Construction

                                                ...but then you say "who cares?"
                               Eventually we want to be off the grid and independent.

      We built our castle on a hill.  We were the general contractors and did much of the work ourselves.  We laid all the flooring (porcelain and hardwoods), installed the radiant heat tubing, finished the carpentry work when our sub abandoned us for work closer to his home, laid stone, built the fireplace, did all the landscaping, installed all the stairs, installed all the plumbing and helped my brother inlaw with the wiring. All this was accomplished in 14 months while working full time jobs.  We lived in our camper with a porta-john as our bathroom.  I give great credit to my wife for putting up with it.  The structure of the house is mainly reinforced poured concrete, we hired pumper trucks to pump the concrete up two stories. I was fifty-eight and my wife was forty-eight at the time.  I say all this not to brag, it is said to dispel class envy.  We live in our castle as common folk with a dream.
                                                            
                                                                I read this somewhere
                            "When you're a teen you worry yourself sick over what others think...
                             When you're in your thirties you don't care what others think...
                             When you're in your sixties you realize no one was ever thinking about you..."
                                                      
      Now, I am unemployed and looking for work. Having applied for about sixty jobs has helped me with my insight into the plight of so many. The National parks system has rejected my applications as well as my wife's for summer work stating we do not meet the minimum requirements for a laborer's position. College educated, experienced in manual labor, organised enough to follow through on the construction of our castle but we do not meet the minimum requirements ?  This summer my wife and I are going to visit some of the National parks to meet the people who meet the minimum requirements. Did I mention my wife is a veteran with eight and half years military service and a master's degree to boot. The construction of our blog site shall follow the pattern as the construction of our castle one stone at a time but we will have access to the masterbath in this endeavor. Well, life is good and we are happy. We have no regrets and hope you catch your dream.

     We built this place as a gathering point for Artists, Writers, Musicians and lovers of life...not the elite but for just plain folk.  You will find my paintings scattered amoungst my babblings.

     My brother once told me that when he was in Viet Nam my parents wrote him to tell him they thought I was insane, I have spent my entire life trying to let them be right.  All this may be the proof needed to put it to rest.  (HIPPIES UNITE !)

Mountain Goat

                                                                               Black Hills

Welcome Ukrainians from the Ukraine.

 

The old miner

     The wind had carried me into these hills, with the rumble of thunder beneath me and unlimited power released at the twist of my wrist. Adventure, wild women, rowdy bikers and booze had been on my mind. Now here I was with an eighty something old man, toting buckets of sludge from deep within a hole in the earth. The sludge might offer up our first pay check after a week’s work of adding new timbers to the shoring of the shaft. The tunnel is illuminated by the sun’s light diverted with mirrors, a lesson in low tech. My Heritage Softail sits by the old prospector’s cabin, silent for the week. The final twelve miles into Sturgis had yet to be traversed. The old man is a third generation claimant, originally filed in the eighteen hundreds by his grandfather. Touching history, I felt it, it had caught my imagination. This old man was real, the valley unspoiled by tourists. Our group had stopped to ask if we could camp in his yard.

     The intensity of the sun seemed accentuated at these higher altitudes or maybe it was just the contrast of emerging from the cool, damp mine shaft but never the less its rays were drawing on the exposed flesh of my arms and back. Slowly we descended the gravel path to the creek, two buckets of muck straining at my arms. Placing the buckets at the stream’s edge I scooped sludge into a pan. My boots kicked off, the frigid waters rushed around my ankles, my feet settled into the sandy bottom as I dipped and rotated the pan.  

     "Lordie son, ya move like an old woman!  If'n there were still hostiles about they'd have yer scalp!"

     Looking back over my shoulder I could make out the silhouette of my antagonist against the blazing sun.  The glare behind him blocked details of his eighty five year old frame. His broad shoulders were evident, the suspenders that draped over them weren't. His tattered broad brimmed hat formed a halo that shadowed his grizzled ruddy complexion. Crystal clear blue eyes were watching me from somewhere beneath that rim. They weren’t visible but I knew they were there.

    Across the grassy meadow, the Hills looked Black. The valley hadn't changed in eons; the sound of Custer's buglers mixed with the war cries of Sitting Bull’s warriors still hung in the air, at least so it seemed. The smells, light breeze, intense sun and this old prospector who had actually known men of Custer’s era, it was surreal. Never in a million years could I have planned a time like this, it just happened.

    "Git in the creek boy. Move like ya got ambition."

    "It’s freezing, this water is like ice. My legs are so numb I can't even feel the pebbles that I'm walkin' on."

    "It’s the truth, Boy."

    "What? What'd you say?"

    "It’s the truth. It comes down from the mountain. Look at it, so clear! You can see every rock and pebble in it, ain't it so?"

    "It’s downright painful, Gus."

     "They say it can be. Use it boy, take that pan I throwed ya, put yer muck in it, then dip and swish. That water will take away everythin’ ‘cept what yer lookin' fer. The truth has the same way about it. Ya gotta clear away the muck."

     "My hands ache from the cold."

     "Nobody said it'd be easy. Let the water do its work, be patient son."

     Looking into the pan I see my first glimmer of gold. I hear the old man snicker as he stumbles down the bank to see the glitter for himself. It was about a billionth of an ounce.

     "Sure is pretty son. Ya gotta wash off a lot of muck to find a little bit of gold like that. Ha, ain't that life? What ya just found is priceless boy…priceless."

     "It’s the truth, Gus." I look at the gleam in his ancient eyes, I breathe in the clean air and somehow the pain in my legs subsides.

     "How's them aching legs and hands doin'?"

     "Don't feel a thing." While looking at the old man whose scripture quoting had caused my buddies to avoid their camp site as much as possible, I see that his eyes still hold the sparkle of youth.

     "Well, ya wanna take yer gold and head over to Sturgis? It’s the perfect time to go find yer buddies and raise a little hell. Its yer pay for a week’s worth of work. Them boys are probably raisin’ hell. "

     "Naw, how 'bout I help ya stack some wood, Ol' Man?"

     “It’s up to you, Boy. You worked for about two cents an hour, you know.”

     “Ha, two cents, best two cents I ever made.” There truly was gold in these hills, I had found it.

     Based on a true event.

      

For a Brave Knight, in memory of my father

    

                                                                       Just an old man

    Jim Sparks turned into the overburdened parking lot of the local grocery to pick up a few essentials for his wife.  Thousands of times he had done this over the years but age had robbed him of his ability to react even with his vast experience.  Slowly he crept down the long line of parked cars looking for an open space.  To give up driving would be to give up his independence.  He had always been a hard working freedom loving man.  Up ahead he saw his chance to park.  He swung out wide so he could get a straighter shot into the space then slowed down to a creep but missed by two feet on the left side, so he stopped then backed up.  Again he eased toward his goal.

   Jim jumped at the sudden blast from a horn to right.  He turned in his whole body in his seat to see what the horn was about, his neck had long lost it's flexibility.  There in a sporty little car sat a very pretty young girl shaking her fist in frustration.  He must know her he thought and waved back causing her to lay on the horn longer.  Finally, Jim's car settled into it's spot.  He sat staring out across the hood his demensia caused him to pause.

   The girl in the car looked so familiar, he was sure she was Yugoslavian.  He sat at the controls of his C-47 looking down the long line of torches that lit the high mountain meadow where he had landed.  There was a lot of commotion in the back of the plane as his crew stripped all non essential equipment to lighten the overloaded troop carrier.  It had been at his orders to let on all the women and children who gathered for evacuation that night.  No one would be left behind.  To clear the mountains they had to lighten up.  He stared out at the flashes coming from the distant trees then heard the ping of metal ripping in the fusulage.  The crew chief shouted the all clear as he gunned the engines to full throttled sitting on the break.

   The plane bounced across the rough meadow as enemy soldiers layed down heavy fire.  Jim's face felt the splatter of warm fluid coming from the direction of his co-pilot.  His right calf felt a sudden burn.  Screams from the rear of the plane over came the sound of the straining engines as he pushed them harder.  The torches became dots as he climbed the shear silohet of a Yugoslavian mountain.  The landing gear scraped gravel as he cleared the mountain top then dropped down the other side.  The enemy fire could no longer harm them the noise in the back settled into silence.  Jim sat in his car, a tear glistened on his cheek.  It seemed like it happened yesterday.

    A loud tap on his window landed him back in the grocery store parking lot.  He looked out at the Yugoslavian beauty.  She stood beside his car in a rage.

   "You stupid old goat!  You ought to be in a home.  Give it up man!"

   The girl stormed off confident she had straighten out a useless old man. 

Recommend the writings and videos of John Eldredge
         For this page:  Check out "Wild at Heart"
         His Outlaw video is very entertaining

                                                                   Based on a true event.