Chapter 15: The Break

Jack bent over the sheet of marine plywood and, using a tape measure, double checked the lines drawn on the surface. He made measurements along the reference points and compared the results to the specifications in the blueprint. They all matched.

“What are you building?”

Not having heard his neighbor approach, Jack was surprised. Turning to face the younger man, he said, “Oh, it’s you, George. You startled me.”

“Sorry. So what are you building?”

“A boat,” Jack answered. He gestured over to the blueprints and said, “It’s a little Jon Boat.”

George Liberman looked over the blueprints for a second. It looked like a lot of work to build the boat. He said, “Looks like it will be a nice little boat for fishing. Where did you get the plans?”

“It is from an old Popular Mechanics magazine,” Jack answered with a smile. He had found the plans on the web and wasn’t quite sure when the issue containing them had been published. It had taken him almost two weeks to find full size plans that could be used to actually build the boat.

“Why build a boat? You can probably get an aluminum boat for about what the wood will cost you,” George asked looking over the materials list. He hadn’t bought any hardware in years and wasn’t all that sure how much it would cost.

“I’d have to pay for the aluminum boat all at once. I’ll spread out the purchase of the parts for this, for a couple of months,” Jack answered, “Besides, I want to build it.”

Jack went over to the workbench to get his saw. He picked up a curve saw that had belonged to his father. His father had taught him how to work with wood using these same tools. His dad had told him that using manual tools the old fashioned way was more work than using power tools, but you remembered your mistakes a lot longer. It was a good way to learn. If he’d had a son, he would have done the same thing. Having a daughter had left him somewhat confused as to what he could pass down.

“You’re using that old thing?” George asked looking at the old saw with disdain. He hadn’t seen a tension saw in years. As if he was sharing some valuable piece of information, he added, “You know, they do make saws that are powered by a motor.”

“I know. I own a power saw that would make short work of this,” Jack answered with a laugh. Looking down at the plywood, he said, “I want to take my time doing this.”

Their conversation was interrupted when Lisa came out with a can of coke. Holding it out to him, she said, “Dad, I saw you were working out here and thought you might like something to drink.”

Taking the Coke from her, he hugged her and said, “Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate it.”

She turned to George and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you out here. Would you like a Coke?”

“No thanks,” George answered.

“Okay,” she said. Turning back to her father, she said, “I’m going to help mom in the house.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the help,” Jack said with a smile. Smiling, she ran back into the house to rejoin her mother. He opened the coke and took a drink from the can.

George had watched the interaction with surprise. He’d never thought that the family was that close. He said, “That was nice of her.”

“Sure was,” Jack said setting the can down on the work bench. Looking at the frame saw, he asked, “Would you like to operate one end of this saw?”

George decided that he’d like that a lot. Glancing back at the house, he wondered what his wife would say. After thinking about it for a second, he decided that it didn’t matter to him.

Nodding his head, he said, “Yeah, I think I would.”

The two men went to work cutting out the traced pieces of the boat. With the two of them working on it, it wasn’t that hard. Jack asked, “So how’s the job?”

“Rough. I spend three weeks out of the month on the road,” George answered. He was a corporate trainer for a large company. He taught six different management courses and traveled from one major corporate location to another over the course of the year, visiting each six times. Most courses were five days, although he taught a few that lasted ten days.

“That’s a long time to be away from home.”

“Tell me about it. I am sick and tired of hotels, restaurants, and airlines,” George said. He had the same breakfast foods from the breakfast bars in the hotels where he stayed. If he had to eat another turkey sandwich catered for lunch, he thought he would go crazy. Dinner was almost always a hotel restaurant meal. It seemed to him like they only had ten items. Leaving the hotel usually meant chain restaurants. There were times when he would have killed just to have a bologna sandwich, canned soup, and a glass of cold milk.

“Must be hard to live like that,” Jack said.

“Weekends are the hardest. There’s nothing to do but sit around the hotel room and stare at the walls.”

“Why don’t you fly home on the weekends?”

“Even a two hour flight takes five hours by the time you take into account the early arrival at the airport, transit times to and from the airport, rental cars, and all the other hassles of traveling. I end up traveling ten hours to spend thirty two hours at home. It’s hardly worth it,” George said. He had tried it a few times when he was new to the job. He stopped when he ended up getting home at four in the morning Saturday and had to leave at six in the morning the very next day. He was at home for twenty six hours and had slept through fourteen of them.

Jack paused sawing and looked over the board at George. Like a lot of people who didn’t fly often, he didn’t take into account all of the time required to get to and from the airport. Not aware of modern airport security, he didn’t consider that traveling had just become even more difficult. He said, “I didn’t think of that. Still, you must miss being at home with your wife and family. I’m sure they miss you. I bet you have a nice welcome when you get home.”

Frowning, George leaned against the sheet of plywood and looked around to see if he would be overheard. He said, “To tell the truth, coming home after three weeks on the road isn’t all that much fun. The kids don’t remember me that well. They’re just three and five years old. The wife spends all of her time with them and it is rough on her. She never gets a break. As a result, she’s never in a good mood when I get home. I usually get hit with all of the problems of the past three weeks within minutes of getting home.”

“Ugh, that must be horrible,” Jack said.

“I spend the first and last full day taking care of the house. That really doesn’t leave me much time for the wife or kids,” George said. He wasn’t going to mention that for the past three trips, his wife’s cycle was in sync with his times at home. That was another source of pressure.

“I bet,” Jack said. He asked, “Is your wife going to get upset that you’re over here talking with me when you could be over there with her?”

“Probably, but I’m enjoying this. Let’s get back to sawing,” George said with a smile. The fact of the matter was that he didn’t have a chance to have any kind of friendship with his travel schedule. The only person who he talked to with any regularity was his wife and that was a nightly telephone call for three weeks and one week at home. All his other conversations were work related.

The two men finished cutting out the first plywood part and went on to the next one. While they worked, Jack considered what kind of life his neighbor was living. It didn’t sound like much of a life. He said, “It must be lonely being away from home all that time.”

“Lonely is hardly the word for it. Every week I have to deal with another set of twenty strangers for seven hours a day. All conversation is associated with work. Every night, I make a telephone call home, but that usually lasts five to ten minutes. When I’m on the other coast, I don’t even get much of a telephone call home. The rest of the time is spent staring at the walls of the hotel room.”

Jack tried to imagine sitting around every night and all weekend doing nothing. That kind of life would drive him crazy. He said, “You have to do something to fill your time.”

“Can’t exactly take a hobby with me,” George said. He chuckled and said, “Can you imagine me trying to build a boat while staying in a hotel? I’d have to lug all this around from hotel to hotel. Imagine the sawdust.”

Jack laughed at the idea and said, “I guess sawdust in your bed wouldn’t be any better than cracker crumbs.”

The men worked with the saw at a nice even pace. It wasn’t long before the wooden parts were stacked up on the floor of the garage. George stepped back and looked at his hands. They were a little raw from the work and said, “I don’t get many opportunities to do physical work like that any more. If it weren’t for the workout rooms in some of the hotels, I’d be three hundred pounds.”

“What do you miss the most when you’re traveling?”

“Home cooked meals,” George answered. That was one of the sources of conflict between his wife and him. He’d come back from a trip where he had eaten out every night for three weeks and she wanted to have dinner at a restaurant.

Understanding the problem without George having to tell him, Jack said, “I bet the wife is real happy about that. I’m sure she wants to go out to eat when you get home.”

“You can say that again.”

“So do you take her out?”

“No. That’s usually our second big argument of the week,” George answered. The first argument was always about the work that had to be done around the house. He would just step in the door and she would be giving him the list of stuff he needed to do before leaving.

“You should take her out,” Jack said.

“Not you too,” George said with a groan. After hearing his wife nag him about it all week, he couldn’t believe a guy would be taking her side.

“Hey, I’m not taking her side. I’m taking yours,” Jack replied. He could see that he had struck a nerve.

“Why do you say that?”

“Look, I bet for the week that you are at home she talks constantly about going out to eat. Am I right?”

George nodded his head in agreement. He answered, “You can say that again.”

“So you take her out and make her happy. I know that you don’t want to do that, but it is just one evening. The rest of the time, she’ll be a little happier.”

Shaking his head, George said, “You don’t understand. I’ve come to hate eating in restaurants. It is even worse with the kids along. We can’t even go to a good restaurant; we have to go to a family place. You can’t enjoy a meal with kids screaming, low quality fatty food, and tables crammed together.”

“So get a babysitter and leave the kids at home,” Jack said with a shrug.