A bag of stories and an oil can
By John Beckman • Guest Columnist
Forty-two years ago a very interesting man moved into the broken, haunted brick mansion two doors up from my parents’ house.
Dave had just retired from 33 years in the U.S. Army as a machinist, welder, mechanic, builder, inventor and general problem-solver in charge of keeping America’s troops and machinery moving. He had set his new sights on restoring the old place singlehandedly as a retirement project. His personal passions and areas of expertise included photography, systems design, the arts, public service, governance and sharing his skills and knowledge with many.
I didn’t know any of this at 14 years old, I just thought he was a cool, old dude who might hire me to cut his grass. And he did. After the mowing started I found myself spending most of my time there and the jobs progressed to cleaning lumber, scraping paint, pounding nails and carrying a lot of trash.
He also spent many hours answering my questions and discussing any number of topics at length, and I ate it up. If I wasn’t home for dinner, Mom would say to the family “check the colonel’s ...” and send a sibling to fetch me. Eventually she gave up waiting for me, probably knowing I was happily working and had found a true friend.
I continued to work and learn there through high school and most of college, becoming close with the whole family before throwing myself at the world and North Carolina in 1985. Our time and discussions together were replaced with phone calls and letters, intent on sharing my successes and frustrations with this man I had come to rely on for advice and reassurance. Each year I would plan my visit north to coincide with his May 1 birthday, except for the year I flew him to North Carolina instead, always looking forward to our long and unhurried discussions.
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We often took road trips to view architectural gems, natural wonders and engineering feats both large and small, as well as anything and everything along the way we found intriguing or worthy of photographing. And always we shared laughter.
I saw him this past May for his 93rd and brought him some photos I had taken of him about 30 years ago. While growing frail in body he was still sharp-minded, inquisitive of all things and as charming and gracious as anyone could be. I stopped by on my last night in town when I saw his light on at 10:30 p.m. I let myself in as I always had and found him awake reading in the bed he spent much of his time in these days. I sat down on the corner of his bed and we talked until after 1 a.m. It was to be our last face-to-face late-night dialogue.
Ironically, or perhaps not, I was on my way north in July for a rare second visit this year for a family reunion, and to see him of course, on the night he passed. Instead of my much-anticipated talks with him, this visit would be spent with his remaining family and grandchildren, who had long ago adopted me, sharing our grief and preparing his home and ourselves for his memorial service the next week. As usual, I chose to stay in his house during my stay and spent several late nights walking the house and property, remembering our shared lives and missing our conversations.
His 28-year-old grandson came to stay at the house a few days later, and the two of us picked up where we had left off, talking into the wee hours of the morning in keeping with tradition, under the porte-cochere, where the horse and carriage would have off-loaded the home’s original well-to-do occupants.
The day after his service I began packing up for the long trip back to WNC. His daughter, and my dear friend, Arianna asked me to take some of his belongings with me for remembrance, so I dutifully picked up one of his many carpenters tool bags and walked through his house for the last time. I placed a large wooden mallet he had made in the bag along with an old wood plane, some pieces of nylon rope, a drill he never had a chance to use, a box of O-rings and, from his metal shop, one of his six oil cans as another forgotten collection of memories came forward.
The road may indeed go on forever, as the Allman Brothers sang, but not so for a single human being. Our individual time will indeed run out, but the memories and stories live on in those we have touched and changed forever. So if you have something squeaking that needs a shot of oil, give me a call when you have a couple of hours for some stories. I have plenty to share.
(John Beckman is a builder and farmer who lives in Jackson County. He can be reached This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
