Darrell

The courtyard is really coming along. It’s killing poor Darrell but last night I got good news: He’s found someone to work with him and thank God. As I post this, he’s yet to arrive; that’s so island-y. But I remain hopeful. 

The pavers are two feet square thick concrete and heavy. Working with them has proven hard on his back so when Paula and I came home yesterday, I brought out the beer and he stopped working. Today he’ll be working slower I hope, and he’ll have help to haul the pavers.

I think the fountain will get installed today and at noon, his wife, Elaine, is coming over with some smoked salmon for me. How sweet is my relationship with this man!

Yesterday he told me a story about a job he had replacing some kind of valve thingme that controls flow on giant oil tanks. He was contracted by three different gas companies to change the valves on all their tanks in BC. He got the job, he said, because he has a trailer big enough to transport the new incoming valves to the tanks.

At the end of the job he came back to Vancouver with the sixteen valves removed from the tanks and the companies for whom he was working didn’t want them.

The contained a radioactive component; they were not disposable. So Darrell got on the phone and quickly managed to find a buyer for the valves and he earned himself sixteen thousand dollarsfrom the deal!

I thought that was the end of the story. But no!

He went back to his bosses, discovered what charities they patronized and cut those charities cheques totaling fifteen thousand dollars. And with the thousand dollars left over, he threw a party. That’s Darrell. And I somehow knew that about him immediately. 

I’ve never had an invoice or accounting of anything. Each week, he just says, “This week was eight hundred dollars or a thousand dollars … according to his hours. (I do get an accounting of all the materials bought.) His honesty is palpable.

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I’m taking Paula to Drumbegthis morning and then coming back to meet Elaine for the salmon. Then P. and I will chill before heading to Silva Bay and her flight home.