Wednesday, March 29, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Owning it all
I’m not a builder. I have
no professional training of
any kind, though as a kid I
helped my step-dad build a
gigantic barn. I was mostly
useful as an extra hand to
drive nails, fetch this tool or
that, or to hold the end of a
tape measure. As I got older
my pursuits went in differ-
ent directions, but he went
on to build several more
barns, always by himself,
for the horses and cows and
sheep, each one of them a
kind of old-timey master-
piece of creativity, architec-
tural beauty, and rock-solid
strength.
Don’t we admire a
thoughtful do-it-yourselfer,
working with a limited skill-
set but striving to learn more,
do more, and with a practi-
cal bias for self-reliance?
We should. Not so long ago,
it seems we had a lot more
of those types around. But
sadly, a lot of that self-reli-
ance has been sanded off as
the country has filled up with
people.
I get it. We need some
rules. And good ones, like
smoke alarms, nobody dis-
agrees with. But I mourn that
loss of rugged individual-
ism in the margins, because
I think it also encourages
laziness. That’s true intel-
lectually, for certain, and
travels down the leash to a
kind of physical laziness too.
Why build a shed, and learn
something, and maybe even
have fun doing it, when you
can buy a TuffShed at Home
Depot and have it delivered
to your door? Who wants
that bother?
That loss of indepen-
dence, I think, is some-
how tied to the increasing
pressures of conformity
— HOAs love their copy-
and-paste rules and regula-
tions even where they make
no practical sense — and
we all labor under the ever-
growing burden of govern-
ment interference in virtually
every aspect of life. But on
the whole I remain uncon-
vinced that we do a great job
of encouraging our younger
generations to build things,
or fix things, or make things,
anymore.
Maybe I’m wrong about
that, but it seems close to the
mark.
We can’t do everything by
ourselves, obviously, but we
get better as human beings
when we try. At least I’m
sure that I do. Little things
we take for granted, like lay-
ing pavers, for instance, look
a lot more difficult when we
heave-out to do it ourselves.
It teaches appreciation for
the skill, if nothing else, and
we may never stride over
a beautiful walk quite the
same way again.
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This week I’ve been
working on our raised beds.
I was unhappy with every-
thing going on in the garden,
essentially, and so stole each
second of sunshine available
— and worked a lot in the
rain — to get things where I
want them to be.
I have a friend who, years
ago, built his own cabin in
Bridgeport, California, in
the Sweetwater country,
and lived there for decades,
mostly alone. It was Don, a
voracious reader and writer,
who told me, over a cold
beer on Swauger Creek after
a day splitting wood, that all
real Americans were regis-
tered Independents. That’s
still hard to argue with.
Most winters, the road
into his place was inaccessi-
ble, and so he skied in, tow-
ing his supplies on a sled. He
built a hydro generator over
the creek to keep his lights
on, and the walls, twelve
inches thick, kept the place
incredibly warm with only a
tiny woodstove. The picture
windows framed a perfect
view out over the canyon
and across to the rugged
Finger Peaks.
Don was a builder by
trade, and so he had the skill.
He’d built dozens of houses
in the Bridgeport area, but
like a lot of contractors, it
was always his place that
was never quite finished. But
he had something else, too,
which may be something
we can’t teach: a drive for
self-reliance and measured,
responsible, independence.
The final piece for his
cabin was a front door that
he carved himself. And the
day he finally hung it I’m
sure he felt a mixture of
pride at the accomplishment,
and maybe a dollop of dis-
appointment in those places
it wasn’t just perfect. I can
imagine a long, deep exhale,
and a mind filled with the
immense satisfaction of
knowing that he’d built that
place, high up in the aspens,
down to the front door, with
his own initiative, and his
own hands. Where the faults
were, only he would ever
know. The untrained eye just
wouldn’t see them.
And I think that’s the
metaphor that I like so
much, because it is the way
we live, mostly. If we have
any self-awareness at all we
know what’s wrong with us,
and we carry those faults
around like bad wiring hid-
den behind a wall.
And sometimes, like it or
not, we just have to tear open
the wall and fix the problem.
So, I’ve got the raised
beds mostly done. They
aren’t bad. Some profes-
sional would likely have
done it better. But I have the
enduring satisfaction of hav-
ing done it myself. I know
where the faults are and,
regrettably, some of them are
frustratingly obvious. But if
the faults in this project are
mine, so the good things are
mine too. I can live with that.
Owning our faults, and our
successes, may be the very
best we can hope for in this
life.
And anyway, as the old
cowpoke told the cowboss
after slapping together a new
outhouse at some mountain
line-camp: “It may not be
square,” he said, “but it’s
damn sure level.”
21
Sisters
shelter
to host
potluck
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
Sisters Cold Weather
Shelter is hosting an end-of-
season potluck for all their
guests, steering committee,
volunteers, donors, and the
citizens of Sisters who have
been so supportive and wel-
coming this winter.
The potluck will be held at
Westside Church Sisters, 442
Trinity Way, where the shel-
ter was located in January.
Everyone is invited to come
at 5 p.m., Saturday, April 1,
to share good food with good
friends in appreciation and
celebration of an amazingly
successful first season for
the shelter and for a wonder-
ful community. Bring food to
share if you are able.
Friday, March 31, will be
the last night of the season for
the shelter, hosted in March
by the Episcopal Church
of the Transfiguration. On
Saturday morning, April 1
at 9:30 a.m., guests, volun-
teers, and willing citizens are
invited to help with the final
packing away of supplies into
the shelter trailer for storage
until next November. The
packing will take place at
Sisters Episcopal Church of
the Transfiguration, 68825
Brooks Camp Road.