I don’t even know what to call it. A board? A plank? A tabletop? None of these do it justice.
None implies the shear heft of this chunk of wood. I found it early on, exploring my new neighborhood, looking for idiosyncrasies or treasures in the alleyway behind my house, a hidden thoroughfare whose primary features included cratered pavement and mosquitoes. I rarely drove my car through that alley due to concern over damaging my tires and wheels. And I rarely walked back there either, fearful of encephalitis caught from the clouds of tiger mosquitoes that swarmed the alley day and night.
As soon as I saw it, I wanted it—a huge piece of lumber ten feet long, three feet wide and two inches thick. And not two inches like a two by four, which in 1964 became an inch and a half. This board must be as old as me, so a full two inches. It sat three houses up the hill, propped against an ancient stockade fence, the posts and boards slanting inwards under the strain.
In a mansion, I could envision the plank sanded smooth, its edges molded, stained mahogany and placed upon great, intricate legs, bowed and carved all Fleur-de-lis. A side board in a barrister’s dining room. On a farm, the table would sit outside, down the steps from the kitchen door in a dusty yard scattered with hens and hounds. Its legs, lag-bolted four by fours, supporting the plank. The table-top the color of a five-day scab, immune now to any scrubbing due to years of butchering the unfortunate animals that fed the family.
In my tiny house, no wall could accommodate a ten-foot table without blocking a doorway or a closet. I had no obvious use for it. The plank sat, unattended, aging in the elements, waiting to be snagged by some lucky scavenger. I only hoped it could one day be me.
When my daughter Sophie was born, I strapped her into a chest pack and walked endless loops around our neighborhood, up and down streets, in and out of alleys. I narrated our walks with a constant banter. “This is the house where the college students live. See their stack of kegs? And this is the cool board that lives in our alley year after year.” Mosquitoes whined in my ears and dive-bombed Sophie’s tender cheeks, thankful for an uncontested meal. I grabbed the top-right corner of the plank and tried to hoist it partially off the ground, unable to gain sufficient grip on the heavy wood to make any progress.
Quiet family life and cities don’t mix, at least not for my wife and me. Exhausted by the constant drone of traffic, frustrated by our inability to hold an outdoor conversation without a delivery truck rattling past, we selected a small town two hours north. The house we chose included a huge unfinished basement begging for a home-built oversized workbench. Despite the moving company charging by the pound, we loaded up that behemoth board and brought it with us.
Our kids are grown now, our next move sits on the horizon. My workbench served me well for twenty years. You might say it met my wildest dreams. When we move, we’ll leave it behind. Our next house will be smaller than our first. My life once again won’t include space for a massive piece of lumber. I only hope whoever buys our house appreciates the grandeur of my beautiful board as much as I do.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock