A good man is hard to find
Among the pages of newspapers under the linoleum flooring of our old house were the pearls of wisdom from 1930s advice columnist Dorothy Dix. When a reader asked her to define a “nice boy,” Miss Dix did not equivocate:
“My idea of a ‘nice boy’ is one who is clean inside and out. He is a boy who thinks clean thoughts, who likes clean sports, who enjoys clean amusements, who reads clean books, and who prefers clean girls. The things that are filthy, spiritually and morally, are as disgusting to him as it would be breathe the air of a sewer or eat out a garbage can.”
A remarkably tall order for any boy, much less a man. By Dot’s estimation, my Greg would have been deeply inhaling sewer gases and gobbling garbage on occasion. But, partners in house projects and in life must accept the messiness of their undertaking, and imperfections in each other. We have been tested by frayed patience, short fuses, and the renovation bone-weariness that is a constant dull reminder we are not so young anymore.
The “project”, as my sister-in-law has dubbed our house venture, would have left me curled in a fetal position by now wondering what happened to my Pinterest dreams were it not for Greg. A civil engineer by training, he is a linear thinker and a logical doer. No problem evades Greg’s solution.
He has put his strong back and able mind into the blue house, thinking and rethinking floor plans, meticulously plotting locations for light fixtures and switches, planning every inch of the kitchen and the bedeviling second bathroom we will squeeze under the eaves upstairs.
A new-to-us house is starting to emerge from the wreckage. For that I can thank the guy with the ragged work boots and the dirty jeans, the “nice boy” and the good man I met more than half a lifetime ago.
Blue House Red Barn 