November 14, 2009

Several years ago when a feverish imagination was running uncontrolled in the heart of my brother and I, we decided to purchase a large U.S Army surplus tent. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20x40 feet and weighed at least 300 pounds. We purchased this tent for the purpose of setting up a campsite at the base of Mt. Ironside (the site of our yearly Fall retreat). We envisioned accommodating a large group of men for a time of hunting and hearty fellowship. We drug that tent over there about this time 10 years ago. We got into the site late at night and there was a foot of snow on the ground. We dug and scraped, hefted and hoisted, stretched and propped, anchored….and collapsed! I remember that night vividly. We were wet, clammy with sweat and exhausted. It was bitterly cold. We had a 45 gallon oil drum that we had converted into a barrel heater and set it up in the middle of the tent. The wood was wet and it took forever to get some heat coming out of that stove. We did end up having a hearty time for a few days and then took the whole thing down again, packed it into the truck and came back and stored it in the Pequod (the name of the barn of which I am the proud captain). It has been in stowage ever since! Our imagination took a different course and the tent has collected dust and bird droppings ever since…..until today.

I drug it out of the ‘ships’ hold and cut it up. I took the pieces of canvas and spread them over a plot of ground that is currently carpeted with thick grass. I want to till this ground next spring and I do not want to have to pound through that hard turf. If things go as I plan, I will peal the canvas back sometime in March or April and all the growth underneath will be dead and decaying. I am using canvas to smother, much like the garden books and magazines talk about using black plastic.

As I was cutting up the tent I thought of Paul, the tent maker. Taking something apart deepens the appreciation for what was involved in putting it together. I realized what hard work it must have been for Paul to make tents. I don’t think it was something that he could have applied himself to for a few days and then beat it down the road to Phillipi or Thessalonika. I wonder if it wasn’t seasonal work or perhaps a two or three year period of his life. Then my eye fastened on the “USArmy” label on the tent and I wondered if this particular tent had ever been shelter for troops in combat. I kept cutting away….turning swords into plowshares.

Finished at 3.... just in time for tea.