Ya Git Old

[Harry Edwards]

I'm not really in touch. I do know that they live in Seadrift, that 
Reese teaches somewhere or did, and that Pat Hathcock works for the 
Victoria newspaper.  Sorry. twisty

On Jul 1, 2005, at 3:05 PM, mwheless wrote:

> Do you have their snail mail address? Or their email?
> Does she still teach school in Sinton?
> They came by to visit me in the Morgan City/Patterson LA area on their
> honeymoon voyage to Naw'lins. Can't remember the year?????
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harry Edwards" <laughingwolf at ev1.net>
> To: "survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s"
> <austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
> Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 1:19 PM
> Subject: Re: Ya Git Old
>
>
> Ya, the very one. Reese has been married for many years to Pat Hathcock
> and living in Seadrift. I know Pat but not her.           td
>
>
> On Jul 1, 2005, at 12:43 PM, mwheless wrote:
>
>> Twisty, Was Michael Waddell married to Linda Reese Vaughn whose mother
>> was
>> from Menard? Did Michael and Linda have a daughter named Clara? Just
>> curious.
>> marilyn wheless
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Harry Edwards" <laughingwolf at ev1.net>
>> To: "ghetto 2" <ghetto2 at lists.whathelps.com>
>> Cc: "ghetto survivors" <austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
>> Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:57 PM
>> Subject: Ya Git Old
>>
>>
>> Some of you probably know Michael Waddell. This timely essay by 
>> Michael
>> was forwarded to me from a mutual friend.    twisty
>>
>> subject: ya git old
>>
>> git it?
>>
>> used to be. I would go strate ahead on, in the trades, carpentry. Ya
>> have a tool belt, and to start with you have and prize the few thangs
>> yuh carry there. Used to be cloth one. Apron-like, to keep the stuff 
>> ya
>> werk’t with at hand. Convenient.
>>
>> Nails. An essential, those pointy things with haids, they call ‘em; 
>> the
>> heads are actually flattened circles of aim, targets, to give rise to
>> expressions from some straw-bosses among my hearties, and mighties,
>> such as—hit the nail, man! th’ nail! Hit th thang, don’t try to Scare
>> it in!—
>>
>> The apron would hold a handful of nails, and perhaps a pencil and a
>> measuring tape, that could go ten feet. That's all.
>>
>> You graduate. you get a leathern belt, that holds a utility knife, in 
>> a
>> special sheath-shaped quiver (quoit or quirt, or quirn, kern or
>> coin—qui vive!?), a pocket is provided for a thirty-foot tape, 
>> pencils,
>> rectifying squares, nail-punches and –sets, a triangulora divisor, and
>> other arcane stuff, unknown to the publick. A hammard, mine was a 
>> Plumb
>> Bludgeon, with candy-apple transparent ochre shellack’t finish on the
>> wooden handle, a 16-oz. curved-claw short-handled (relatively) framing
>> implement, a tool. I had not made the acquaintance, yet, of the
>> Bluegrass steel, the Louisville Bluegrass straight-claw. The tool. The
>> nail-drivers’ tool. I could hire on any day, ‘hello! I’m a 
>> nail-driver.
>> You gotta ennie jobs? here?’
>>
>> They can tell if you’re shuckin’ cause they have this test, see. They
>> tell you to grab a belt of nails, and give you an empty pocketed 
>> strap,
>> and point to the 50-pound box that sixteen-penny commons come in 
>> packed
>> ever witch way; they tell you Fill your pockets. Then they watch you,
>> and time you at this. There’s a way to fill yer pockets in about three
>> seconds; there’s a way to sort all the haids in one direction, a 
>> manner
>> of getting all the pointy ends t’other—a convenience. this handshake 
>> is
>> known to all real framers. A secret.A leger d’main. A palpable, 
>> tactile
>> point of manual dexterity. Experience.
>>
>> And I was hired.
>>
>> time was.
>>
>> You never give it a second thought; you grab a handful and frame up
>> that wall, nail after nail after nail after day after day, after wall,
>> after floor, after house . . . afterthought: what does it mean
>> ‘finish’t’? When, do you know, when you’re done? When, you walk away?
>>
>> Well, remember that ceiling, that fell on me, metaphorically I mean,
>> about a year ago? That I wrote you the account of? That the rockwool
>> insulation had brought down, being sodden with an overflow of water
>> sweated out of the air conditioner into it’s overflow pan, that had 
>> got
>> stopped up by some growth of bacterial mucus, so that the water didn’t
>> drain down the pipe that for years had led the sweat outside, like a
>> postnasal drip fix’t for the attick’s nose???
>>
>> The insulation got so heavy that the sheetrock ceiling in a four by 
>> six
>> foot section, done give way; Pow, two seconds and it’s on the floor. 
>> It
>> floored you! you said.
>>
>> Dust fuckin’ everwhurr.
>>
>> Now in that same space of room, there’s the new bath facility 
>> quarters,
>> under construction; Here’s where we get old. I put down the italian
>> tiled floor pieces, in the area exterior to the tub&shower combination
>> chamber, at its deep end. The closet-flange has been set, anticipating
>> an imminent porcelain S-curved pee-trap, known to the laymen as the
>> john, or crapper. American Standard makes a fine one. I put down the
>> underlaying cementitious backer, then the thin-set, and then the 
>> pieces
>> of slate-looking verdigris tile, placed with eighth-inch cross-shap’t
>> neoprene spacers at all quadrants . . .
>>
>> I have left unframed, an open access, in place of  a long wall
>> -to-be-    for the convenience of being able to walk into this 
>> evolving
>> space, rather than around it, thru a door, carrying the mud, the 
>> tiles,
>> the werk.
>>
>> Thru a squar’d and measured locus I fix three points, two one-inch
>> holes will be drilled thru the sub-floor, and the backer, and another
>> hole between them, which will be the slip for the two-inch drain pipe,
>> to carry suds ‘n aftershave and such, from a pedestal sink, that will
>> be placed just in that spot.
>>
>> I place all the tiles, and in this one spot, one tile must be saw’d
>> with the diamond blade wet-saw, to have its own three holes, matching
>> those foresighted in the present floor. Then it’s pegged, so to say.
>> Buttered, pressed in. Set. Wait a day they say, before doing the grout
>> lines. 24 hours.
>>
>> And a day later I place the pedestal sink upon the appropriate
>> position, to find that it’s about a foot too close to the virtual
>> toilet . . . and I chew on this for another day, and it’s a real kick
>> in the haid.
>>
>> Ya git old; but ya learn to take up the cut tile piece, bite your lip,
>> lower one, and not too hard, and shake yer haid, and pop up the 
>> ceramic
>> before it gets set any tighter. And notice how good the mated surfaces
>> are evidenced, a wee bit of insight and experience that won’t see much
>> effect, or have much affect perhaps in the enduring world, of temporal
>> affairs, and indeed, of temporizing.
>>
>> Been thurr; done that, dun that. dunn that, and that.
>>
>> Yesterday I was putting the plumbing supply lines for the pedestal 
>> sink
>> into the wall, that I’d abhorred using earlier (this wall stands below
>> the ridge line of the house, and I wish’t not to diminish its 
>> structure
>> with holes, cut for piping—a matter of conscientiousness, coming from
>> some ‘experience’—of maximal vs optimal structural design—I should 
>> have
>> gone for optimal at the first go-round). Hmmm . . . maximal, it has 
>> the
>> ‘-mal’ configuration in it, at its end, -mal maybe equals BAD. that’s
>> so crazzie . . . nnnaaaaahh!
>>
>> Once these lines were gloo’d—they were all PVC plastic tubings, and 
>> the
>> house water pressure supply was shut off during this measuring and
>> fitting improvisition work—I crawled, or crept, out from the low space
>> of the pier and beam floor, thinking now to open the house supply 
>> valve
>> to test that all the fittings held, strong and without leaks.
>>
>> Quick I run to the exterior cut-off valve, turning the handle several
>> times; I hear the Ka-kaGaBoing thud of the starved water meeting up
>> again with whatever remains down the pike, in the vascularity of this
>> living creature, The House. Aaaaiiieee!! it Lives!!
>>
>> Quick I run in to the new bedroom, with bath facility sans son
>> quatrieme mur—to see how it goes.
>>
>> How it goes is, all over the new tile floor, water holds, coming from
>> the sputter of the two outlets, we call the Hot and Cold, that I have
>> forgotten to put temporary stoppers in, for the pressure test phase.
>>
>> I rush outside again. This time, to turn off the house’s water supply.
>>
>> Turns out, the tile floor is quite waterproof; I have inspected every
>> line below-deck, and minimal damage has been done. I’ve just . . .
>>
>> just got, older.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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