EDIT: It has come to the author’s intention that he’s a bit dim sometimes. And that yes, he likely became lost about three times because he doesn’t even know the name of the reservoir he was at. Please continue for a lovely account of a trip to the Allegheny Reservoir.
As much as I love the 412, I tend to get a little stir crazy. As hectic as my life can appear on the surface, it ends up being pretty routine. So any chance to break the cycle and get outside my head is a wonderful gift. The last week had been all kinds of what-am-I-doing-with-my-life and I was asking myself, “How do I win more efficiently?”
Let’s be clear, I know what I’m doing with my little l life. I have a five-year plan, I’ve got projects and goals. Hell, I even quit that stupid call center to make way for the trip account you’re about to read. I was concerned with the big L, and this last weekend was the capstone to answer my questions, if only for the fact that I was out of Pittsburgh. It gave me the perfect vantage point to strategize.
My buddy Hot Shot’s family has had a tiny cabin (more of a shack) a mile down the road from the Allegheny Reservoir for decades, and it’s become a large part of my orbit, sort of like I’m a comet that swings into view every year. A core group of five Eagle Scouts (Hot Shot, Sugar Ray, Flex, Shirtless J and yours truly), count ‘em, have been going up there at least once a year for the last 9 years to get silly, build fires and play cards. Before that, we went as part of Boy Scouts. It was a happy day when we managed to pull the beer and driver’s licences together for that first unsupervised trip at age 17.
We try and supplement our group with new faces; this time my good friend and roomate TCKTOCK came, and was gracious enough to not make me walk. He even let me pay for half the gas. He is a swell dude. The last few new guests never really stuck, but TCKTOCK took to it like a fish to water, and we’re all pretty stoked about the upcoming winter trip.
To paraphrase TCKTOCK, the cabin is refreshing because it’s just dudes hanging out. The standing rule is no women, only because the cabin is the only dependable time of the year when the five of us are together. And also because girls have cooties. We don’t need to muck up a good thing, so we don’t. Our phones also don’t work out there, unless your wife has you so whipped you stay on the phone with her so she can tell you about the shoes she bought. Suck it, Flex. I love your wife, but three calls a day is ridiculous.
We don’t worry about anything, we all chip in, we all take care of chores and projects with joy and vigor. Each of us values the chance to get the hell out of the day-to-day; ask me to dig up my back weedpatch and I’ll probably tell you to go screw. Take me to the cabin and tell me we need to level out a 14×10 patch of ground for a shack, and I will revel in how sore my muscles are, even as I type this.
Hot Shot relayed a pretty funny story to me when we arrived. He and Shirtless J played Disc Golf courses on the drive up. Hot Shot was pitching to a hole right near a stream, but it wasn’t a tough throw by any stretch. Just as he was releasing, a voice in his head half sung, “Don’t throw it too ha-ard,” and the disc ended up in the stream. That phrase became the slogan of the trip and it was applied to everything, from the shed to the fire to the cooking to making Euchre calls. By the end of the trip we had all learned the importance of moderation yet again, but more importantly that sometimes it’s worth your while to throw too hard and lose some time making up for your mistakes.
In recent visits, we’ve been working to improve the cabin. It started with some hardcore cleanup. Then we got a new awning to replace the busted-up aluminum one that kept you from opening the door all the way. Then we built an awning over the propane tank. Then we built two new sawhorses. This time, we built a shed for the new rider mower (the plot of land is about an acre) and got a composter-toilet to replace the filled-to-the-brim outhouse. Next time, we have to replace the roof.
My favorite job was the propane awning, because before that, every winter we had to heat up water on the pot-belly wood stove (which took like an hour) to melt the ice on the propane line outside. Every morning. Now we don’t even have to think about leaving the cabin until we’ve had breakfast.
Building the shed was a really cool excercise in problem solving and general gusto. Everyone fell into a role, and we all worked together pretty well. After we had hucked about forty cinder blocks into place and put the plywood decking in place, we were forced to confront the fact that we only sorta leveled the frame. Our solution? Shims, drill new holes in the frame and muscle the panels into place. It worked. For a modular sheet metal shed, I was surprised how often we had to muscle panels into place (even after we finally leveled it), and I am also surprised I only have one (superficial) cut on my hand. I am also surprised that Flex, an engineer, went to school for five years and still managed to put in the roof beams upside down.
I got to play with power tools, including a reciprocating saw. I had another opportunity to play Cups, and I also got a couple games of Cornhole in. On the first night, we stayed up all night drinking, drove down the road to the reservoir and swam around in the dawn and took a bath. We listened to Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” about a dozen times (Sweet Jones!). We took about eighty trips to Lowe’s. I made delicious chicken with a 160z can of Stroh’s, honey, pepper and garlic. Six guys hung out and threw their problems on the fire. As always, we all came out slightly better people. We’re almost tolerable humans now.
Remember, when you’re digging your own grave, don’t dig too dee-eep.
