The Do-It-Yourself Hero: Habitat for Humanity Volunteer

My wife worries about me. As I pursued my career as a forester, she worried that I would get bitten by a rattlesnake or burned up in a forest fire or attacked by a pack of marauding rabbits. Since I retired, she's worried that I might get bored.

To give credit, she's not a hand-wringing, whining worrier. When she perceives a problem worth worrying about, she jumps in and seeks a solution. While there was nothing much to do about bloodthirsty cottontails, she could certainly find a remedy for ennui. Boredom, she reasoned, is a function of inactivity; the obvious solution is to keep me busy.

And she's done a pretty good job of it so far. In a couple of years of retirement, I've re-landscaped the front yard, built a sidewalk, laid some new floor covering, tiled the kitchen countertops, fixed innumerable plumbing problems, and painted three rooms that didn't need painting. In fact, I was getting so active I had to get a job for a while to rest up.

When the job ran out, she started worrying again. The house was in good shape and there just weren't enough projects to keep me occupied. I joined a gym, but that was only good for about an hour a day. There was way too much time left for reading, snacking and napping, and that could lead to only one outcome . . . boredom!

Then one Sunday morning she found the answer! There nestled on the newspaper's community events page was a call to public service: Habitat for Humanity was seeking volunteers for their Harvest Team. Undaunted by the fact that neither of us knew what a Harvest Team was, she cut out the article and drew a red circle around the phone number. I knew the next step . . . it was time for me to join the doddering ranks of the retired guy volunteer corps.

Turns out a Harvest Team salvages usable building materials from structures that are going to be remodeled or torn down. The materials are then used in Habitat for Humanity building projects or sold in one of their ReStore retail outlets. (If you're not familiar with Habitat for Humanity, check their site at http://www.habitat.org.) The perfect solution, my wife reasoned . . . since I was already a Do-It-Yourself Hero around the house, I could use those same skills for the good of mankind. (Oh, my.)

Keep in mind that this is salvage, not demolition. While the concepts are similar, there are subtle differences. Tools for demolition generally run to large hammers, crowbars, and vicious reciprocating saws. Salvage, on the other hand, requires some additional equipment like pipe wrenches, crescent wrenches, pliers, wire cutters, and battery-driven screwdrivers, all wielded with at least a modicum of care. Either process is pretty therapeutic for relieving stress and venting aggression.

My first Harvest assignment was to help remove fixtures from a stately old house whose new owner was planning a full scale renovation. The house was huge . . . three levels, about 15 big rooms, five baths, a warren of hallways and passages, and a couple of dozen closets and service rooms.

A big job, but ours was a well-balanced crew: two muscular young Habitat employees and me. I was three times their age, half as strong, and needed a stepladder just to get up into the back of our rented box truck.

Before the day was out, we must have harvested thirty solid wood interior doors, all of which were more substantial than the front entrance to my house. The last few we loaded on the truck seemed especially substantial to me, but the young guys didn't seem to notice. Guess they just weren't paying attention . . .

Also into the truck went a couple of dozen of louvered bifold doors, armloads of interior window shutters, two stainless steel work sinks, a bunch of ceiling fans, various vanity tops, and a few light fixtures. One of the guys was able to pry out two built-in bookcases that were close to nine feet tall. Among the other treasures were a couple of fireplace inserts and a mantel, an icemaker, and a wrought iron chandelier.

The prize of the day was a ten-foot long double sink and countertop we found in an upstairs bathroom. Before it was over, we wished we hadn't been so lucky . . . it must have weighed 400 pounds. By the time we got that sucker down two flights of stairs and into the truck, the young guys needed a break and I needed a chiropractor.

When I got home, my wife couldn't wait to hear all about my volunteer experience . . . it was, after all, her idea. A good day, I told her: I didn't have to go to the gym, I certainly wasn't bored, and I got the satisfaction of having done something worthwhile.

I should have stopped there. But no, I had to give her a play-by-play. I mentioned all those doors, the sinks, the mantel . . . and then I mentioned the interior shutters. She cocked her head to one side, narrowed her eyes, got up, and walked out without a word. I found her in the dining room measuring windows. "Let's go down to the ReStore," she said. "I hear they have a new supply of shutters."

For more adventures of the DIY Hero, check http://www.associatedcontent.com/kencabe