“We met on the job, in Quechee VT; he was the on-site restoration carpenter, & we were the new gardeners. Things go like that, in the trades. An early morning coffee share, across tailgates, that naturally eases into cross pollination, tale telling, coordinated lunchtimes, and, frankly, in some cases, sheer entertainment. I remember the first time Jeff invited us, the new gardeners, into his wood shop, for our mid-day break. We felt green, not a feeling I particularly enjoy. The shop was already filled with at least three guys, with their lunches spread out, and it not being a big space, this also elicited a feeling, I did not particularly enjoy. I’ve always struggled with small talk. But I recognized something immediately, about this guy who’d stepped out, to front the wall of other guys. Equipment guys, masonry guys, hired help, maybe an electrician or plumber thrown in there for good measure. Trying to help us acclimate (not that he had to) & make us laugh, I’m sure he did, even on our first day. Well, over the course of a season or two, we learned a lot about a lot of things, including each other. We learned that Terry liked blue Salvia and purple clematis along the fence line of the vegetable garden, and that he hated crab grass, and would pay us to lay there for hours, pulling it out, down by the river. Whenever things seemed unreasonable, we could always debrief with Jeff. He had a handle not only on the antique doors and paneling he was restoring, but on human nature itself. When Terry asked us to pick golf balls out of an acre of myrtle, it was likely Jeff who explained to us the history of the golf course. When we were asked to remove every last rotten apple from the lawn, when we were left for hours to untangle peony cages, when every dead blossom was condemned to be removed within the hour, by us, there was Jeff. Smiling, leaning on the tailgate of whatever vintage truck he’d meticulously restored and was currently driving, it was hard to stay mad or feel abused by any seemingly frivolous or arbitrary directive, when he was around. He knew too much about how it was. And he was still here, wasn’t he? Still chuckling to himself and complaining in his totally friendly way, about a dock at camp that was giving him trouble, or a deer stand, or a relative. I’ve learned, over time, that such unassuming craftsmen often have famous uncles, who painted salmon fisherman in the Richelieu, or wrote tomes about life in the Alaskan bush. It’s actually, a thing, akin to running into Paul Newman in the hardware store. Some flew bombers over Dresden, faded into the fabric as mayors of small towns in Maine, or horse-logged great swathes of the northeast Kingdom of Vermont, while publishing ten books of poetry about it, in their spare time. Which all adds up to the fact, that after I left that job in Quechee, I sort of lost touch with Jeff. I still worried a bit, about his lack of central heating, and I tried to make sure he was still alive, by checking Facebook as much as I could, without being a stalker. How we reconnected over my search for barn board, I’ll never know. But, there he was of a sudden, with a pile of the stuff, giving it away to a good home or to the burn pile, which ever was the highest bidder. It was a chance to drive into New Hampshire, and as Vermonters, we do hold these moments dear. As I said to Jeff, it’s like traveling to a foreign country, but you don’t have to fly, or have a passport, or deal with traffic. In his typical way, he mused, in the reverse. “Well”, he said, “If i had it all to do over, I might have settled in Vermont”. We nodded at that, then got on task, and as I drove my Chevy down his bumpy farm road, he walked aside it, because my passenger seat is alway filled with too much crap to justify moving it, even for a short jog. His piles of salvaged materials appearing out of the mist, incredibly neat, despite his protestations to the opposite. Off cuts of granite, decommissioned fencing, hand hewn, rough cut beams, reclaimed pine sub-flooring, a weathered, abandoned stair case; planks destined for his future, heated, gas storage & battery shed. After loading my truck bed with barn board, we ambled back to his unheated, timber frame shop. His son was still working on skinning a deer hanging in the center bay. We chatted about driving “gaps”, and which ones we did not like to drive in certain vehicles. His boy reminded me of mine, all grown up now. A comparison that’s easy to make, after you’ve passed a certain threshold. Jeff seemed impressed that I could still mount a tailgate. Is everybody falling apart? He’s still making me laugh, but also, now, cry. There’s so much poignancy to the beauty of what we do with our lives, regardless of which body parts are failing. I imagine he’ll get rid of that Corvette, build a smaller shop with heat, and put to use his best, antique boards. So won’t we all hand off our dreams as per the stars decide it’s time ... to reach beyond their purview, and really, truly, disappear.”
