Heartland by Sarah Smarsh

Author:Sarah Smarsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, POL000000, SOC050000, SOC000000, SOC026020, BUS022000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2018-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

5

A HOUSE THAT NEEDS SHINGLES

You probably would have lived in a strong, old house, purchased at its most broken moment and fixed with my hands. That’s because I learned renovation skills from my own parents, whom I now think of as a sort of god and goddess of houses: Dad was a carpenter who could see the ghost of the people who died in old homes. Mom had an eye for transforming interior spaces and got paid to find a house’s next inhabitants.

A construction worker and a poor-neighborhood real estate agent aren’t what people think of as artists, but that’s what Nick and Jeannie were. Dad could draw a home addition on the side of an envelope with a carpenter’s pencil and then make it real with materials salvaged from commercial job sites where he made his hourly wage. Mom could go into an estate sale with a $50 bill and come out with antique light fixtures and hardware to refit an entire neglected home, her effort the difference between the property sitting on the market for six months and selling in two weeks.

I doubt either of them would have worked in that industry if given many other options. Dad didn’t read books but had a habit of secretly jotting original poems onto lumber scraps; Mom used the language and humor of an intellectual. Theirs was not a world where natural gifts and interests decide your profession. Dad inherited his craft from his father. Mom was a saleswoman for whom charm was a professional asset and a house was the biggest possible commission. But they both had talents about houses that school can’t teach and money can’t improve, as well as an appreciation for homes that had been deepened by deprivation.

Like me, over the years they had no choice but to move into and out of the places people see when they picture poverty: trailers with dents in the metal skirting over the wheels, bad apartments with unlit stairwells, houses full of outdated finishes and broken appliances. Sometimes, though, they were able to make a decent and even beautiful home out of something bought or rented cheap, given up on by people with less vision and fewer skills. They taught me everything they could, if only because I was free help.

From Dad: The actual dimensions of a two-by-four (about 1.5 by 3.5 inches). How to angle a hammer to pry a crooked nail without denting the wood. The engineering process that keeps parking lots from flooding when it rains, the relationship between contractors and subcontractors, the politics and corporate influence behind safety standards. The economics of labor unions. The tradesmen who price-gouged (electricians) and the ones who earned every penny (plumbers). How to get all the subcontractors on the same page with a cut-the-bullshit group meeting of hard hats. How far down to bedrock. How to lay a concrete foundation, how to lay brick. How to run every kind of saw, which saws really called for safety goggles and which really did not.

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