Massachusetts
My friend Gretchen and I signed up for this Habitat build a
few months ago. We were both listed as
team leaders, but Gretchen had never lead before. She’s done many global village builds, mostly
in Africa. We agreed that she would be the actual team leader and I would be
there to offer assistance if needed. I planned
on enjoying this build as just another builder.
Our home for the two weeks would be a campground for the Seventh Day
Adventist. It was a really nice open
field with electricity and water. I
think I got a bad electric pole because the power kept going out for the 30amp
plug. I finally just plugged into the 20
amp hookup and did just fine. I arrived a few days early because the campground
in Connecticut was booked for the holiday weekend. By Sunday the rest of the team arrived and I
could tell right away we had a good
crew. John and Teresa were from Kentucky
and had been to the build in West Liberty.
They got there about 2 weeks after I left in the spring and were able to
finish the house I spent a month on. It
was really cool to know the house got finished on time. The other couple were Marie and Gordon from western
New York state. Gordon was a farmer and this was their first Habitat
build. They actually met Gretchen at a
Good Sam rally. When everyone arrived,
we set up a tent and put our picnic tables under it. Every night for the next two weeks, we grilled
and ate out there. After dinner we
usually played Mexican Train until bedtime.
Normally, on the builds I’ve been on, everyone may meet up for a social
hour, then everyone retires to their RV for the evening. This build was a lot more fun! We were joined at the job site by a recent high
school graduate named Mark. Since he
spent almost the whole 2 weeks with us, we made him an honorary Care-A-Vanner.
I went to Concord to check out the town and nearby Minute
Man Park. It was a nice day so I walked
the mile from town to the park. Along the
way I passed by Sleep Hollow Cemetery where Nineteenth-century luminaries such
as Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are buried. I saw Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott
wrote "Little Women." There
was a boat house right on the river and a really pretty garden setting. There was a wedding planned for the
afternoon, but I snuck in as they were setting up and walked out on the
dock. The tide was low and the dock was
down in the mud. From there I could see
the North Bridge. The "shot heard
round the world," which signaled the start of the Revolutionary War, was
fired from there. It was a really nice
picture, except for all the people walking across it! It was a bit late in the day, and I thought
if I was patient enough, I could get a shot when there were no people. As I was waiting, I noticed some movement in
the mud below. A turtle suddenly popped
up through the muck, looked around and started eating a piece of bread
nearby. After it ate, it burrowed back
down in the muck. About this time, I looked
up and saw there was no one on the bridge and I got my pictures. I walked around to the bridge and came to the
Minuteman Statue. The Air National Guard
uses the Minuteman as a symbol of a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to
respond immediately to war threats during the Revolutionary War. It’s a tribute to the success and patriotism
of the nation’s first ‘Guard’ forces and I’ve always loved it. I walked around the park and took some
pictures. It was a very nice day.
Another day I came
back to the park and took a bike ride along the Battle Road Trail. This is a 5.5 mile trail that follows
the path of the British Regulars and Militia during the opening battle of the
American Revolution on April 19th, 1775.
The trail links Lexington to Concord and wanders through treed settings,
wetlands and historic vistas of open fields and pastureland. The NPS has
painstakingly restored many of the buildings, sites, landscape vistas and even
vegetation to the late 18th century period.
The first day of the build we went to the ReStore for some
paining. We got to meet some of the
staff and everyone was really friendly. We
basically spent the day sprucing up the outside of the building. The ladies Marie and Teresa spent the day
inside dusting and organizing. For the
next two days we got to finish up two houses by completing the landscaping. One house took us all day because we had to
clean the inside and do some last minute painting, seed and fertilize the yard
and finish up a brick wall. We were
joined by two local full time volunteers Sully and John and we met the
construction lead Vince. He was a lot of
fun to work with; very easy going and easy on the eyes!
The affiliate put on a pot luck dinner for us the first
night and we got to meet many of the board members. I always like to see so many of them
involved. Clair is the volunteer coordinator
and Maggie the Executive Director. Both
ladies were awesome to interact with.
Both were very hands on and fun to talk to. We all enjoyed our time with both ladies. Maggie even came to the campground one night
to serenade us with bagpipes. She
sounded awesome!
By late the first week, we finally got to the main house and
the big job of dry walling or sheet rock, depending on what region you’re
from. Since I just did this in Toms
River, I was psyched to actually be doing something I could do well. But before we could get started, we had to
clean out the garage and move everything to a trailer up the road. That took all day, with 2 of us cleaning the
garage and 2 organizing.
The rest of the week and the next we spent ‘rocking the
house’. We got the first floor done and
the mudders moved right in while we got started on the 2nd floor. We were joined by several volunteers during
the week and weekend. We go to meet the
home owners for this house, Keiko and Andrew.
What a nice couple. I got to work
with Keiko one day and she turned out to be excellent at measuring and cutting. She was a little less confident using the
screw gun, but did just fine with that too.
Another day Andrew’s friend Joe brought his Korean Exchange student
Jeremy. He was a very quick study who
also did an awesome job measuring and cutting.
We got to meet other homeowners including Lauren and her friend Sarah. Of
course Mark was with us most of the time and he too did a great job. I really love working with the younger people
like Mark and Jeremy. I’m always
impressed with their desire to get involved in their community instead of
sitting home playing video games or being destructive like so many kids you see
in the news. I wish more young people
like this got the positive recognition. Mark
worked with us every day, he worked just as hard as we did and was very mature
for his age. We all really enjoyed having him with us.
It was a great experience at this affiliate and I hope to
join them again next year. They are
doing a womans build that I may participate in if the timing is right.
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