talk s l o w l y about something - Thursday December 05 2002

There were a few inches of snow on the ground this morning, not a big deal by the standards I grew up with in Appalachian Virginia. But since we live at the top of a steep winding road leading out of the Esopus Valley through Catskill State Park, Darren the drywall samurai decided it was best to just park his heavy rear wheel drive Volvo down at the bottom and walk the mile or so up to our house for his day of rock hanging. Today he brought with him a crew of two homeslices, a suitable team for achieving dramatic progress. By the end of the day Darren and his homeslices had finished hanging all the drywall on all the sloping ceilings remaining in the attic. In total this area is massive, coming to about 2000 square feet.

At the end of the day there were about six inches of snow, though the road had been plowed several times. (Hurley keeps their snow plows a couple miles beyond our house on this same road.) I offered to drive Darren and his homeslices back to his car in my four wheel drive pickup truck, but he said he was content to walk. This was typical Darren behavior; when given a choice he always picks the alternative that makes him do the most physical labor. There is nothing he likes more than to be interrupted from his spackling to help me unload something heavy from the truck, or (if there's nothing to unload) to talk s l o w l y about something.