#326 Nov 17th Calvin Hagan stone

Whenever I started to look at Calvin's project they had everything they owned kind of in the middle of the floor. To them, it was better than renting a storage facility but they hadn't had the time to put everything away yet. There was just a lot of stuff in every square foot of the floor except for a path. All this is fine for living there but for major construction and re-wiring a house it’s a bad idea. I've done houses like this before It's just a lot of work. If you're going to do a massive remodel it's really wonderful to have everything out of the house in storage for about 100 reasons. They just weren't in a position to do this and so I had to work around it.

I want to go back a little bit and explain my motivation for wiring Calvin's house for free. I had decided to sell our acre beside the house that we owned for 20 some years. We had sold the house and moved on but we still have the lot next door to deal with. It was a big job and everything I wanted to keep needed to be separated out and put somewhere in order to sell the land and garage. I've got an old 54 Chevy truck that I've been working on for I guess, 25 years. I've got a boat and trailer that was given to me by a friend Bill that I worked with as an electrician and also in missions at our previous Methodist church. It's worth at least six to $8,000. He was selling his house and just said if you wanted you can have it. We did the paperwork and put it into my name and it's been in my yard ever since. It's an inboard outdrive and I would have loved to enjoy it but I just never got around to it. The effort to sell it is a chore so I thought of what am I going to do. I didn't want to pay for storage for these items because I think that's bad behavior. I was going to donate my red truck to a fellow who said he would like to work on it with his grandson. After I got to talking to him in detail he started describing how he did not have a garage and he was just going to maybe work on it on the city street. I had helped him understand this was a massive project and he also said he was disabled and couldn't lift 20 lb. I said you know as much as I wanted to do this for you this isn't going to be good for you. I was kinda hoping to keep it on the land that we own 1/3 of near below Siler City. My in-laws said no. I’ve been resentful about that ever since. It’s a large tract of forest that we pay taxes on every year but I’m not allowed to store my truck and stuff on it. I've been bothered by that for a very long time.

I didn't seem to have a lot of options. There is a guy that my sister Cheryl is not dating who owns a chicken farm operation who might have some land. I didn't have a whole lot of ideas on what to do and out of the blue, I thought of Calvin. He has always been a fishing fool, he fishes more than he eats or sleeps every day. Growing up after school he would go to a community pond and catch some of the same fish every day. I thought well maybe he could like use Bill’s boat and enjoy it. Since it was given to me I could give it to Calvin Bill knew Calvin because we all went to the same church growing up. It all seemed very appropriate so I located him and asked him and he thought about it for about 10 seconds and said when do you want to meet. He had moved from Wilmington to Liberty and was engaged to a nice lady and had become a police officer in Chapel hill. A bit of a commute but he seemed happy. I told him the boat was his for the asking. He said he had bought 20 acres out in the country. I asked him if we could barter the boat gift for a place to keep my old truck and stuff. He said it would be fine. He mentioned he had redone the plumbing at his new fixer-upper and electrical was next. I told him I would be glad to help do a rewire as part of a big barter deal. In a week he came down with his truck and we proceeded to get the boat connected to his truck. The trailer tires were rotten so he had to go to Walmart and get new ones. We got it all strapped down and ready to roll I had rented a pull-behind car carrier from U-Haul and had the truck on it and all my tools and pressure washer crammed anywhere I could, looking like the Joad family heading west. The spread up in Liberty where Calvin had bought 20 acres was in redneck heaven. I got to tell you it's a really wonderful spread. It's got a small cinder block house and a garage and just lots of land. I reminded him the truck might have to be there for 5 years and he said that’s fine. I felt such relief as it's a really big deal to have all my toys stored safely plus helping the guy to have a safe home to live in without very sketchy wiring feels good. It had a full basement with an 8-ft ceiling from one end to the other. This made doing the wiring easier. Skipping forward I managed to rewire the entire house and everything was functional. He lived about 20 minutes from Hagen Stone Park which was a nice little county park south of Greensboro with RV hookups. This is where we lived during the rewire.

I don't think Hagan Stone has the 14-day rule at least not in winter. You can just be homeless there forever. On our first day there some guy walks up and says you got a cigarette? I said no we don't smoke. You got a light? I don't know, I don't think we do but thanks for coming by. He moves on to the next RV and I assume asked them the same thing. He had a real gravely voice I thought he was a little crazy actually. I came back from Calvin's the next day and India said hey that guy came up and wanted to know if I had a cigarette. She said my husband's not here so you need to like not come around unless you see that truck around. I think he came by the very next day while I was there. I said hey I hate to be you know abrasive but I really don't want you coming around my rig at all and especially when I'm not here..

He seemed to get it and I had said something about him up there at the front desk and he said yeah, he's a little weird but he's harmless we think. Maybe but I still didn't want him bothering India. After a week I had Calvin's house wrapped up. He always intended to help but got called into work or had to appear in court most of the days I was there. I had a few items undone and told him I would check back before going to Florida for the winter.