
DATE: Sunday, June 15, 1997                 TAG: 9706140084

SECTION: HOME                    PAGE: G1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HEATHER J. DAWSON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   99 lines

FATHER'S DAY DAD BUILDS HOMES, NOT HOUSES - ONE DREAM AT A TIME

IT ALWAYS STARTED with a paper towel and a pencil.

At the kitchen table on Sunday mornings, my father would sit with a cup of coffee. Next to his plate of fried eggs, bacon and fried potatoes would be a sketch of what my family's house was going to look like - next week, next month or next year.

My mother, sitting next to him, would be smoking a cigarette and dreaming aloud. ``Hardwood floors,'' she'd say, ``and counters with green tile and green grout. Easy to clean.''

Whatever it was, my father would make it happen.

When my mother, changing the dream in mid-sentence, would say, ``Maybe the door should go there instead,'' he'd erase or mark through or rip off another paper towel and start over.

I'd watch, half asleep, as I shuffled food around on my plate and downed a glass of juice. Later, I'd clear the table, sometimes throwing away the sketches of next year's kitchen or den or upstairs bedrooms.

Often as I cleaned the kitchen, my father would leave for one of his ``side jobs.'' He'd be renovating a neighbor's kitchen, putting a deck around their pool or adding bedrooms for their children.

The ``side jobs,'' I had learned early, paid for the paper towels - and the dreams drawn on them.

After several months of my father would working Saturdays, Sundays and evenings after he got home from the construction sites he supervised, I'd wake on another Sunday morning to the sounds of hammering or sawing.

With one eye barely open and a headache from sleeping till noon, I'd go downstairs to discover a wall missing. My father would be standing on the other side of the opening, scratching his head under the bill of his baseball cap. My mother would be ``supervising,'' as she called it - pointing and waving her hands.

I'd walk back upstairs and call a friend. ``What is that noise?'' the friend would ask.

``My crazy parents,'' I'd say. ``Knocking the house down.''

My friend would come and get me, and we'd head for a movie, the mall or anywhere quiet.

When I'd get home, my mother would be reading the paper, and my father would be watching a fishing show or sleeping in his chair in front of the TV.

Standing next to his chair in the room he'd built on the hardwood floors he'd put down, I'd say, ``You look tired.''

``Nah,'' he'd say. Always.

I'd put my small, smooth hand into his big callused one.

And the next night, after waking at 4:30 a.m. to get to his job site and working all day in the 90-degree broil or 30-degree freeze, he'd eat dinner and leave again. The side job was calling.

Soon my father would be back at Lowe's, for 2-by-4s to frame a new sunroom, bricks to build a fireplace, trim to finish a bedroom.

Nine years ago, my stepbrother, my father's only son, died. My mother drove to Harrisonburg to bring me home from college for the funeral.

When we pulled into the driveway, the house seemed too quiet. Then I heard the hammering.

Mom and I got out of the car, and I looked up. My father was on the roof.

``What is he doing?'' I asked.

``He said, `New shingles.' ''

When my father came down the ladder, his face was set, his mouth a grim line, and I had no idea what to say.

``Roof looks good,'' I finally said.

``Nah,'' he said.

After the funeral, I went back to school. My father went back to work and back to the side jobs. My sister started college. I graduated, got married, got a good job, got divorced, got remarried.

And then, my husband and I bought a house.

In my house, always, there's a wall to be painted, shelves to be put up, countertops to replace.

I'm drawn to older houses - ``possibilities,'' I say - and I can throw around words like ``joists'' and ``footings'' and ``drywall.''

And I married a man who is right there with me - who can point to a wall and see what I see - the shelves that will one day be there, the doorway to be opened to rooms we are still dreaming.

But my father is, of course, the expert. A couple of weeks ago, my parents saw our house for the first time. In the back yard, my father stood looking at the house the way he always views a building - in one sweep, from the roof line down.

Then I put him to work. I showed him where I want new railings for the porch stairs. ``You can do it in wood, I know,'' I said. ``It'd be pretty easy for you, I think.''

He checked out the stairs to see if the wood was sound, and I added: ``Yep, wood would be nice. But I'd really like iron . . . But that can't be done.'' The small back yard, rimmed with ivy, is bricked in. ``You can't get the railing into the ground.''

``Sure can,'' he said. ``Drill. Masonry bit.'' His foot tapped the spot where the railing could go.

As I watched his foot tapping, I realized I'm so grateful - grateful for my crazy parents.

Always knocking the house down and building it back up again.

MEMO: Heather J. Dawson is editor of The Currents, a community news

section for Portsmouth readers of The Virginian-Pilot. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

JOHN EARLE/The Virginian-Pilot

Whatever it was - hardwood floors, a swimming pool, a new sunroom -

my father would make it happen.