On the Importance of Social Connection

My brother lives a couple of hours away, three actually, outside a small town in northeastern Kansas. He's a bachelor, and somewhat of a recluse. He lives in a house that was built by a bachelor. That's pretty easy to tell once inside. It has no carpet. It has only wood heat–a single stove in the middle of the floor-- and no meaningful insulation. The bathroom is designed without a door. And the sink is a marbled green plastic material that looks a little like lime Jello mixed with cool whip. The rather than a living room, kitchen and dining rea, it has one central "great room." It is lighted with a single flourescent shop light hung from a beam off to one side. Even in good times it is dark and cold. But these are not good times.
My brother decided, some months ago, to improve his house significantly by adding a new room. In this room, he would install a furnace so that his water bed would not be the primary form of heat this winter. He started the project early enough-–I think it was sometime in May. However he seems to have devote an inordinate amount of time to doing the concrete work--pouring the foundation and the floor to his addition. And so he found himself in late October it a bit of a rush if he was to be finished before it got really cold. By this time he had the walls up, but had not yet started on the roof.
He moved the old woodstove out to the barn in September to get it out of the way, and he patched the hole in the roof left by the chimney. At the time it didn't seem like a really big deal. But in late October he still was not done. This would not be so bad if not for another decision he made at the end of October about how to proceed with the project. As he looked at where the roof would go, he didn't really like the way the new roofline would tie in to the existing one. He decided that as long as he was building a roof, he might as well build one that was aesthetically pleasing to himself. And so he removed the existing roof to build a new one.
In retrospect all men know that it is much easier to take something apart than to put it back together. But this is a gift of insight bestowed on men only after the fact. My brother realized this right after he heard a weather report predicting six inches of rain in the next two days. Building supply stores are a wonderful development of our culture. They bring the art of architecture into the reach of the common man. So he went to the nearest Lowe's and bought a big piece of clear plastic to stretch across the top of his house to keep it dry inside.
It took most of the night to get it in place, though it didn't really start to rain until the next evening. But almost as soon as it did the problem with this solution became apparent. The plastic stagged a little in the center. He had been able to stretch the plastic tight enough that you really couldn't notice it at first. But when the water started to accumulate on top, the dip became more and more pronounced. At first the puddle that hung over the great room was small, but it seemed to grow geometrically as the rain came down. Always in search of solutions, my brother found a broom, and
by standing on a chair he was able to push the handle into the center of the puddle. And cause the water to rush off toward the walls. But he was not able to push the center quite high enough for the water to flow over the walls. Instead, rather than a puddle in the center of the plastic, there were now several puddles on the edges. And it rained harder and harder.
By this time my brother realized that the plastic roof was under considerable strain. And if he were to step down from the chair, all of the
water would come rushing down to the center of the plastic and probably cave in the whole cover. And so he stood. In the dark. In the cold. On a chair, holding a broom to the sky.
Unless you are really passionate about it, doing anything monotonous for a long period of time it very difficult. Even if you are passionate about it, there are certain things that your body demands after a certain amount of
time. Just about as that time was nearly past, the rain started slowly softening. And as it did, by brother could start to hear things that earlier had been masked by the pounding of the rain against the plastic. "Drip." "Drip." "Drip." He heard it about three times and then "whoosh."
He had attached the plastic to the outside of the house using duct tape. As the tape had gotten wet, the adhesive weaken. Now the roof he had been holding up with the broom was more like a tent supported by a single pole in
the center. He was dry underneath the plastic, but everything else was flooded. And it was November. And he had no heat. So he slept in the cab of his pickup, the one with a decal on the back window from college-–"Kansas State
University Department of Engineering."
Spouses and friends are important because they give one perspective. They tell you when something you are about to do is not in your best
interests. They provide balance to life and keep us, at least us men, on an even keel. I know without them I'd be innundated.