I vaguely recall visiting Washington Island for the first time. It was in the early 80's and I was with the woman who would later become my wife. It had been a splendid weekend, a falling in love kind of weekend. We were nearing the end of our "Cherry Train" excursion, me looking off the rear of the caboose at the receding pastoral landscape. I recall having this wistful thought that maybe we could make a life here.

Believing that our first Washington Island experience had contributed appreciably to sealing the deal between us, Carroll and I , and later our children, became annual island visitors. We would stay at the Gibsons Resort, an inexpensive one time logging camp, owned by the Island's long time mailman. Herb, Mariann, and their six children offered simple, meticulously clean lodging with a family hostel feel. They provided for our family, as they did for many others, a way to experience the island beyond the "Cherry Train". We would often see the same faces at Gibson's from one year to the next. They, like us, came from larger urban areas, roof racks straining under all manner of pricey recreational equipment and intent on vacationing in earnest. Gibson's is quite beautiful, but over time I came to believe that there was more to the allure of the place. I'm sure that the Gibson's have their fair share of woes but for me, and I suspect others, watching them live their lives was quite a revelation. They didn't appear to be tethered to the same insatiable need for more and fancier that figured so prominently in our lives. I would wonder how they'd managed this and how our family might move in that direction. My daughter speculated that it might result from poor television reception. This seemed sadly reflective of our predicament. What increasingly drew me to the Gibson's was the hope that whatever was going on in that family might rub off on me and mine.

Over those many years of annual visits I remained, of course, an Island outsider. From my vantage point, the lives of genuine islanders appeared impenetrable. I would, on occasion, slip off to the local café, take a booth by the big communal "local's table" and attempt to eavesdrop on their conversation. Unfortunately, the thoughtless banter of other patrons made it difficult to hear and posing follow up questions seemed ill advised. Each year I looked forward to picking up the "island weekly" and catching up on snippets of island life. At some point along my inexorable path toward obsession, I began foregoing the snippets, and turning directly to the real estate offerings. It wasn't long before I was taking long circuitous drives to survey the offerings from the road, "just for the heck of it," I recall telling my wife. Unfortunately, these little pleasure drives were often more discouraging than entertaining. It pained me to see those modestly priced little homes and pastoral building sites quickly snatched up at ever escalating prices.

Despite the impracticality of such a thing, the desire to build a modest dwelling on the Island seemed to affix itself to my brain like gum to a tennis shoe. The idea took hold of me, sort of snuck in through the back door of my psyche. Before I could marshal my admittedly underdeveloped powers of reason, it had taken up permanent residence. A cottage of our own, for our children, and our children's children, came to occupy larger and larger portions of my idle reverie. I'd seen the extraordinary community that existed here. I'd seen the powerful unifying effect for those families fortunate enough to share a physical connection to this Island, even when circumstances scattered some of them to distant points. I came to believe that nothing short of our own Island roof could ensure this for our family. I also realized that the cost of such a roof was increasing at a heartbreaking clip. I would either need to have my dream exorcized or find a way to act on it.
It's possible that you the reader have similarly succumbed to the magic of your own Island, or that you teeter now on the edge. A torturous uncertainty. Cabin building, like other risky endeavors is not for the faint of heart. I thought such a person might find something useful in a recounting of my building experience.

Before going further, I feel obliged to inform the reader of a salient fact that may bear on the weight they wish to give my advice. At about the time this all began I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, Multiple Sclerosis. MS is a neurological disorder that has cognitive as well as physical implications. Attitudinally, I'm a poor candidate for such news. I was informed by the medically knowledgable that they didn't kow what caused MS, didn't know how to fix it, and didn't know where it would take me. The reader will have to decide for themselves how much those pesky little central nervous system lesions have affected the authors judgement.

For the purposes of this account we'll divide my saga into its several stages. First we will tackle the guileful preliminaries, then on to the land acquisition, the scavenging/design phase, and finally, the actual house building. The guileful preliminary stage includes all of the mental machinations we've already touched upon as well as the tasks of searching for land and figuring out where you'll get the money for even the most modest of structures. The land of course is a problem. It's getting harder to find, and it costs what it costs. Waiting for it to get cheaper is unlikely to get you there. As to the money for your project I can only report that you'll likely need a good deal more than you have.

The Guileful Preliminaries
I actually had no idea what the various parts of a habitable structure were, or how much such things as septic systems, foundations, etc.cost. In retrospect, this was a very good thing as it prevented reality from intruding on my planning. I'd recommend that the dreamers among you keep yourselves in the dark about such practical matters until you are irreversibly committed. Because I'd come of age reading the likes of Mother Earth News, I was sure that an "owner built" method must exist that would allow me to realize my dream at little cost. While confidently embracing this belief, I seemed to have forgotten my complete lack of building skills and my proven lack of aptitude. I spent a great deal of time researching articles with titles such as "We built our energy efficient 5000 square foot wilderness home from old tractor tires for under $2000.00". Or, "Get off the grid!! Build your own electricity, plumbing and water systems for pennies". I read about domes, yurts, tipis, A- Frames, panelized homes, manufatured homes, underground homes, hay bale houses, tree houses, log houses, sod houses and little bitty Houses. At first glance many of these seemed quite doable and inexpensive. You can imagine how disappointed I was to learn that a habitable structure involves more than protection from the elements. I eventually had to acknowledge that such plans were not likely to work for me, nor were they likely to pass muster with the Door County Building Inspector.

My idle musing phase gave way to a guileful acquisition phase on the day I encountered a seven foot tall industrial , stainless steel, combination kitchen unit that had recently been torn from a state institution somewhere. It was in an industrial salvage yard at a near giveaway price. At the time, neither I nor anyone in my family had any conceivable use for such an item. I bought it anyway and in so doing sealed my irreversible commitment to bringing my dream to fruition. I brought it home and put it in the corner of my garage with a large tarp over it. The tarp was necessary to avoid premature inquiries from curious family members. I wasn't yet prepared to enter into the actual negotiating phase with the more realistic forces within my family. It was my belief that the garage should contain a certain critical mass of seemingly useless scavenged items before I could use their mere existence to bolster the case for building. When finally the question arose, as surely it must, "what in God's name is under all of those tarps, and why is there no longer room for the lawnmower?", I would need to come at least partially clean. I would confess that I had acquired these truly unique and interesting items at very little cost on the off chance that we might someday be able to build that little house in the woods. I hoped to convey the idea was just one of many whimsical notions floating around in my creative little mind and consequently, there was no need for an immediate "sitdown" regarding family goals, priorities etc. My goal was to amass a sufficient bulk of scavenged goods to make plausible an argument that we already had most of the stuff that made building so expensive. All we really had to do now was to fill in the spaces to connect the stuff we already had. It struck me as reasonable.

The Scavenging
If you only keep adding, little by little, it will soon be a big heap.
Hessiod (c.a. 700BC)

I began to prowl the industrial salvage yards, junk dealers and second hand stores that handled used building materials. I dearly love junk of all sorts. The economics of the matter aside, scavenging is just plain fun. If you hope to build someday, I suggest you get out there and begin scavenging in earnest. Where I live, some of the second hand stores, particularly St. Vincents, are good sources for used building material,s as are salvage yards, junk dealers and newspaper ads. I should inject a word of advice here regarding the second hand shops. Since the pricing of items appears entirely arbitrary, you want to find the oldest employee in the store before you inquire. That individual will recognize your desired item as the used up junk that it is and will price it accordingly. The younger guy with the multiple piercings is likely to find some "retro" value in your item and think it worth more.

I'm a Friday regular at UW's huge Swap Shop Warehouse and a mainstay at Delaneys Salvage in Sauk City. The best news in recent times has been the Habitat for Humanities Resale stores. These places are the pinnacle, the mother lode, of high quality, cheap stuff. The used building materials section of the newspaper is another useful source. The newspaper ads tend to be of two sorts: The tradesman seeking to unload excess materials at a somewhat discounted cost and the homeowner seeking to get his mistakes out of his garage at any cost. You want to move quickly on the latter.

The very competitive pursuit of the good deals took me to some interesting places. Imagine if you will that you open the Sunday paper and find an ad for nine, yes nine, new custom windows of varying shapes and sizes to the first $275.00. Imagine again that you are still in the guileful preliminary stages of building, meaning that you haven't actually discussed your need for nine new windows with your loved ones, and now does not appear to be the best moment for such a sit down. You dial the listed number and hear from the fellow that yes, he still has them but another caller has spoken for them, sight unseen. The other fellow lives a ways out of town and is going to wait for the heavy snow to let up before making the trip to the seller's house. The seller, being a fair minded sort, indicates that the first person showing up with $275.00 gets the windows.

Well, it's dinnertime and I mumble some lame excuse about the need to run a few errands and head out. Its snowing hard and dark out, and the directions take me a good deal farther into the country than I had anticipated. When I finally locate the rural farmhouse, it's a truly uninviting place. It's set back from the highway, mostly dark, one lightbulb above a makeshift doorway and a large dog straining at his chain to get at me. I knock, and moments later a wild looking guy with a bible in one hand and a beer in the other comes to the door. I tell him I came about the windows. He begins pumping my arm, slapping me on the back, and telling me about Jesus. Says he's through with hard drugs. Tells me he's never going back to jail. He's truly sorry about all that stealing and hurting people. I'm thinking that this fellow's religious conversion could not be more than a couple of hours old and that no one is going to hear my screams for help when the chemical cocktail responsible for his redemption wears off and he decides to kill me. I try to get the conversation back to the windows while edging towards the door. I'm telling him I've really enjoyed our conversation, but I really should be getting home. He suddenly remembers why I've come and insists that we go out to the barn for a look at the windows. I'm pretty sure I'll soon be trussed and hanging from the rafters, but, darn it, I want those windows. After a cursory perusal of the goods I give him the $275.00 in my pocket. I tell him how heartening it is to see a fella getting his life in order and that I'd be back for those windows sometime soon. He's standing in the snow in his T-shirt waiving the bible at me as I beat a hasty retreat to my car. I count those windows among my greatest scavenging coups.

THE LAND
It was on one of my random Island driveabouts that I happened upon a gravel road I'd not stumbled upon before. Ridgewood Road the sign said. The road was on the farthest corner of the Island, in close proximity to my favorite Island destination, Jackson Harbor. It was a little L shaped road, not on the way to anyplace. It angled off a road of somewhat greater utility and rejoined it a mile or so later. A road you'd have to will yourself to find. It abutted a protected natural area known as the "Ridges". The Ridges is a fragile area of fauna, flora, and geology that extends a couple of hundred yards inland from the meandering lakeshore and culminates at a rocky outcropping known as "Carlin's Point". Some years earlier the farsighted folks at The Nature Conservancy had recognized the importance of this unique shoreline archipelago and purchased what they could to insure it's protection.Later the Town, at the behest of some determined citizens purchased an abutting stretch of shoreline that combined to create a natural area of protected beach and sandy woodland. Footpaths meander through the area culminating at a rocky point that looks out to Rock Island and the incomplete, mythical world Chester Thoradson sought to create in the early part of the century.
As I made my way down the hill and around the L curve of this little road, I noticed a Northstar Realty For Sale sign tacked to a tree. Northstar Realty was owned and run by Butch and Lorel Gordon. I had it on good authority that they were the realtors to deal with should you ever need to deal with a realtor. The For Sale sign looked to have been there a while. I stopped and looked about a bit and thought to myself that this little parcel couldn't be prohibitively expensive. The closest neighbor was likely the neighboring log cabin and that was a comfortable piece up the road.

I left the car, hoping I might find the survey stakes that marked the parcel's boundaries. I located two pipes that marked the lands expanse along road frontage and headed into the woods in an effort to find the back boundary. The land was heavily wooded, primarily with cedars, but there were quite a few older hardwoods and a lovely stand of birch. The property rose gently away from the road for about fifty yards, leveled, and fell away into a shallow ravine before climbing again into a beautiful birch forest. I wandered about, stepping over the lush expanses of moss that carpeted the downed wood. I bent and picked up a sampling of the rocks strewn about the forest floor. Many had surfaces partially covered with coral like fossils. They looked much like rocks I'd seen during a visit to Key West years earlier. I located the back property stakes halfway up the hill beyond the ravine, and plunked myself down on an uprooted tree. Before me was a moist and lush little forest world. A place, I imagined, where an exiled Hobbit or a limping boomer might feel equally at home.
I brought Carroll to see the land later that day. I can't say with any certainty whether Carroll was excited about my discovery. Alright, it's unlikely that Carroll would ever have gone looking for property on her own. In truth I don't think she really had much interest in becoming an Island landowner. But, as I believe I mentioned, my wife is an extraordinarily selfless and generous person. Having lived with her for 23 years, I can tell you with an absolute straight face that what makes Carroll happy is the opportunity to make the kids and/or me happy. In a world where insatiability is the norm, Carroll is oddly free of material wants. I, on the other hand, have an endless list of things I desire and a rather deplorable inclination to press them. Having lived with my reprehensible self for as long as I have, I've tried to be mindful of this. I believe I've made incremental progress towards taming this propensity over the years, but habitual patterns die hard.

The Land Purchase
Carroll thought we should go visit Butch and see how much this little piece of paradise was listed for. We found Butch at the office and eased into our casual inquiry. One should not appear too smitten when approaching even the most integrious of Realtors. It took Butch a bit to recall the particular parcel we were speaking of. When he made the connection he indicated that it had been on the market for quite some time and was owned by a retired Milwaukee policeman and his wife who seemed to have lost their enthusiasm for the Island. They had come religiously for many years, camping in their travel trailer on their property. He seemed to recall that they'd had friends who owned a nearby parcel and the families brought their campers to the island at the same time. He knew that one of the latter couple had died and they'd sold their land. He speculated that this may have played a part in this owners decision to put their place on the market.

Butch looked up the listing contract and reported that the parcel was approximately two acres and was listed for $7,500. He told us that the area in which the parcel lay had been developed by Lou Small, a long time resident who owned an excavation company on the Island. He recalled that Lou had pulled off a coup of sorts in gaining Town approval for his project. The lots were smaller than those currently required by the town to build on, and he had built in to the project protected easements that insured access to the protected public land and waterfront. This, Butch told us, was quite unusual and not likely be replicated today. In addition, the road was a dedicated town road, meaning that the town plowed and maintained it. He didn't recall anyone expressing interest in the land in recent times. Carroll and I contained our enthusiasm(or, I at least contained enthusiasm sufficient for both of us) and told Butch we were going to have coffee and discuss the matter. I don't recall the discussion, only that Carroll agreed that we should make an offer. We agreed that $7,000 might cinch the deal given that it had been on the market for awhile. We returned to Butch and drew up the formal offer. Butch seemed to feel that the owners would be favorably inclined towards our offer. Butch stepped into the office area to call the owners. We stood anxiously in the open doorway.
Butch was successful in reaching the owners and both ends of the ensuing conversation were audible from where we stood fifteen feet away. The owner of the property, the retired Milwaukee policeman, was clearly an angry, bellicose sort. He began raging as soon as Butch informed him of the reason for the call. Though I couldn't get the full gist of his bellowing I could make out enough.

"That lands worth a damn site more than you listed it for", and "Ya think I'm some kinda fool?.. I don't want nothin more to do with you..do you hear me, not a damn thing! We're through, got that? Through! Cancel that listing! I don't want nothin more to do with you and I don't owe you a damn thing... I ain't sellin damn it... ya hear me pal?.. I'll sell that land myself, and I'll sell it for what it's worth!" click.

I was thinking that this fellow must have been a favorite of Milwaukee's recently retired police chief. The infamous Chief Brier had a renowned fondness for bangin' heads and had built a force of like minded minions. It's likely Butch would have been in for a good old fashioned police pummeling but for the 150 miles that separated him from the retired peace officer. As I recall, an embarrassed Butch mustered a polite goodbye well after his client had slammed down the phone. There ensued an awkward and pregnant silence. I thought to myself that the prospect of a counter offer was not looking good. Butch turned his palms up in apparent befuddlement. "Well" he said, "that didn't seem to go very well".

Butch obviously felt badly that our hopes had been raised and so abruptly dashed. He was not inclined to go another round with the disgruntled policeman, despite the legally binding listing the fellow had signed with him. He indicated that he was more than willing to waive any claim to a fee and cut the fellow loose. He thought it remotely possible that the fellow might be more reasonable if we were to contact him directly. Butch gave us the necessary information and wished us luck.

I'm pretty easily discouraged and also a bit conflict avoident.Consequently, I saw little reason to pursue the matter, preferring in my usual way, to sulk. As a younger man I'd had my own run ins with the Milwaukee police and thought it best not to provoke them. Carroll, however, had never been an overnight guest at the Milwaukee Safety Building. She recognized my disappointment and felt calling the guy worth a try.

I believe I've mentioned what a sweet and disarming person Carroll is. As an RN she has an unrivaled and uncanny knack for taming the most hostile and distraught of patients. The most cantankerous among us simply cannot maintain hostility in the face of her unwavering kindness. She called the policeman and after his venom was spent, this pathologically angry bully whimpered and succumbed. She offered him $1,000 more than the listing price, agreeing that, yes the price had certainly been too low, and yes he was certainly justified in being unhappy, blah, blah, blah. He came to Madison the following day with his wife, who apparently was anxious to meet this sweet young woman, and we finalized the transaction.

The Retirement
A mans real worth is determined by what he does when he has nothing to do.
Miggido Message
A not insignificant plus to having a chronic progressive illness that cannot be fixed is that I was able to retire early. I cannot overstate my pleasure at waking one day with " nothin' much to do". Oh sure, I probably cast about for an hour or two wondering what I might do with the rest of my life, but since that morning five years ago, I don't recall such uncertainty revisiting. It's true that I had considerably less capacity than I'd once had to exploit my freedom, but I was by no means incapacitated. Exile from the responsibilities of the work a day world seemed to free large tracks of mental real estate for idle musing. Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum.

In the Fall of 1999 I was a prematurely retired 50 year old with a pronounced gimp and a knawing uncertainty about what might come next . Fall, I recalled, is a lovely time on the Island. I began making frequent solo forays to commune with my parcel of Island property, staying as usual at the Gibson's. The island seemed transformed with the departure of the summer inhabitants. The Islander's penchant for always waving to one another returned to it's usual vigor and full compliance after the tourist induced fatigue of late summer. The Ferry's ran less often, sometimes with only a handful of passengers. When the lake began to freeze, the broken ice dislodged by the ferry glittered like jewels in the sunlight. The open Island businesses were pared down to the necessary few. I would sometimes ride my bike on the empty Island roads, weaving dreamily back and forth from one side to the other (my equilibrium was still operating then). Often I would just drive about and find excuses to stop in to visit with any merchants still open. I was frequently the Gibson's only guest, which made it easier to corner one or the other of them and slake my thirst for Island information. Herb, after all was the mailman.

With winter came a quiet, austere beauty. With the snow and ice a complex spiderweb of trails appeared for the passage of snowmobiles and ATV's. My revised self image as a retired, taxpaying landowner gave me the confidence to foist myself, unabashedly upon my "fellow islanders". I went to any community event that I got wind of. I attended, my first progressive dinner, an annual event organized by members of the islands fundamentalist Christian Church. I went to Town Board meetings, School Board meetings, student drama presentations, and even Sunday church services. To my pleasant suprise, when real islanders were not forced to accommodate throngs of summer visitors, they turned out to be quite accessible and friendly. I began to make friends. My new friends were not drawn from the same homogenous pool that had always constituted my world. Seniors, tradespeople, people proud of their religious faith, rich people, farmers, Inn keepers and yes, even Republicans. It came as quite a revelation to me to find that most of the latter group did not come from the "snuffing Central Americans for sport" wing of the Republican Party. They were kind people, misguided certainly, but not malevolent. I recall spending a good amount of time walking about my small plot of land, picking up rocks here and there, and fantasizing about the really nifty place I would someday build.

The truth was that I'd fallen unabashedly in love with the place. At least it felt like love. My heart would begin to beat a bit faster as I passed Aunt Bea's Ho-Made Pies, and wound my way to the Northport Ferry. Waiting to board, I'd be all atwitter with a suitors anticipation. By the time the boat crossed Deaths Door I'd slipped the grip of detached irony. Rolling off the other side I thought myself a decidedly nicer person and thought the same to be true of others. I suddenly wanted to bring my Island friends pies. I began to believe that I might have artistic potential and that perhaps my singing wasn't all that bad. I would look around at this new world and wonder how I might borough in and put my shoulder to the collective good. The more time I spent on the Island, the more I learned about the community, the more I wanted to be there.

The Airstream
I moved my vintage Airstream Trailer ( you can read about this beauty in another story, Airstreams and the Allure of Bright Metal) to Washington Island awhile after we'd acquired the property. I'd rented a rather large truck in Madison to tow my Airstream trailer to the Island. Much to my delight and suprise, I succeeded in getting the 24 ft truck and 24 ft. Airstream to the Island without mishap. The task of backing this snaking 50+ ft truck/trailer combo some distance along a narrow and twisting cul de sac into it's final resting place lay ahead. For those of you who've not attempted to reverse a large appendage of this sort through terrain that cannot actually be seen from the cockpit of your rental truck, allow me a brief primer. You back up until you strike an unmovable object, stop, pull ahead, reverse the turn of the wheel, and back until you hit another unmovable object. Proceed in this fashion until your trailing appendage is so battered as to no longer be worth the effort or your destination is reached.

I thought perhaps I'd be satisfied once I had the Airsteream situated on my piece of the Island. That, I told myself, would be somewhat akin to having my own Island place. The unsettling truth was that County ordinances actually forbade me from parking my vintage caravan for more than two consecutive weeks despite it being my property. It was unlikely that county zoning officials were going to be snooping about my remote corner of the Island but my gleaming silver bullet was visible from the road and from the air. It was entirely possible that someone with an aversion to trailers, someone perhaps lacking the discriminating appreciation of a vintage Airstream, would alert the authorities and get me evicted. Having to move the trailer didn't much concern me but feeling so tenuously rooted to my property and to my Island bothered me greatly. I knew I'd rolled this residence in here and, consequently it could be rolled out. That wasn't the kind of permanence I yearned for. What I really wanted was my name in that little bitty Island phonebook and for Bob the postman to be going for my mail when he saw me pull up out in front of the office.
I did create a cozy little world in and around my gleaming Land Yacht. I built a deck, a fire pit, planted containers filled with flowers, unfolded my butterfly chairs and surveyed, for hours at a time, all that was mine. More camping out than actually occupying a dwelling. My family's enthusiasm for the set up was greatly tempered by the exposed woodland port-a potty arrangement. Consequently, I spent the preponderance of this chapter in the saga solo. I was never really invested enough in the Airstream arrangement to read the manuals and figure out how the utilities in this marvel of design might be turned on. In fact when the weather turned unpleasant I sought refuge and warmth at the Gibsons.

Camping in the Airstream did allow me to wander endlessly about my little plot, seeing how the sunlight changed over the course of the day, how the soft mosses thrived on the decaying fallen trees. And, of course sitting on logs weighing the merits of different building sites, and fantasizing for hours at a time about the little house I would someday build here. I could see much of it in my minds eye. A small structure with the attention to interior space that life onboard requires. Art as much as architecture, each unique detail in step with some compelling offbeat aesthetic that had taken root, fully formed in my lesion influenced brain. My fantasy construction was never limited by the practical limitations imposed on those possessing actual knowledge. I could see us there, snug as bugs, insulated from the harsh vicissitudes of the world across the water.

The Building
If you only keep adding, little by little, it will soon become a big heap.
Hessiod (c.a. 700BC)
My uncertainties regarding the sort of structure I would build were dispelled one afternoon while driving in my Madison neighborhood. I spotted a small log playhouse in the playground of a neighborhood day care center. I stopped to investigate and was struck by what a well built, solid little structure it was. It looked every bit as carefully constructed as the "packages" I'd been investigating. This was the just the sort of structure I had in mind, only you know...bigger. After some inquiry I learned that the builder lived in Richland Center, about an hours drive from Madison. They were a small, family concern, mostly builders of small barns and gazebos. I decided to drive out to investigate.

Amos and Mary's farm serves as the base of their business with a small crew working out of two pole barns. Amos and Mary have ten children, many of whom were helping in one way or another with the business. A cedar glider sits outside of Amos's small office with the prominent inscription " Amos loves Mary". In the course of my visit I learned that the family had been Pennsylvania Amish and had resettled in the area some years back. Apparently the move had something to do with a change in their religious views They now described themselves as "Born Again Christians", though their dress and lifestyle retained much in common with the Amish. They were obviously very devout people. I came to learn that many of the crew and the large extended family that comprised their household and the business had similar backgrounds. Amos and most of the others had been barn builders all of their lives. They now built small outbuildings, garages, sheds, and decorative structures There was a core of incredibly efficient builders, some family, some not, Occasionally there would be a couple of crewmen on temporary loan from Pennsylvania. Obviously, Amos drew from a labor pool not available to the average builder.
I explained to Amos what I hoped to have built and the limited resources I had to build them. After some discussion he indicated he'd be willing to have a go at the types of buildings I had in mind. They would build them in Rihland Center and when complete we would take them to Washington Island by truck and trailer. Since there was no
existing price structure for such things we began talking cost with the price of the garage structures he currently made.

I don't know how it usually goes between homeowners and builders but it required a man with the patience born of faith to listen to my hair brained plans. Armed with my freehand sketches the conversation would go something like this:

"Amos, would you frame and install my scavenged windows into the structure? Lets raise the roof pitch,...no, lets not. Lets make it a cedar shake roof....that much huh? ok lets do a metal roof... no, not the standing seam job, too pricey....the Menards cheaper stuff will have to do"

" Amos I'm thinking a loft would be nice for my daughter so we better add a dormer before things get any farther along, and could your guys install the sliding barn door rails that I think would look pretty nifty?"

"Amos, maybe we should punch out that front wall for a breakfast nook, what do you think? Amos I got these great skylights from a guy leaving town, do you think we could work them in?"

" Amos, I feel really bad about this but it looks like the rough dimensions I gave you for that big window weren't quite right, you think maybe we could alter the hole a bit?"

Amos would get this bemused look, get out his little notebook to refigure the cost. He did this by determining the costs of materials and figuring the man hours necessary to satisfy my whim. It never seemed to amount to much. These folks were so honest and straightforward that the idea of negotiating seemed sacrilegious. I'm confident that I could have taken my little sack of savings to Amos at the onset and just told him to give me back anything I had coming and it would have worked out just the same. In the end I was tickled pink with the whole deal, and Amos expressed the belief that it had worked out fairly for him and the crew as well.
I would drive out to the shop, hang around and watch my little structures take shape. Sometimes I'd bring the guys coffee and treats. Of those working on my house, one was No Longer Amish, another No Longer Mennonite, another No Longer Hutterite, and my main man, who would acknowledge only that he was no longer a hard drinker. Over time, we became friends and I got to know some of their spouses and children. I felt that they came to share my enthusiasm and really bent over backwards to build me a good little house.

I was fascinated by their lives. At Christmas time , when m houses were being built, I gave each of the guys working on my house a crisp $100.00 bill. I actually didn't have the money for this act of largess but I'd spent so much time listening to their unwavering goodness that I really hoped this windfall might cause at least one of them to run somewhat amuck. It likely got tithed.

Nearing the completion of my buildings I was in the office settling up with Amos when Mary came in. I was in the middle of making excuses for my most recent unreasonable request and lamenting my lack of useful knowledge when Mary leaned across the table, put her hand on mine, and said in the sweetest imaginable way "Dan, I'm sure God has given you a great many skills and talents, I can see clearly that it's so." I considered commissioning my own glider with the inscription: "Dan loves Mary, too".

In late November my No Longer Amish friends transported my little houses to the Island and with considerable effort plunked them down on their concrete pads. The delivery and plunk down were not without a good bit of drama. We got our first substantial snow on the day the first cabin arrived. Events appeared to be going from bad to worse, and my No Longer Amish friends were ill-equipped for the weather and in over their heads. I was beginning to despair when a number of Islanders magically appeared to save the day. At the time my only real connection with these folks was our mutual friendship with Mike Remke, who owns the Red Cup Coffeehouse. Walt Nehlson, Don Lockhart, Mike and others spent the better part of that cold, wet day compensating for my lack of planning. I would recommend that anyone considering doing anything complicated on the Island make an effort to befriend Mike Remke. Mike always knows what to do. It may help if you limp a bit when seeking his counsel.
It was in this way that the completed shells of my two little houses, the connecting breeze way, and my little garage came to rest peacably on Washington Island. There they sat, as cute as could be, waiting for the spring thaw to be awakened once again. My No Longer Amish friends promised they'd come back when the ice was gone and complete their part of the project.

It snowed pretty steadily throughout that winter. I would drive up to the Island whenever I could find an excuse to do so. I would park on the road, stare at my place and think what a lucky guy I was.

The Interior and Everything Else I'd Overlooked
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning. {Sir} Winston Churchill 1943

Only in the spring did I understand how far from completion my litle house actually was. The houses were well situated and closed to the elements but now there was the problem of creating and finishing the interior. A dizzing number of expensive, labor intensive tasks had totally eluded my awareness.. I had deluded myself into believing this was a relatively simple matter, and perhaps I could do the lions share of it myelf. This is yet another example of my overlooking my complete lack of knowledge and skills. My physical capacity to employ even those marginal skills had also declined. It's difficult to get much done when you've got to make repeated trips to the coffeehouse to find someone who knows how to do something and then find someone to actually do it. I hadn't realized how alone I would feel when my No Longer Amish friends went back to their No Longer Amish lives.

Never what you would term a "handy" fellow, I was fast becoming utterly useless to the repair of anything. Relatively simple tasks regularly confounded me. And, what compunded this was that my awareness of a departed capability seemed to lag way behind it's actual departure. I was regularly gathering the tools and materials for a task only to discover that the requisite capacity had gone by the boards. I did, however, pioneer some novel new handyman approaches. There was, for instance, my furious attempt to stab a woodscrew into it's required location.

The trouble with ineptness is that it leaves a person ever more dependent on the benevolence of others. I really hate this and always have. I've never liked asking for help and for the most part I haven't had to. It changes things between me and others. The usual reciprocity that attends friendship is thrown out of balance. The usual division of toil in domestic life is upset. More often than not I'm the guy looking for help, and I worry that even the most selfless will eventually tire of this.

I realized that I needed to find someone who possesed the building skills required to finish and make habitable my little house. Not as easy as you might think. If you want to hire a contractor to build your house, particularly an expensive house, this can be accomplished relatively easily (you may have to wait a while, but there are very capable builders in these parts who are more than willing to take on such a task). But to find a "handyman" sort, inclined to do a range of different tasks, well, these people are harder to find. There aren't many such people on this small Island and it seemed likely that such a person would already be occupied making more money than I could afford to pay them. I needed someone with a great deal of general competance, intelligence , and problem solving.ability...willing to work cheap.

This reader, is the point in the building process when the naieve, unrealistic, and underfunded neophyte (that would be me) teeters on the edge of panic. I began envisioning a partially complete, unlivable structure that I couldn't finish, live in, or sell. I imagined my debacle would enventually become a stop on the Cherry Train Tour. The driver would park out front and regale the passengers with the story of the ridiculous, gimpy Madisonian with the shoulder bag. "That old boy" he'd say," he could talk pretty good, but he was one dumb son of a bitch." He'd have em all in stitches.

I don't recall thinking this at the time, but at some point I realized I would have to throw my pitiful self onto the mercy of my island friends and hope they'd help me figure out what to do. This kind of reliance is tricky terrain for those of us in the ranks of the lame and infirm. We have some rules, unwritten rules, relating to our behavior. It is viewed as poor forrn to seek secondary gain for your predicament. Secondary gain is the inclination to seek some kind of special treatment or advantage from those who have some sympathy for your predicament. But, the truth is, thats pretty much what I did. My own covertly held belief is that a chronic illness is of no value whatsoever if you cannot seeek some degree of secondary gain, though one is wise to be subtle about this. Mike Remke took it upon himself to be my "expeditor", telling me what needed to be done and who could do it. Others just showed up or provided the direction necessary to complete essential tasks. The house slowly moved towards completion and before long I was comfortably ensconced within it. Building a house, it turns out, is as much dependent on personal relationships as it is technical know how. In my case a good deal more. I had grown to love these people and I think they'd grown passin' fond of me. Noone seemed anxious to see me and my shoulder bag slink away in heartbreak.

Lesions On The Brain and Architectural Design...a Synergistic Relationship, Or Cognitive Illusion?

So, what are we to make of the authors building experience? Does the story suggest the authors lesions to have been an asset in the creative design and completion of his little Island house or is his account simply a fancified depiction of decline? Your call, reader.

The construction of my little house occured almost entirely under the influence of central nervous system lesions. Lesions on the brain are not generally viewed as good news in that they initiate some rather unsettling physical and cognitive limitations. But hey, we're all in the process of decline to some degree. Oddly enough, more often than not, I feel somewhat kindly towards my pesky little lesions. I think they've made me a more creative person (or at least deluded me into thinking this true).The slow progression of lesion encroachment permits me the sense that I can observe the phenomenon as it happens. I imagine I can actually feel those lesions as they weigh on my thought processes. I recognize that enhanced creativity, if it occurs at all, is dependent on a delicate brain balance. Too many lesions and the whole deal likely goes south.

The presense of lesions certainly gives their bearer a degree of creative license that the lesion free may not enjoy.They provide an explanation for any wacky behavior or idea I may be inclined towards. Though arguably, I've always been a bit off kilter, I previously had no plausable excuse for my peculiarities. Lesions have been a god send in that respect. It's possible, I suppose, that what I've regarded as my creative ally has really denied me the capacity to differentiate a creative impulse from one that's simply nuts. Nah!.

Lesions do present some minor problems. There is, for instance, my inability to prioritize those things that are important from those things of lesser importance. Take as an example my house sign, (intended at one time to be my mailbox) pictured on the web page. Early on in the process of building I spent the better part of an afternoon digging the hole to accomodate my very, very creative mailbox. In doing so, I failed to appreciate the fact that the mailman didn't come down my road, and even if he had , the mailbox would have needed to be on the other side of the road. Fortunately the Post Office is next door to the coffeehouse providing yet another reason to flit away the day on the Red Cup porch.

If I was ever capable of "multitasking" the capacity is no longer with me. I'm only ableto focus my lesions on one project at a time. I had acquired a nifty little hand made skiff somewhwere in this period. Being preoccupied, I left it out in the rain for three years causing the transom to fall out. I decided to have a hole dug in my front yard and to sink the boat in the yard complete with motor. I'd then tie it up to my walk giving the illusion of a classic little skiff at rest. This seemed imminently reasonable to me, in that I have no interest in a boat with more mobility than I have. After having the hole dug, I changed my mind and had the hole filled in. I thought this was a clever idea but the prospect of coming home to the same joke ay after day seerned a bit tiring.
Well that is pretty much my whole story. My little Island house is adorable and fully functional. It remains, of course, a work in progress. When it was nearing completion the folks who organize the annual Island Home Tour (a fundraiser for the Farm Museum) asked if I might permit my house to be included on the tour. Some 400 people trouped through my little house on that day. Despite it's being the smallest and least costly of those on display, the organizers reported hearing it was many peoples favorite. Made me darn proud.

I take great solace in knowing that despite my many and varied failings as a homebuilder, husband, and father, that I've done at least one right and true thing.......... creating this little two acre world on Washington Island. I conceive of it as a place where my children can take refuge from the sometimes unbearably abrasive larger world. A place where they can someday bring their children and perhaps have it extend their world as it has mine. Novelist John Fowles captured my sentiments exactly when he wrote that " Islands are special places where the unconscious grows conscious, where possibilities mushroom, where imagination never sleeps"

My appreciation to all of those who have helped me with this project. Lou Small who developed the beautiful parcel of property on which my house sits, and who did a fine job installing my septic system. Randy Dvorak, a prince of a fellow, who came out on a miserable cold Packer Sunday to pour my foundation a day ahead of the cement closing. The guys from Anschwitz Plumbing who came out on their day off to stub in my plumbing, allowing the pour to go ahead. Lonny Jorganson for his deft work helping get the house on the foundation. Pete Nehlson for a variety of generous gestures, and his dad Walt for electrical assistance, Jim VanRamshore and his buddies for putting in my well pump, Mike Randolph for his perseverance. and skill. And to Don Lockhart , Bill Olson, Heidia and Eric Broderson, Rick Schmidt, Bill Norris, and the many others I've likely forgotten.

And again, to my dear friend Mike Remke, who has listened patiently to my litany of woes for several years now and only grown moderately sick of me. I love this place.

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