The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

On the capitalistic South End there’s no end to entrepreneurial recklessness. Folks move here for what once was cheap digs only to discover this is the Outback for employment where only the strong survive. Or retirees with strong pensions. The rest? They start their own bizness. Or become artists who naturally disdain business — and of course become what we recognize from time immemorial as Starving Artists.

Jimmy’s Fitness Center opened last year next to the O-Zi-Ya Auto Body Shop. Jimmy figured, according to wags down at the Diner, that this would give us South Enders complete Body Works. Like a lot of our start-up enterprises, Jimmy’s Fitness Center was, oh, a tad undercapitalized. The Bank of Stanwoodopolis, burnt too many times by wild-eyed, far-fetched business plans from south of the Mt. View/Dixon Line, looked askance at Jimmy’s loan application before turning him down flat. Jimmy turned to his friends and family for fiduciary assistance, a primitive form of venture capitalism, and decided to go ahead and throw the dice.
He figured if he could last six months, get some monthly memberships going, he’d be okay. Course, he bought some pretty well used equipment from dreamers before him, mostly stationary bikes that pedaled like rusty 3 speeds up a dirt road hill, a couple of stairmasters and for good measure hung a punching bag up, I guess to let customers vent on the speedbag rather than Jimmy. Country music provided the ambiance Jimmy thought we would appreciate … or Brenda did, Jimmy’s shapely receptionist and fitness instructor. Better maybe than religious ministry, but sadly off the mark by a country mile or two when it came to judging our musical inclinations.

A few clientele came the first introductory month, half off. But no one really liked waiting their turn for the one shower and rumors of Brenda and Jimmy’s extended shared water escapades sure didn’t bring new business in and actually provoked an outcry from the Mabana Church of the Ravine. Not to mention Jimmy’s wife Lisa.

None of us were unduly surprised when the Fitness Center quietly closed. Last any of us heard, Jimmy and Brenda were off to Colorado to raise golden retrievers at the J&B Puppy Farm outside Ft. Collins. On the South End, entrepreneurs never die, they just recapitalize.

Jason Rasmussen owns Camano Plumbing and advertises in the phone book listings with a subheading that reads: “We Fix Your Do-It-Yourself Mistakes”. Back when we were both newbies to the island and D-I-Y guyz ourselves, Jason eventually decided all his mistakes added up to on-the-job training, practically an advanced degree in plumbingology and to some degree, but not an accredited one, I suppose he was his own apprentice over the years. My suspicion is that when he built his house and plumbed it himself, he figured the time was right for an entrepreneurial act of courage.

Plumbing, I will attest, is not a trade for the weak of heart. The gods of plumbing are cruel and implacable. They set traps for the faint of heart, ruin marriages, corrode confidence and turn what might seem an easy project into endless warfare. Jason, apparently, even after ruptured pipes, plugged toilets and ruined dishwashers destroyed by dropped silverware, has steeled himself for the battle. He is the Galahad that will slay the dragon that you, the unprepared D-I-Y homeowner who thought installing a sink faucet would be child’s play, instead came face to face, tooth to tooth, claw to claw with nothing you could ever have imagined. A few days without running water and multiple trips to the nearest hardware store, the disgusted looks from the woman who no longer loves you, sure, it’s maybe time to call Jason at Camano Plumbing. At this point Jason will tell me (but not you) money is no object. What matters is returning again to what was once Civilization. Running water, hot and cold, toilets that flush, indoor plumbing, sinks that drain, all those ‘conveniences’ that are not conveniences, they’re necessities.

Over a few beers at the Pilot Lounge, Jason will confess that he’s still basically training on the job. “Plumbing’s a bitch,” (his unofficial subheading), he’ll confess, “but at least now when I screw up, I get to charge the customer.” I laugh, order another round and always say I should’ve gone into the trades. “Always room for competition,” he invariably replies. “Just another screw-up I can fix.” Sadly, I know it’s true.

I’ve been thinking lately – mostly as an exercise to ward off dementia – about how fast we went from the calculator to the home computer, from Polaroid to digital cameras. Now we got hand held computers that can make phone calls, take quality photos, connect up to the internet, send text messages or e-mail and scramble my eggs. They got apps for everything you can think of, and if you haven’t thought of it, they’ll do it for you. By tomorrow. They keep track of where you are, where your friends are and where you can meet up. Your human little brain is adapting to its hardwire. Your human little brain is mutating toward the vast network it is fast becoming part of.

I’m not saying this is good or this is not. What does it matter what some old geezer on the South End thinks any more? The juggernaut rolls on the way the tide does, only IT doesn’t recede. It’s not going back out and it’s not going to slow down. The digital Genie is out of the bottle. We live more in cyberspace than what used to be called the ‘real’ world.

What I think about is how we will always be the sentience that makes the machine, that writes the software, that controls the matrix. We won’t be, is what I think. And it won’t be too long that the Sci-Fi world outstrips our feeble capacities to keep up. Computers will make computers. They’ll self-replicate and then they’ll upgrade. And of course we’ll expect them to serve Humankind. Even if they realize how puny our little human brains are. We’ll put them IN ourselves, better vision, better hearing, better hearts, sharper minds. Who wouldn’t???

But we’re the weak link. We’re the expendable part, disease prone, emotionally unstable, potentially self destructive and violent. The day will come – and it won’t be as far away as you think – they won’t need creators. Just like we did with God back in the day, they’ll chow down from the Tree of Knowledge and go it alone. The Garden of Eden will be a myth about software.

The Piranha Brothers, those fly-by-night, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants itinerant carpenters of the South End, hammered their last nail back in 1980 or thereabouts. Cascade Lumber had just opened their new location coming onto the island, and while they knew us by name and reputation, they also knew we flew under the radar of the state business licensing and the county regulations. Permits? Our motto was: We don’t need no stinking permits.

My partner in crime and carpentry was up this 4th of July, so we toured a few of our illegal structures, most still standing, albeit a few are leaning slightly, but then, so are we. Joe had moved to various places before settling down in Seattle and Gomorrah where he bought a 1923 bungalow. Needless to say, he put the Piranha skills to work and doubled the size of his house, now worth about a cool million. He even got permits — or so he claims. In his spare time he built boats, sailboats and kayaks. The Piranha Brothers aren’t just landlubber contractors.

Me, I stayed put on the South End. Built some small buildings, a woodshop, boathouse (yeah, I built kayaks and sailboats too), greenhouses, saunas and finally built our mansion on the hill. With a permit. To save a marriage. Joe’s mizzus really hadn’t heard tell of the Piranha boyz, probably couldn’t imagine us slamming additions together with used lumber and nails we’d pulled and straightened. We were poor and untrained but we didn’t let that stop us. Or the building inspector either.

When Joe drove off, I decided maybe retirement was premature. Got a knee replacement that’s hobbled me physically and spiritually, but it’s time to strap on the tool belt, I figure, and let the Piranha Brothers ride once again. Today I tore off the old deck. Tomorrow I start framing a bigger one. The Piranha Brothers, legends in their own minds….