Beware Friends Bearing Dinner, Part II

Early the following morning, I received a message from Harold asking me to stop by. I had been out on the lake rowing and had missed his call. Grabbing a pen and paper I readied myself to take down his return number. The number he left however, was mine. A quick glance around the cottage assured me that he was not lurking in the shadows. A second message from Harold was also waiting. Realizing his mistake, he had called again to leave the correct digits. Again, he failed, leaving a New York cell number with an Ontario area code. Undaunted, I got in my boat and headed down the lake. In my head I had visions of me heroically carrying a stricken Harold down the path to the boat and driving him to medical help. Or, perhaps something less dramatic. I could imagine him needing help chopping wood for his fire. I happen to enjoy splitting wood - it gives me a chance to clear my mind and relieve any pent up frustrations or lingering anxieties.

When I arrived Harold was asleep and stretching and yawning came to the door. Any thoughts of a daring emergency rescue were laid aside. He asked me in and given that the internal temperature of the cottage was somewhere around 90F it was no wonder he and the missus were asleep. It was their custom, he informed me, to crank up the heat and take a morning nap. To each his own, I suppose.

Putting on his shoes he bade me follow out the rear doors to his patio. "Mark," he said, "let me outline what I need from you." I was immediately suspicious. He took me to the edge of the patio and we peered over the edge. It is a good 15 foot drop to the steep incline of the forest floor, which trails off in a mass of underbrush and poison ivy into the water some 50 feet beyond. "What I want you to do, Mark, is get down their and take out anything that has green leaves." This, I thought, was not the sort of help I had in mind when I offered my services. There is nothing heroic to be found in chopping down saplings amongst an angry array of skin-irritating, rash making, toxic plants. I sighed and thought, oh well, I can do this in a couple of hours. Maybe it wont be so bad.

As it turns out, the patio has three sides, and he wants the entire perimeter cleared. Growing increasingly skeptical about doing such a job, I said, ok and made for the door. Harold was undaunted by my maneuver. "Oh," he said, "There is more." We walked around his cottage and down a lonely path. It seems the dead branches of a thousand trees have spoiled his rare walks down the path and he told me that all offending dead wood had to be removed. I asked him where on earth all this material was supposed to go. "Well, I suggest you get a rope and lay it on the ground. You can collect the wood and branches and place them on the rope. When you have a good sized stack you can tie it in a bundle and drag it to the point. Now, the only point I can think of on this island is about a kilometer away. As well, the sheer amount of debris would have required 20 or more such trips. At first, I was annoyed at the volume of what he was telling me needed to be done. However, at this point the entire scene had entered the realm of the bizarre.

When I first realized I was not going to be saving any lives, I began to anticpate a small job. Harold quickly disabused me of this notion and began to outline the project in terms of "priority sections" begining with "A." By the time we reached priority "G" I told him I didn't think we needed to go any further as it was extremely unlikey I would get much beyond "A." Ignoring me, he continued to itemize which branches (all dead and lying on the ground!) were to be removed, and which, due to their asthetic qualities, were to be left unmolested. (Again, dead and lying on the ground!) I remain unclear by what criteria he made his Caesarian judgement. For the life of me, they all looked remarkably similar. At any rate, after an hour and a half trapsing around his island the impossible journey mercifully came to an end.

Now came the hard part for Harold. When during the previous night's meeting I had agreed to a far more limited kind of help - like pulling them from a raging fire, I had not even thought of money. Harold, to be delicate, likes to keep as much of his money as possible; fair enough, it was hard earned and he is retired. But, as I said in my opening post, I am 37, not 18 and in need of a summer job. I am financially stable. And, it should be noted that it is currently 2008 and not FDR's second term. Frankly, I think FDR would have blushed at offering unemployed Americans "Harold" wages even at the peak of the depression. Harold, it seems, had confused me with a starving Oakie on his way to Californee to pick apples on a company farm. Things ain't that bad for me just yet. But the issue isn't the 1890s wages he offered, or the cap he placed on total potential earnings, (was I to work for free after $100 and 7 days of hard labour?) The real issue is that he would try and take advantage of me in such a shameless manner. To make things worse, Harold began to backtrack on the concept of a cash payment. He took me to the underside of his cottage and showed me a 35' coil of 3 year old pvc tubing, which he asserted was worth a couple hundred dollars. When I stared at him blankly, he proceed to try and trade an old propeller for a long dead outboard engine for my labour. Apparently, he tried to trade that same propeller to my father some 20 years earlier.

I left feeling dumbfounded and amazed that someone would so shamelessly take advantage of my good nature and willingness to help. Today I called my father and laughing, told him the story. Lest you think I am mocking an elderly man who has lost his mind, know that according to my father, Harold has been at this routine for 30 years. In fact, he is something of a legend inthe area. My dilema is to figure a way out of this mess. Well, writing this has helped me laugh it off. Oh well...