JC's Deck

Just about every day for the past year and a half now, I've been walking almost a mile to my brother JC's house. It's good exercise for me and if I get rained out, or for some other reason can't make it, I feel like something important is missing from my daily routine.

When I arrive, usually around 1:30 in the afternoon, JC is either sitting at the patio table on his deck reading a book or inside playing with one of his computers. We almost always end up out on the deck sitting under the awning out of the sun and sometimes, out of the rain. Even though my voice is getting weaker, and JC's hearing isn't too good, we still manage to have some good conversations.

We sit and sip cheap wine, (his white, mine red,) and talk about computers, or movies, or fishing, or old times, but since we're on opposite sides of the political spectrum, seldom politics. Arguing about politics is too much work, anyway. Talking about religion is fine, since we both believe that organized religion is responsible for most of the problems in the world today, and that the so called “holy” books, rites, ceremonies and sacraments were invented and created by man, not by any of the many mythical gods.

When we run out of subjects to talk about, we become nature observers, watching Hummingbirds, Bluejays, Crows and spiders. We spent one afternoon watching a female orb weaver spider literally kicking a horny male repeatedly out of her web. Finally after a dozen attempts she let him quickly mate with her and then promptly kicked him out again. We captured mealy bugs and dropped them onto her web to watch her dart over and wrap them up for later. One day we watched a bunch of tiny, newly hatched baby spiders sending out almost invisible strands into the breeze and then launching themselves from their nursery out into the world. Another time JC was showing me the last Blueberry on his potted plant. “I think I'll pick it before the birds get it,” he said. As we were looking at it, a Bluejay swooped down, grabbed the berry and flew off.

JC built planters on the outside edge of his deck, and shelves to hold potted flowers and plants. In the summer the deck is surrounded by Columbines, Hostas, Petunias, Blueberry plants and pretty flowers that neither of us can name.

The weight of all the planters and pots came dangerously close to collapsing the deck and sending it, and most likely us, on a merry trip down the hill and into the trees. We had noticed the gap between the deck and the trailer getting wider and when JC checked underneath he discovered that in many places the supports were large tree branches and rotted lumber, all leaning downhill. Needless to say he replaced everything underneath with pressure treated wood, and fastened the deck itself to the side of the trailer with turnbuckles. He also replaced most of the decking with new boards and of course, after a few failed attempts, installed the awning.

Recently, for lack of anything else to do, we've been keeping track of how many times we have to go inside and pee. It's become a competition and we even talked about putting up one of those pool hall gizmos with sliding disks on a wire to keep score. A lot of times he says he has to go check on one of the movies that he's constantly copying on his computer, so now to keep him honest when I have to go, I say, “ I have to go check my movie!”

We're starting to recognize the sounds of the cars that come up the steep road to his neighborhood. “Here comes Andy!” I'll say. Going to see his girlfriend!”

“Yep,” JC will say.

“That sounds like Howard's pickup!” JC will say, “Looks like he's been out crabbing!”

“Yep.” I'll say.

“There goes Mary! There goes Andy!”

“Yep. Yep.”

As you can see, we're easily entertained.