Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 22, 1994                   TAG: 9405220111
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VOLUNTEER'S THEME: `IF I HAD A HAMMER'

The difference is, Kroger paid him. Explore didn't.

For two years, this retired grocery-chain maintenance supervisor has been one of Explore's most steadfast volunteers, lending a hand wherever needed - from helping to reassemble a historic barn to building fences and clearing brush.

"Perry's had his hand in everything," says Ginny Laubinger, the park's education director. "He even fixed the spinning wheel because he knew what piece was missing."

"He's a wonderful example of someone who has volunteered," park director Rupert Cutler says. "He really sets the tone."

In fact, after volunteering so much, Explore offered him a paid job. "He embarrassed us into paying him a little," Cutler says.

Now Forbes volunteers one day a week, and works for pay however many other days a week he wants to put in. Lately, as the park's five-person crew of hired hands races to get Explore ready for its July 2 opening, he's been working a full five-day week as a lead carpenter.

"If it wasn't for Perry, we would be nowhere as close as we are," says Steve Meeks, one of the for-hire construction workers who's helping Explore reassemble its settlement of frontier-era buildings.

Or as Forbes, 63, puts it when the subject turns to how he drives his hired crew: "When they get done at the end of the day, they know they've done a good day's work."

And then some. The day Forbes helped Laubinger clear brush to make way for the Explore farmstead's orchard, "I couldn't keep up with him," she says.

Forbes, who lives on the Bedford County shore of Smith Mountain Lake near Goodview, promises to take a break soon. "I'm going to have to back off," he jokes. "I'm getting to where I worry about it."

Forbes, though, has always been a man on the go.

He came to Explore "almost immediately" after he took early retirement from Kroger in 1992.

"My wife passed away three years ago," he says, pausing from his work notching beams for Explore's barn. "We had lots of plans that didn't pan out. So when I retired, I had nothing to do. I can't stay at home, I'd go stir-crazy, so I've got to get out and do something."

An outdoorsman and amateur photographer with a passion for birding, Forbes had followed Explore's progress - or, sometimes, lack of it - from afar "since the beginning."

He was intrigued by the idea of setting aside 1,300 forested acres in the Roanoke River gorge for a state-owned park and reassembling a frontier-era settlement on part of it.

"After I retired, I came out here one day looking for it so I could volunteer," Forbes says.

With his knack for woodworking, acquired mostly from putting up boathouses for himself and his lakeside friends, Forbes was a fellow the cash-strapped project could use.

He's been busy ever since.

This spring, Forbes has worked mostly to reassemble what will be, for now, Explore's most imposing structure - an 1803 "double-cribbed bank barn" that once stood in the middle of what is now Salem's industrial park just off Electric Road.

The barn's timbers had lain in storage for six years, and many of the tags identifying which pieces went where had come off in handling. "We've just had to figure things out like a jigsaw puzzle," Forbes says.

He marvels at the complex construction techniques used by the pioneer barn-builders. "Look at those grooves," he says, pointing to one especially deep mortise-and-tenon joint. "They didn't have any electric tools. They did it all by hand."

Forbes hopes he'll be able to try his own hands on one of Explore's next construction projects. This spring, the park won a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service to build an all-wooden footbridge intended to demonstrate wood's durability.

"Without one nail or a metal bolt," Forbes says, shaking his head in disbelief.

He considers that a special challenge. "They've asked me to come up with a set of plans. I'm going to go down to the library and do some research. I'd love to do that."

Odds are, he'll get his chance.