3/17/98.. Building.

Building construction is an infatuation. In the 70s, Peggy and I used to joke about "the owner-built divorce." How back to the land couples would struggle for years to get their homesteads constructed and eke out a livelihood at the same time, only to have the relationship go bust just when the plumbing was finally in. I now suspect it's because the building becomes "the other woman." He thinks that a flush toilet is going to save the relationship, and she realizes that's how he's thinking. That puts the nail in it.

So we've been romancing this new shop, hammer and tongs. I'm now calling it SEVEN EAGLES, after that great spiral of eagles that rose up over us on the first day. But I might as soon call it SPRING GEESE, after the honking skeins that passed over when we were setting the carrying timbers. The landscape is full of positive signs. Some days you can actually take your gloves off after noon.

It's great to work outside again. If a bit brisk. The temps dropped back to winter levels our first days framing, and we scuttled to get the north wall up and tyveked to give us a windbreak. On one side the reflected sun made the ground into a gooey gumbo, while on the other was solid ice.

The Zachau brothers, Brent and Max, grew up on this Bowdoinham clay, and have perfected the floating foundation, constructing big shops and expansive houses that ride the ooze. Conventional buildings usually have full foundations, or sit on posts or piles, or a full cement pad. All of which have distinct disadvantages on heavy clay in frost country, not to mention the cost. Brent prefers to float separate concrete pads on a gravel base, cantilever the floor over blocks, then skirt the finished building to keep the underpinnings frostfree.

I wheeled 6 yards of fine gravel onto the site, spread it around, leveling as best I could, and making eight mounds where the pads would be. We knocked together 2 foot square forms, six inches deep, and leveled them in place with a transit. Then Brent mixed batches of cement in his mixer while I wheeled them down and dumped them in the forms. Let them cure over a weekend.

Materials were dumped in the yard on Saturday, and on Tuesday we recommenced, constructing carrying timbers out of tripled 2X10s, 24 feet long, which we shimmed and leveled on the pads using scraps of pressure treated lumber. Then we set to on the floor framing. Brent adopted the use of nail guns a while back, after resisting them on principle for years. WOW. Don't they speed the pace. Instead of the resonant echoes of a persistent thonkthonkthonking bouncing off the neighbors houses, there's just a muted thwock thwock, and it's nailed. And the intermittent rumble of the air compressor.

Brent calls the numbers, I cut and carry the lumber to him, and Mr. Nailer thwocks it together. We had the floor framed with 2X6s, closed underneath with particleboard, filled with insulation, covered with plastic vapor barrier, and decked over with 3/4 inch ply, by quitting time Tuesday.

By Friday afternoon we'd framed all the walls with 2X6s, composed roof trusses out of 2X8s with plywood gussets, erected them, nailed down the plywood roof deck, covered it with felt, and wrapped the walls with tyvek.. all closed up before the weekend storm. It's a huge space, by my standards, and I'm getting excited.

Then Brent and Jo and Peggy and I went to Portland for dinner, and to see Willy Nelson at the new city hall auditorium. Took us a while to find a restaurant we could get into, but the one we finally found seating in, Katahdin, was dandy. Broiled monkfish, with beets in horseradish, pilaf, and the house stout, was my choice, and it was perfect. I rarely come away content when we eat out. It's all too fat, too sweet, too much, and too expensive.. but this was delicious right down to the price. Four stars.

And Willy was even better. A grand old master taking us in hand and carrying us away.

Independently inspired, Jo had gotten two tickets down front on the floor, while we had the last available seats in the second balcony. They got the full effect of the music. We were part of a different scene. We no sooner were seated than a troupe of real Maine girls paraded down the stairs. Six large young women, in quilted plaid shirts and ballcaps. They filed into the seats beside us with hoots of "MRS. MUIR?!" Yup. Ex-students. And they were lit. Plumes of essence du Marlboro and vodka. And LOUD. "EEEEYA! Sing it Blondie" they bellowed at the warmup act. Peggy and I chuckled and hugged each other. We probably weren't going to hear the lyrics, but we were going to have a blast with Willy's people.

Other Freeport High grads were scattered about the balcony, and they saluted one another with raised fists and thumbs up, barking high notes. The rowdie next to me kept up a running commentary with us.. about how she and her sister were trying to set up their own catering business, but couldn't get financing until they had seven years proven experience, so they were cooking at an old folk's home for minimum wage.. about how much they loved Willy, and the concerts they'd been to.. about how they'd loved Peggy's course (an eyeopener for Teach), about how it was sad that the kids in school now were learning "even less" than they had, because they'd learned they could get away with it.. about how the kids should see that teachers were real people who went to see Willy. EEEEYA! They were clapping their hands rhythmically (not in time to the music), and moaning familiar lyrics off key. It was a hoot.

To us. But not to the stuffy folks in the seats below us. They repeatedly complained to the ushers, who came and shushed the exuberant ladies. After the first reprimand, Donna, beside me, was near tears. "Why can't people understand that there's more than one way to enjoy a show?" She wondered aloud. "This is our way of having fun, aren't we all here to have a good time? Isn't my money as good as anyone else's"

Not at Portland City Hall. This is where the symphony performs, and country and western concert or not, you WILL be decorous. The place was full of goons with walkie-talkies, and before Willy was into his second number the real Maine girls were on their way out, crying. I was shaking with anger, and tongue lashed the stuck up prigs who'd run them off.

The next tune Willy did was all about being a rowdie on the road, too drunk to remember which town you're playing in, but what a laugh to be wild. The prigs applauded decorously, without irony. It was six or eight songs later before I stopped muttering. Sure the girls were a pain in the ass, but their loud joy was infectious. Hell, you can't hear the lyrics in the second balcony anyhow, not when Willy sings off mike most of the time. And wasn't being in the scene the thing?

Guess not. I suppose I'd have been antsy if the ladies had drowned out the music all evening, but we never got to find out if they'd cool out for the ballads. Nor did we get much uptempo music from the stage. The girls had said how Willy had played rocking dance music at Hampton Beach and everyone could do their thing. So how much did the master tailor his set to the crowd and conditions? A lot, I bet. So it was an evening of old standards and Willy hits. The sort of show a symphony audience could appreciate. Too bad for the kids.

We got our money's worth and then some. Willy puts on a nonstop show with no pyrotechnics. Just solid music, two guitars, a harp player, a drum kit, and a piano. And THE VOICE. How many times has he sung "Crazy", or "Blue eyes crying in the rain?" And still he bends the timing, the guitar phrasing, the miking, so they seem brand new. I hadn't realized what a stunning guitar player he is, with a distinctive TexMex styling that seems all crooked at first, like the flat twang of his vocalizing, then gets to you, and finally leaves your jaw hanging. All very plain and homespun, somehow, and totally masterful. If we all could do so well with our life's work.

After we were all wrung out, Willy was still doing encores. Tunes from his new album. Subtle instrumentals, heartbreakers, old favorites, with the audience on the floor on its feet pressing the stage. Even after the show he's still out front signing autographs and honoring his people. Too bad the goons couldn't have been as considerate.

It sleeted and then snowed on our new building all weekend. Peggy's Seneca Falls Teachers' Conference was a large success, despite the weather, and she came home pleased (and exhausted) having seen one of her road dreams bearing fruit. When we stopped at the site of the first women's convention (1848) last year, Peggy discovered that there were plans for an 150th anniversary event, but no Maine connection. Since our return she's been putting together a raft of doings, and this conference is the first of a series of events she's coordinating. In honor of its fruition, and the erection of Seven Eagles, Brent and I touched off the big bonfire I've been piling up in the ritual circle. All the icestorm's downed limbs and junkpile rubble from the shop site, doused with three cans of boat gas. WOOOF.

In the driving snow, the fire had a couple of false starts, but I danced around it three times, while Brent fed one small blaze with dry stuff, until we finally had a core of roar, and we backed off to let the old times go up in smoke. The coals glowed all night as the weather raged.

Monday we were putting the shiplap to the outside of her. Thwock. Thwock. I was cutting like mad, trying to keep up with Mr. Nailer, getting all confused trying to get bevel angles right on the gable end boarding. Doesn't she look wonderful. This is the romance of building. How quickly you get visuals, create new spaces, feel accomplished. You can curse at her, when you realize you miscalculated some rough openings, but an hour's work with a cat'spaw and sawsall, and everything is copacetic again. No hard feelings. And the steady rhythm of it, the muscle ache, the constant planning ahead to make all the pieces come together on time, the simple knowing what you have to do each morning.. makes artmaking seem excruciatingly airy and agonized, . Maybe I'll sign on for the summer.. if Brent'll have me. Seduced, again.