TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

"Getting It Right"

I bought a new house. It's a modest little place in a nice neighborhood. It needed a lot of work. A lot. Every wall - every surface had to be redone. The kitchen and bathrooms were a nightmare homage to the 70s. The house was a product of a messy divorce. The same old story - University professor runs off with young missy from the school and the wife decided to take it out on their home. I guess she wasn't so good at math because she failed to realize that for every dollar that the house depreciated meant 50 cents out of her purse. At any rate she hadn't mowed the lawn in more than a year. The dryer filter was a four alarm fire hazard and there was a funny smell in the place.

Don't get me wrong - I wanted a fixer upper. I wanted to take a dive and make something of it. Aside from the obvious financial benefits was the fact that I wanted to work with my parents on it - especially my father. Growing up I thought my dad was magical when it came to building things and making things look nice. He could start with a pile of wood and end up with a little shed that looked like elves lived in it. My mother could take a pile of cloth and make a blanket that would keep you warm no matter how far the mercury fell, but somehow that blanket seemed less magical. Women sewed and men built things. The thing is I could never build anything. I tried a few times to build a model or make a treasure chest but they ended up looking like - well, bent. The things I made were always lumpy. The things my dad made were always smooth. We lived in a home that people would come over to take pictures of.

I never helped my father in any of his home projects - never. I would mow the lawn now and again, but he kind of liked doing that so I pretty much was running off with my friends while he was out in the garage creating things. It wasn't that I had no interest in learning how to do what he could do. I never believed I could do those things. I thought no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many hours I put into it, I'd never be able to cut in a straight line.

My parents were going to help me fix up my new house and I was going to make up for many lost years. I was going to work with my dad. I took possession of the place on June 30th. As of this writing (August 29th) not a single room in my new house is finished. The toilet downstairs works and the bathtub upstairs will hold water so the essentials are covered. Yesterday my friend Pete asked if I was beginning to see the end product in my mind. I saw the end product much clearer when I first walked into the house with my real-estate agent before purchasing it. How could that be - you ask, with a magical father?

What I've learned is that my father was never in possession of any kind of magic. What he was in possession of was the ability to make the hard decisions - in other words, he'd tear it down and start over again unless it was perfect. He's torn a lot of things down these last few months. We spent a day putting the bathtub in. Much cursing ensued while we did it. We cracked two of the corners on it and in the end it was in crooked. Oh well, I guess I would have to live with a crooked tub. Fat chance. Two days later all four corners of the tub were cracked. The neighbors learned some new words but the tub was in straight. For my father to do something means redoing it until it's right. Complain and bitch all the way but in the end it's right.

Learning my father wasn't Merlin was not the shattering experience you'd expect. In fact we're closer now and I realized he's not so different than I am. Building nice things isn't as important to me as writing nice things. When it comes to writing, I have always known that writing is rewriting. I have no problem hitting the delete key until my finger is calloused - until I get it right.

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