The Muse's rendering of our finished porch remodel.

"Those without the patience of Job experience the amateur's impatience …"

When creating something, the creator must somehow tolerate a lengthy period where that something does not yet even distantly resemble the end product. The difference between amateur and artisan might be measured in the distance between their patience. Impatience seems the constant companion of the amateur and forbearance, the artisan's eventual nature. The patron's left wondering if their investment will ever pay off. Pablo, our concrete contractor, aspires to be the artisan he only occasionally is yet, though he's coming along. Yes, he did get a little ahead of himself when pouring that first footing and failing the following four inspections. His comeuppance tried everyone's patience, especially his. We ended up with a footing so over-engineered that it will still be here through centuries hence. Whoever tries to turn The Villa into a teardown will curse our existence.

Preparation for the Big Pour consumed more than a week, with constructing forms and fitting them with wooden strips to produce insets and beveled corners. The crew took to arriving earlier each day and staying a little later as the deadline day approached. The insets and beveled corners seemed to take forever; in fact, one last pillar was still not quite finished when the concrete truck arrived. Pablo and four of his most skilled assistants worked through lunch. His sister, his office manager, came with Pablo's mother and wife to witness the big event. They brought a lunch nobody would touch until after the pour was finished. I dragged out one of my newly refinished park benches and two metal lawn chairs to reconstruct The Peanut Gallery beneath the Hemlock tree to hold the observers. It seemed like a party atmosphere when the concrete truck driver took a seat next to me. I mentioned that they weren't quite ready for his arrival, which had come an hour later than scheduled. "They never are," he said, "Pours always start late."

A concrete pump had been set up out front so that Pablo's crew wouldn't have to ferry wheelbarrow loads of wet concrete to the forms. Pablo explained that this pour would be too massive for them to finish without the pump. The crew continued adding additional bracing, screwing odd bits of two-by-fours across the fronts and sides of forms. The Muse set up her tripod so she could capture video of the pour. We could feel that we were witnessing something of real consequence. This would be the point of actual transformation where the drawing became literal concrete, where the street view of this old house would change forever, and for the definite better. I tried to walk around the construction zone once more before the pour began, thinking all that rebar would soon be encased forever, but I took my seat as they started the pour. I didn't want to get underfoot.

The pour was continuous, almost frantic from start to finish, with a wheelbarrow filled with remainder for finishing touches after the concrete truck and the pump crew left. After roughly finishing the walls and columns, the crew finally found their lunch. I filled the ice chest with well-deserved beers, inviting the crew to finish them off after finishing the columns and walls. The Muse sat in the peanut gallery and watched them finish their finishing work. They worked lazily compared to the frantic pace they'd moved earlier. I walked around the fresh pour, shaking hands and thanking each crew member for their dedication. I'd been a pain in the butt the prior few days, suspicious that the wall might not have been appropriately measured to support the replacement deck. I'd insisted on the principles conferring to confirm correctness, and I fear I might have insulted Pablo, our budding artisan. He had more to lose than anybody, and he had taken those measurements and my queries very seriously.

He confided that he'd not slept in two days. He had not been able to set aside this project and kept turning details around and around in his head. He cut the deadline close. He wasn't quite finished when the inspector appeared two hours earlier than scheduled. The inspector could see the trajectory and approved moving forward, though he returned a couple of hours later to check one more time before we began pouring. All of us who exhibited perhaps less faith in the enterprise than it might have warranted from us were forgiven when the pour came off without much of any hitch. Monday, the forms will come off after two full hot summer days of curing, and then we'll see the finished form we've so long aspired to see. Those without the patience of Job experience the amateur's impatience, which doesn't materially affect the outcome if an artisan's running the show. The front of The Villa Vatta Schmaltz finally seems Porchy to me.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz