stones for wendy

it was late afternoon, twenty miles off the coast of maine, I was on the far windward side of peaks island, the sea was the deepest blue. the atlantic ocean lay in front of me, and i could see one solitary island off the horizon and then nothing but that blue sea meeting sky and clouds. i was taking stones off the beach to rebuild the foundation of a farm house i was working on and each stone had to be hand picked and sized to meet the criteria my patron wendy had determined. wendy stood on the road above me, a short stout woman balancing on her cane and as i held a stone over my head, she would remark "that's a good one," and i'd throw it into the growing good pile, or " not that one", and back into the sea. the stones had to be longish, somewhat flat and well formed at the ends so they could be not only lay flat but butted up to each other in a friendly and firm fashion. technically we weren't supposed to be taking stones from the beach but wendy was a native islander and it had been a common traditon and long practice to build walls and foundations out of stone. knowing this i was making some haste, yet i was enjoying the whole process greatly, reveling in the selection process and the variety of seemingly endless colored stones, tumbled to perfection by the sea. i stood there letting the sun warm my face, maine was cool even in the summer, the sea breezes blowing away flys and knats, making the island a paradise. i spent the summer in the middle of the island, out in a forest of tall pines in a large clearing, tearing apart shipping pallets, giant timbers nailed together with spikes that i pulled out using a hammer and bar until i'd freed them from each other and they lay there in the clearing, long black thick chunks of wood i would later manufacture into new beams and support members for the house. i could take a steel spike out at the rate of one an hour or so, very rough sledding. the spikes were roughly 3/4 of an inch wide and driven a good six inches or more into the beam, and all i had was a hammer and a steel bar, the trick was to get another piece of wood next to the spike as leverage and then pry and bend using all my strength, pulling the spike out bit by bit, until it came loose, the forest surrounding me, the day cool and wonderful, seemed to cheer me on. when i finally had all the wood i wanted, i used a old oil drum and rolled the beams onto the back of my little yellow toyota truck and lashed them on and drove them back to the house, down twisting dirt roads and quaint farm houses through the middle of the island until i arrived in the back yard with my catch.jgk