We added a back porch this summer. Cedar posts, a tin roof, a ceiling fan for the evenings. It went up in about a week, which surprised me, and it was done well, which did not. The crew showed up before daylight and left after dark, and in all that time I do not think I heard one of them complain.
I paid the contractor. The contractor paid whoever he paid. I did not ask, and I want to make the case that not asking was the right thing to do.
There is a certain kind of person who wants to follow every dollar to the end of the line. Who picked the peaches. Who framed the house. Who cleaned the office overnight. Who stood on the roof in August. These people mean to make you uncomfortable, and they generally succeed. My view is that some questions are like the kitchen at your favorite restaurant. If the food is good, you do not walk back there.
I will admit what I think a lot of my neighbors feel and will not say. I want the work done, and I want it done at a price I can afford, and I do not want to think very long about the people who do it. I am against people coming here the wrong way. I am also against my porch costing a good deal more. I have found I can hold both views comfortably, so long as I do not hold them at the same time.
A builder I know outside San Antonio told me once that if every man without papers walked off his job sites on a Monday, nothing in the county would get finished by Friday. He did not say it as a complaint or a boast. He said it the way you would tell somebody the weather. I nodded and changed the subject. I find that is usually the wisest thing to do with that kind of information.
Some folks think the whole arrangement ought to be sorted out and written down properly. I understand the appeal. But the arrangement we have now asks nothing of me. I get the porch. The contractor gets the job. The men get paid something. Nobody has to stand up in front of anyone and say what we all already know. I’ll vote for the Republican for Senate this fall to keep it that way. I get the feeling the other side would like to write the arrangement down so those men could work here in the open, and then somebody would have to say it.
That kind of quiet is worth a lot. It is what lets a man sit out on his porch in the evening with a clear conscience.
I have never asked who built it. It is a very good porch.
D. M.