Gary, the professional carpenter who shows up now and then.  “So, you being a carpenter and all, this Q-hut seem OK to you?” “Better than most of the jobs I work on.  Them jobs are all cockeyed.  Not like the well-oiled machine you got going on here.  I especially appreciate the lack of tools and materials.  You guys are good!”  

“Hey!  We got materials and we have tools, too.  We just have to share them is all.  Nobody likes carrying tools up the hill so we use Hugh’s.”  “Yeah, like I said.  A veritable Swiss watch you got going here”.

It’s stupid.  It’s relentless.  And it is funny. 

Doesn’t work with women, tho.  Sal and some of the women were up in the bunkhouse assembling Ikea cupboards when I had decided to quit for the day.  I went to get Sal and saw everybody being busy.  Judith looked pleased as she and Ginny finished putting a drawer together.  I said, “A drawer!?  A single drawer!?  We’re putting in new foundations and walls and floors and you two make a drawer!??”  They just looked at me with daggers in their eyes.

Men and women, eh?  Not even the same species.