The other day, I worked to rehabilitate the old
wheelbarrow. It's every bit of twenty years old now; it's tube and tire have
been replaced more than once; a few bolt holes have been repaired the quick and
dirty way - with the bottom of a tin can; it has been touched up and repainted
and touched up again. Back in the fall, one of the handles succumbed to dry
rot, leading to a tipped load and some choice words. I did actually use it to
move firewood this winter, but it was pretty awkward. Ann and I decided it was
probably time to replace it; it's had a good
long life, certainly got our money's worth, blah blah blah.
But then, all of the sudden, it was spring; Ann
was out of town, I needed to move some gravel, and I didn't want to spend that
kind of money without her around because that's usually a bad idea. I figured I
could get a 2x2 board at the local home center, whittle it down to size and voila! a new handle. But as I looked
around the Home Depot, I discovered there are such things as replacement handles
for wheelbarrows. Replacement handles - who
knew? I bought two.
Recently, I began a sermon by talking about the
distinction between those who tend to replace things and those who prefer to
repair them. As I told the congregation, I am a fixer; I love putting things back together, making them work again.
When I was a kid, I watched my dad perform his humble magic on a series of Mr. Coffees, cleaning the calcium
deposits out of those teeny plastic lines, bringing them back to life, time
after time. For my friend Rick's dad, repair and rehabilitation were a way of
life; he saved everything, confident
that it would come in handy to fix something, someday. He would send us to the
shed for one thing, and in our search we would turn up cylinder heads from an
ancient Desoto, steam valves stamped with ominous Swastikas in a box marked DuPont Explosives, or jackets from long
gone water heaters. We would laugh or sigh and shake our heads; that is, until the
gas tank in my car threatened to drop out on the road, and Mr. Rothhaar fixed
it with that very same water heater jacket. Rick inherited some of that
philosophic devotion to frugality, but it never really rubbed off on me. For a
long time, though, I couldn't afford to replace things, so repair and rehab were
necessary; only later did they become a way of life for me as well. Which
brings us back to the wheelbarrow.
I drilled the proper holes in the handles and
replaced the old bolts with new, shiny ones. I turned the wheelbarrow this way
and that, admiring my work, and wishing Ann was home to admire it with me. I
propped it against the wall.
The next morning, I loaded it up with gravel,
grabbed the nifty new handles and and lifted. Only then did I notice the tire
was flat.
Of course, I didn't want to waste all the effort
it took to load the gravel, so I dragged it to the front yard. I dumped it and
headed to the hardware store. Three stores later, I had snagged a new wheel,
which at the time of this writing, is still holding air - I just checked.
Now, the handles weren't cheap. The new wheel was
on sale (and cheaper than a new inner tube), but it still wasn't cheap. In the
end, I may have saved some money by not just breaking down and buying a new wheelbarrow,
but not much. And the fact is, it is still an old wheelbarrow - functional, but
dented, beat up, worn. Every time I use it, I wonder, what's next?
When does a frugal investment become a money pit?
At what point does good stewardship go off the rails and become just a humbler
way to waste resources? I really want to know, because it seems like it happens
to me a lot.
For the past several weeks, I (and a few of you)
have been undertaking another rehab job, this one on the shed on the hill
behind our house. Since our son has returned home for a spell, we need an
overflow space; a place where he can find a little privacy, while we get a
little distance. One day, I read an article about the 'Tiny House Movement,'
and realized we had a perfect candidate, on the hill in the back yard. Rumor
has it that once sheltered hogs, and the small door in the side speaks of
chicken coop - facts which certainly add color to the endeavor. It is indeed
tiny, and the concrete floor definitely points downhill, but it is sturdy, and
the rough sawn oak walls are remarkably plumb.
Of course, there have been several points in the
last few weeks when I have wondered if this is such a good idea - after all,
building supplies cost money, even if you scrounge, and the next-door neighbor
has a travel trailer for sale in his yard, right
now. What keeps coming back to me, though, is how much fun it is, working together on a project. Whether with one
or two, or five or ten, when we work together, something very exciting happens:
teaching and learning, laughing and sharing, messing up and fixing up, breaking
bread and sharing of our lives: we call it fellowship,
perhaps the most underrated of all Christian endeavors. I think that's the
difference between a wheelbarrow and a chicken coop - feel free to stop by and
see what you think.
