Amateur Carpentry, Professional Humanity

About twenty years ago my father-in-law asked my help building a porch for his house. I didn’t agree with the design, nor the method of assembly, but out of respect I carried out his wishes. Because it was not treated lumber, nor properly painted lumber, it began to rot very quickly. Of course, most of that rot was not visible in normal use.

Worse, someone else came along behind me and added a roof. They stood heavy square posts atop the light decking to do this. So as the rot weakened the thing, it began to sag under the heavy weight. I did my best to brace it up a couple of different times. Not long ago, most of this thing collapsed, and it was a wonder no one was hurt.

So we tore it apart and stacked what appeared salvageable. Today my son and I began to tear down what was left of this embarrassing mess and try to rebuild. By no means am I an accomplished carpenter. But after five and half decades of living and messing around with various building projects, I’ve gotten a good feel for how much wood it takes to hold up human traffic for certain uses. I’ve built several porches by myself since then. Some were proud moments, and others were dismantled and best forgotten. That is, except the lessons learned.

Because I’m not a real carpenter, it’s a consuming puzzle for me to work from the still usable boards to build a much smaller porch, but better. I’m not one to pile on heavy stacks of all squared framing, but I use angled braces a great deal, in part because I know how to cut them to fit. I know how they work and why.

It reminds me once again of two things. One, our Western culture really discourages multiple competencies. Think about all the regulations which confine the average citizen, preventing them doing their own work, from making their own choices. Were this porch being added back on in a community with heavy permitting policies, there would be no porch at all. I’ve also put some steel roofing on this house, dug a trench for a new gas line, and a few other projects here and there, since my father-in-law died shortly after the original porch was put up. It was the best he knew for the resources at hand. The replacement will be the same thing, though quite different in design.

Two, we keep forgetting true competence is not what you know, but what you can learn. That is, competence as a human in general, not some arbitrary standard of competence in stasis. I wonder if a journeyman carpenter would bother with the salvaged lumber, instead of demanding all new materials or refuse to get involved. Nobody connected with this project can afford new lumber. We can barely afford the decking screws and a few nails. But we have time and we have all learned something useful here and there over the years. When we get through, we will have learned yet a few more tricks, besides which the porch may be more stable than it ever was. We’ll see, and from this we’ll learn, because I’m going to try some new ideas.

The porch itself is of only passing importance. It’s a need arising from, of all things, house insurance standards. Without a better porch, the house in uninsured, and this cascades into a raft of other problems for the residents. I might smile with pride, shared with my son, for an hour or so. Then we’ll both move on to other things which life demands of us. We’ll have just a few more bits of experience we can add to our repertoire, and keep looking for ways to make life more tolerable. That’s the highest calling to which any human can aspire.