“It was just another ad on Craigslist. But it looked like the right size, the right price, and included a beautiful drive to Craftsbury, VT to pick it up. Who’d have guessed VT Castings made a stove called “Aspen”? I didn’t. Had a gig near Aspen once. And things named after trees... can’t be bad. I told him I’d Gazetteer my way up there, arrive around noon. He texted back, fine, it’s the red camp at the end of the road, you can’t miss it. Something about his elderly father, park in front, honk, I’ll come out. Heading north out of Hardwick, I recognized that lonely stretch of road. A deja vu kind of remembrance. I wrote a poem about it, about this other old timer and a truck-to-truck wave I flat out missed. You know, when someone nods or waves, & because you hesitate, you miss waving back. One of life’s indications that we love strangers more than we admit to. Craigslist wood stove rebuilder’s road wasn’t too far off the highway. Just before you turn, you see the ridge of industrial wind turbines, it sort of takes your breath away. Not good, not bad. Just a left by the trailer, and then, sure enough, he’s emerged from a shack, pulling on his coat, gesturing up the road to his shop. Follow me, is the clear signal as we’ve learned to know it, how people use their heads to point, while adding layers. Pretty sophisticated back country stuff. I put her in four. This was no sanded road extension. It was pure snow, snaking up a hill. We parked below and he ran up first, yanking on a generator cord to get something started to light the lights, before we went in, three steps into a mobile unit saturated with kerosene smell, littered with stoves in various states of exquisite disrepair. You want to gag, but you want to embrace the craftmanship of such a place. I won’t go on about what was in there. We had to move the Aspen out, just the two of us, though clearly, he was prepared to do it without me, using ramps and straps and leverage. Frankly, I was useless. I don’t like to take on heavy objects unless I can accurately see the trajectory in relation to my own strength ratio. His orange ratchet strap wasn’t great, just saying. But I backed the truck up his incline, which is more than most could, on a good day. It was a jerry rigged situation. And he got it in. It slid back real nice, next to the treadmill. I paid him, getting a 50 dollars off for cash and good behavior. Thank goodness I still had the straps from Bill. That ride home, made me proud. What is a truck for, if not this. Two machines in tow, both designed to make us sweat. When Nick texted me later to say he’d enjoyed the conversation as well as what I paid, I felt validated in some ridiculous way. I want us not to forget that meeting people totally on their turf and with the utmost respect for their hard work and ethic, is really important. Just like we used to do. Before things went south.”
