18 June 2008

They say we all have a twin, somewhere

The house next door has been vacant for a few years. A young couple had bought it to rehab but he's an engineer on the railroad, she's a school teacher and seems with their schedules they could never seem to find time to get it done. So they sold it to a local contractor who is in the process of finally rehabbing the place. Doing a heck of job on it, also. He's transformed the neighborhood eyesore into a nice little bungalow-style house. They even did some landscaping. It looks good.

Anyway, this morning there was a knock on the door and this giant was standing there. I did a quick re-think of where that room's pistol was located and remembering it was within fairly easy reach I opened the door. He was with the contractor and wanted to know if he could use our outside faucet to make "mud" for some tile laying they were doing in the house. He pulled out his wallet and said he'd be glad to pay for it as they'd probably use 30 gallons or so.

I told him I didn't have any idea what 30 gallons of water cost here in this bustling town of 1100 and that he was welcome to use it gratis. We then did some small talk about how the rehab was going plus some conversation on some of the local characters we each happen to know and that was that.

But after he left I couldn't get out of my mind that he reminded me of someone I knew or had seen.

Then it came to me... William Dee "Haystack" Calhoun.

He was a dead ringer for him.

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