Excited I went to investigate and poking my nose over the picket fence I seen what was going on right away. Allen, the bloke next door at No43 was in the process of unloading a trailer and making a big stack of timber in his backyard.
I ask him what he was doing and he told me he was going to build a pergola.. I ask him if that was a kind of ark? (after all I knew he was a religious man because he was constantly getting pissed of with my brothers and I swearing like...well wharfies I guess, and I had no idea what a bloody pergola was). Allen laughed explaining to me that it was a kind of lean to that would shade the side of the house and give them somewhere to sit out of the sun in the hot afternoons.
I asked him if he needed a hand. He told me I would just get in the way, so I watched and waited....By about 10am things starting to heat up a bit, I'm still in the shade of our house silently watching but Allen by this time is in direct sunlight. He's dug a few holes for the 6" x 6" Jarrah uprights and done some checking out in them ready for the 8 x 4 cross members (it's Perth 1968 remember, and besides Al's not a builder, he's an admin worker at Freo Hospital checking people into the registrar as they are wheeled in from the ambo...An occupation that would later turn out to be very handy for us 3 tear away boys next door who were all into motorcycles and anything that could really hurt
)Anyhow from what I can remember the plan was to get the corner uprights set in cement and then start slipping the bolts in through the hand augured holes and then build on from there. Al had nailed a couple of props at 45 to hold the uprights plumb as you do, but being really sandy dry ground they kept moving on him when he was trying to nail a temp cross brace to hold things in place. Perceiving frustration compounded by stinging sweat by his squinting eyes, I spoke up again saying, "Hey Al, I can hold the other end steady for you while you get a nail in if you like". Al said "righto", and so began my career in the construction industry
That project went on for the next couple of weeks, a bit in the afternoons and all weekend when I turned up on site at 7am keen as mustard to help out. Allan really appreciated having a gofor and general hand, and I learned heaps about working with wood along the way, because the only chisels at our house all had a 16th" edge from cleaning off old gaskets from motors and aside from the odd hill trolley, none of us had a clue.
So forward we go by about 20 years. I'm about 30yo and Allen's recently retired from Freo Hospital and sold up and gone. I've been travelling around working in the building game and in and out of WA over a period of years. Around that side of my folks house where I had stood in the shade as a boy 20 years ago waiting to pounce upon opertunity, now stands a timber rack. Its full of good wood I had collected over the years left over from jobs and re-machined boards from replaced balustrades etc. The new neighbours at No43 were in the process of demolishing Allen's pergola, and knowing that I worked with wood, they had asked Jack if perhaps I had a use for the larger beams before they were thrown in the skip. Jack being Jack loaded them onto the rack... just in case.. leaving the already heavily checked boards on the top of the tin cover.
Forward just a couple more years and I finally settled a bit and the missus and I bought a place of our own. All that wood was then moved with the best of it, all being square dressed appearance grade from the stair making trade, went under the cover of the shed. The worst of it, including those heavily checked old pergola beams, where stacked at the side of the shed in the sun and rain....just in case.
Forward a few more years and much of the old pergola wood has been converted for use as studs and noggins in a weatherboard reno, but one long 8 x 4 remains. I've got kids of my own by this time and their about 8 and 10 and dead keen on netball when that last big stick gets concreted into the ground with half of a tongue and groove jarrah door bolted to it for a backing-board so the kids can throw hoops and drive us nuts with the constant pre-throw thump, thump, thump, thump, on the driveway.
When the hoop was first erected it was clearly top heavy, so to be safe I ran a small stainless cable left over from guying up the TV antenna back to the side the house so that if the whole shamozel ever came down in a wind, it would simply swing for about 1 metre before hitting the side of the house and then hang there. Well the kids grew out of basketball after a couple more years and eventually, one windy night, there was a loud bang on the side of the house. In the morning I unbolted the beam from the cable cutting away that section with the hoop and half door. I squared up the other end and the remaining 2.5 meter section was once again relegated to the side of the shed...just in case.
My eldest daughter is now 17 and will turn 18 this year. She's beautiful and deserves lots of nice clothes so she needs a nice new wardrobe with mirrored sliding doors to accommodate. I needed framing to accommodate a melamine carcass for same. At the side of the shed I found a big jarrah beam. It was rough sawn and a bit weather checked, but it looked very solid. Each face was quite flat with the only movement of concern being the typical mild banana bend one would expect of a long timber beam of 8 x 4 dimensions. The beam was placed in a vice set up to used the full apron of the bench. As I was truing the centre hump out of the edge of that beam with a No6 ready for ripping, I recalled how around 45 years ago I had been so excited to be working with wood. After that beam had been pushed through my little Gilbro tablesaw to produce 6 clean 2.5 meter lengths of 65 x 22mm wardrobe carcase framing, I was reminded why I still am so excited to be working with wood... What else in this world could possibly do that???? The very same board I had handled as a boy back in 1968 which for 20 years gave so much, and then gave again, has given to me again.
Here's to beautiful, beautiful hardwood folks, cause there's simply nothing else like it in this world.
Cheers
Kim
