Dewy, Dewy, Deck

CAPTION: "Claude, mon ami, what do you suppose we ought to call our art?" "Suppose? Moi, Manet? What is your IMPRESSION?" "Hmmm?"

    

  I often tell my Broadcast Journalism students, "if you're looking for the power base of a community? Don't just follow the money. You also want to follow the water."

        It's water that can turn a simple deck into a Monet painting. 

        But then that is not always the case as we see in: 

        

 

         ALL HANDS ON DECK

                                  Part Nine           

 

         As I race to meet my destiny I wonder. “Have they unearthed the fountain of youth? Is the house sitting over a dormant geyser bed? Have we stumbled on to an inner earth passage to the  South China Sea? Are we only three feet above the water table? I thought it was supposed to be receding?” And there are some other inane water fantasy queries. I don’t know why I have these thoughts? I guess somebody has to have them.

         Finally the more critical rational thoughts reach my cortex. What if a neighbor asks me what we’re doing?  If I’ve struck a water main I can’t report it to any official. Somehow I’ve neglected to inform them I’m building an award winning deck.

         With all this on my mind I throw myself into the growing mound of mud. Fighting the water pressure, I shove the full length of my arm down Number Nine. I FEEL SOMETHING! OH! Thank God! It’s plastic. We’d just pierced a defunct sprinkler system line.

         I dispatch Jeff to the shut off valve and we are temporarily not in a crisis. Soon the water begins to recede.

Now my creative hero juices are flowing. It’s clearly a part of the sprinkler system that’s not been in use for some time.

         With that in mind I rush to the garage, mix up a bag of cement, rush it back to the crime scene and just pour it down the Ninth Hole. My work crew is just staring at me incredulously. These are not stares of adulation. That is quickly revealed when Mike emphatically utters, “you’ve ruined it!”

         “Ruined what?,” I reply with a defensive air.

         “What are we going to do about the post that goes there? It has to line up with the other posts.”

         Think Paul, think!

         “I know that.”

         Think some more Paul.

         “Well what are we going to do?”

         Mike is getting bolder but the interaction is giving me THINK time.

         “You’re not thinking this through Mike.”

         “What is there to think through?”

         “Lot’s of things.”

         “Okay, name some!”

         Eureka! A treatise comes to me.

         “See, it only has to line up one way. The direction of the beams is all that’s important. We just move Number Nine down a foot and we can still line it up with the two end posts. Of course it’d be more stable if we could also line it up with the side posts. But, hey, we’re in a predicament here. And it will still LOOK nice after we get it all covered up?”

         They share a puzzled glance. I think they think I might be right. I suggest we all get a good night’s sleep. We’ll drill the New number Nine, and set all the posts in cement tomorrow.

         I get no argument.

         You should get a good night sleep, too. We’re going to get an early start tomorrow.