Today was hands down the hardest day since I’ve arrived. After stopping at the office to confirm my job for the day, I headed off to our gutting job on Republic Street. I’m going down Franklin and a man jumps out at me and shouts at me to pull over. I see he is a police officer and that I’ve completely forgotten to slow down for the school zone, not that there was a sign bigger than my laptop to remind me. I tell him I’m new in town, volunteering, didn’t mean to and would never ever do it again. He wasn’t having it, wrote me a speeding ticket (33 in a 20), and sent me on my way. Seeing that I was not going to get out of the ticket, I used my remaining energy to make the officer feel small. God gave me a quick mouth and I used it. I now regret what I said to the officer but at the time, it made me feel so much better. So I’m looking at a big fine but I don’t know how much it is yet because of the RIDICULOUS city in which I live.
I arrived at the gut job and saw that we had a big job ahead of us. The bottom floor had a back room added on after original construction which didn’t have a functioning roof. So every rain storm including and since Katrina just came right on. Did I mention the floor was carpet? Plus, we had a fridge upstairs that hadn’t been open since Katrina rolled through town. The group from Oregon arrived and we got things going. They were a well-oiled machine and the woman who would be moving into the house, Miss Warren, paid us lots of visits to make sure we were well. Miss Warren is a sweet old lady and she kept telling us how she had been praying to God for us to show up. We hear this a lot, about people getting really desperate just before a group shows up to get the house going. That was a blessing to hear.
The group made friends with a lot of the neighbors who were all really appreciative of the fact that we were helping the neighborhood come back. I’ve noticed this, too, that neighbors aren’t jealous of the work our clients are getting. 99 times out of 100, they’re thrilled to have the neighborhood back. I think the group is going to bring an elderly woman across the street some groceries. These groups really sink their teeth into the spirit of what they’re doing, not just the work itself.
Then, a flurry of activity. A couple, John and… I want to say Rhonda but that’s wrong, showed up to the site, asking if they could take away the fridge and the other appliances to sell for scrap. We discover that they’re homeless and live in their pick-up truck, packed sky high with stuff. They looked like temporally displaced Steinbeck characters. A couple of my muscley guys and John were getting the fridge down the front stairs when we all get a really strong gas smell. We boogied out of the house and called the fire department, who had already been to the block to take an elderly woman to the hospital. The whole block stunk like gas, everywhere you went. They arrived and I showed them the gas lines in the house. A hot water heater and a furnace upstairs still had the gas line open but the line to the house was closed so there was only residual gas in the line. It wasn’t enough to stink up the house, let alone a block in any direction. Then, one of the firemen got on his belly and said, “The smell is coming from the sewer!” We all get down in front of it and agree; it’s gasoline running through the sewer. We figured that someone was working on a car and washed some gas down the sewer and it just stunk up the neighborhood. Our homeless friends loaded up and we told them to come back Thursday for the hot water heater and anything else we could muster up.
On my way home, I stopped for gas and had a small world moment. I was filling up when a guy came up to me and asked for $.50. I had some in my ashtray so I told him to just follow me around the car. He saw my license plate and said, “Pennsylvania, huh? Where you from? You know West Chester?” At this point, I’m thinking, “Who is this? How does he know I’m from West Chester? Get out of this situation.” So I say, “Yeah, I’m from West Chester; how do you know it?” He used to be a migrant worker picking mushrooms in Kennett Square and he came down south for the work. The cold weather has been putting a damper on him getting jobs, as has the fact that he hurt his hand. So now no one wants to hire him for day labor.
Lots of hard lessons today that I didn’t really want to learn but I’m glad I did. Or I will be.
- Just because I’m volunteering doesn’t mean I get to be self-righteous to a cop who wrote me a ticket for something I absolutely did.
- I do indeed have a new source of money stress but I’m not carting away refrigerators and driers to sell them for scrap. Keep some perspective, Andy.
The gutting group is building a playground tomorrow so I get to do more rebuilding tomorrow. Gutting is great when you need to get your frustrations out but it’s hard when you discover clothes in the closet. We’re back on the gut Thursday and I’ll be ready to go back then. But for tomorrow, bring on the painting or drywalling.
October 28, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Sounds like a tough day but you are obviously learning a lot which is awesome!