What a Lumberyard is Supposed To Be Like - Page 2

After driving a half-mile or so through the heart of cookie-cutter-house suburbia (I hope they built more houses outa all the danged trees they cut down) we made another turn down a cul-de-sac full of more McMansions. One more turn to the right and suddenly we're on an unpaved road paralleling a long row of Northern Pines. We end up in a small open field bordered by the office/garage on our left and two huge lumber storage buildings on our right. There are a lot of cars and pickups there. Looked very promising.

One step through the office door and we realized that this was definitely not Home Depot. All four walls are absolutely plastered with photos, newspaper cutouts and various trinkets related to fishing. There are about four guys on our side of the counter (some drinking from cans of Budweiser) and two on the other. The two guys on the 'business side' of the counter appear to be engaged in a serious match of some form of ring toss, which involves flinging large (3 inches in diameter) metal washers toward a long wooden box on the floor. The box has several holes of various sizes drilled into the top. I can also see through a doorway on the far wall that there are a bunch of guys in the attached garage who appear to be lobbing horseshoes back & forth (and also drinking from cans of Budweiser.) Things are getting very curious.

In a fashion typical to our area of the country, we are ignored.

After several minutes, somebody pipes up and says "Hey, are you guys looking for Steve?" We reply in the affirmative (honestly not knowing who the hell Steve is) and are told that he's gone off to the house but will be back in a minute or so. When he does arrive we are greeted in an extremely friendly manner as we get right down to going over our plans/list. We head outside across the lot to the wood storage building. Steve flips up the door on the 1x12's unit and we are presented with a huge pile of the snazziest looking clear pine I've ever seen. We needed 21 eight foot lengths and proceeded to pull out eleven absolutely perfect sixteen foot boards which Steve then cut in half with a chain saw (after informing us that each board is over sawn by an inch.) #1 loads the woods into the barking Chevy and I head back to the office with Steve to settle things up.

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He is an editor and writer for Jazz.com. He also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org and produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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