bygone building days
I know there’s still a few of you builders out there whose knees haven’t given out completely, whose backs are bent but not quite broken, whose minds are still … well, let’s not go there. You boyz have seen some changes since the heydays before Growth Management, permit delays and draconian building codes. And I’m not just talking about profit margins.
Some of you old growths might remember when Bruce Kennedy was the building inspector. Golden days, that’s for sure. Some of us — and I won’t embarrass you – might remember his dad, old ChucK Kennedy, when he was inspector. I’m not sure you even needed a permit back then. Bruce is gone now — hiding out in Lewiston/Clarkston — and his old man’s there too. I guess they aren’t coming back so I’m going to tell you a story — and if they do come back, you didn’t hear it from me.
Bruce was out one weekend helping a buddy of ours build an illegal cesspool, what we called a Costa Rica septic system, three 55 gallon barrels lined up and connected with high tech, highly engineered, not quite fully approved PVC pipe. Bruce was up on the backhoe —- it was his day off and he was nervous about getting caught by somebody from County, you know, losing his job, his career, his pension, his whole future. I got wind of this and so I had my brother, who was visiting at the time, stick a clipboard in his hand, walk up to Mr. Kennedy on his backhoe and identify himself as a state health department inspector. He orders Bruce to shut off that machine and I mean Right Now, Mister! and let’s have a look at those health department permits If You Don’t Mind.
Now I know it sounds mean. I know it may look cruel. But hey, those opportunities for practical jokes don’t come everyday. Course when I saw Bruce slump over the steering wheel, I thought sure he’d had a heart attack and I ran out of my hiding spot and said enough’s maybe enough. When he saw me it was like a jolt off a defibrillator. He started breathing again. Swearing revenge, of course.
Shortly after that Bruce quit the county. He said it was all those rules and regs, those codes, all that rigamarole. But deep down I suspect it was the guilt of being a renegade fly-by-night septic installer. Oh, I suppose some of you think I should share the blame. But hell fire, if we all quit our jobs over side-skirting county regulations, who’d be left to build the houses??
Bruce is happily retired now, probably still bitching about Island County Building Department Management. And we’re all left learning the new rules, the new ropes, even with our Tea Party Commissioner who builds her own palace without permits. Okay, we’re bitching too…. But I hope occasionally we all think back aways and maybe recall fondly the era when our building inspectors not only looked the other way, but actually ran the backhoe for us old renegades. Knowing Bruce, you can bet it was one damn nice septic system.
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