It’s been awhile, and I know y’all just dying to hear from your favorite Jr. High friend, Cactus Pete. Yep, its me again, and I got a good one for y’all today. Me and Uncle Muddy like to tell stories when we make a fire down at the pond. We really use the fire only for Shady to torch his marshmallows, since he gets real upset when we don’t do it every now and again.

This night we were running trot lines and fishing down to the middle pond behind the house and Uncle Muddy told us a story, like he always does. This one is kind of fun too; he always tells stories about weird folks and their quirky little habits. We were sitting there, me with hot chocolate and Shady with his tea, since that is usually all he drinks. Uncle Muddy had him a cold beer. We weren’t catching anything either, and we already ate all of our hot dogs.

Uncle Muddy started telling us a story about a man he used to know from construction sites called Rebar. Y’all know how I told you everybody in Belle Binford has a nickname? Well this one is a real good one. There was this fella named Thomas that Uncle Muddy knew, but he could not remember his last name. This Thomas fella had a nickname of Rebar. Even his mother called him Rebar. That’s a weird nickname, but I am going to tell y’all just how he got it.

Uncle Muddy told us that on construction sites, each position has a name, a role and when you call out work in the morning, you assign tasks to everyone on the sheet. Its easy to give the role one single name, that way everybody knows who is doing what. For example, if the form men have to do forms, the foreman calls out “Forms” and he gives them the work they need to do to lay out the concrete forms.

If he calls out “mix” you know that work is for the concrete mix crew. He calls out “mix delivery” that means the man organizing the concrete pour deals with the trucks. And everyone loved to hear that foreman call out ‘rebar’. Because Rebar was the only role that didn’t have a helper unless they made him, and did not say a word. He would just grunt.

He worked rebar and float, and folks said he could dress the final pour with laying the rebar and floating the concrete just so that it was dang near perfect. You could roll a ball on his finished job and it would just sit there, and not try to weave or go all this and that away. They often said it looked like the work of a dang wizard, it was that good.

What is weird is that Rebar used to be a professor at a college. He had two Master’s degrees and they would always ask him why he gave that up to be a concrete worker. He replied every time, “Its like art. And I love art, so I love concrete.” He loved concrete so much his mother’s house looked like a concrete museum. He had ornate flowerpots, gargoyle monuments, he made all that by hand like a concrete sculptor.

He had a ramp up to the front porch with really nice inscriptions and lines and waves and doing that in regular old concrete pour takes talent. And he had a ton of it. Old Rebar had some weird notions, and would always engage someone in his notions, if they gave him a chance. They would actually say “Rebar got him” if he was in one of his discussions, and they would page each other on the overhead speaker, or walky talky just to break the conversation and get away.

Rebar always talked about symmetry. That means something is balanced with something else, and he would go on and on and on until the men kind of just got sick of him talking about balance, and curves and symmetrical this and that. And he did not care. And old Rebar loved to fish. This man truly beat to his own drum, tune and bugle core Uncle Muddy told us.

One time on site there was a new assistant foreman, and he did not know what to make of Rebar. There was a lake nearby and with no warning, Rebar would finish his work list up til lunch and just disappear down to the lake. Nobody would see him, and he would take a long lunch but he always stayed late. The new assistant foreman saw this and got mad about it, real hot like Rebar was stealing company time. The old foreman says, “Little bossman, you just hush on that nonsense right now. You watch, ol Rebar will be back and you will LOVE the results.”

Sure enough after two or three hours when the men were hot and tired and hungry, ol Rebar would come with a bucket of fish already cleaned and prepped. He would take a large pot he kept in his truck, and he would deep fry those fish on a wood pile of scraps either from the site or out of his truck. Sometimes he would use a propane cooker; but he would make fish for all the men and somehow have a nice big bunch of loaf bread, or homemade bread he would buy from the deli. NO one told him to do this, but he would just say “I got to hankering for some fish.” And he would stay late and finish all of his work fast as a whip.

The men learned that they loved them free fish, and just to shut up and they could feast if Rebar was in the mood. One time he bought a bunch of steaks and had them in his cooler. Didn’t charge anyone a penny ever. He must have had money or savings from his prior life. He would cook those steaks and everybody got one and some got two. They would ask him, and he would just say “I knowed I was hungry for a steak today.”

Yeah he was an odd bird. They put a new kid with him one time, but the kid didn’t last an hour because he didn’t want to work, and Rebar worked like a concrete floating machine. He worked so fast and was so methodical he knew where you were supposed to stand, and how many inches from the floor you could move a trowel to be most efficient. If you worked with him and acted like you had some sense, and didn’t mind his super fast speed he was real fun to work with and you would learn more than you ever wanted about pouring and concrete finish work.

This kid though wasn’t having none of it. The foreman found him sitting behind the truck crying. Rebar had “gobbled him up” and the foreman, slightly amused asked, knowing what was wrong already. The kid said, “Rebar jumped all over me for not working fast like him, I hate this and I am going home.” The foreman just nodded and said, “Son you need a paycheck, so how about you go stack the leftover form wood, and go help those men and tote boards and nails. I need your help and you ain’t gotta work with ol’ Rebar anymore today.”

The kid liked that and eventually was able to be a good hand. But they learned right off not to put Rebar with the new guys, unless those new guys could take it. He didn’t yell or cuss, although he would tell one of the seasoned guys who didn’t move like he thought he should, “Concrete world, clock always ticking.” Meaning that concrete only had so long to dry, and that was usually pretty fast. One day he got mad at the foreman, and told him, “You know, you hand out work like an old lady, and its backwards to boot.” The foreman was surprised but actually took Rebar aside to find out what the issue was.

Turns out all the foreman had to do was move the pour mixer three feet closer to the actual pour job, and Rebar was happy. You know, you have to love eccentric talented people, and I believe those men loved Rebar. They sure doted on him for cooking them fish all the time, and steaks and whatever else he dreamed up for that week. Uncle Muddy ended by saying “Folks gonna be folks, and that is the thin and thick of it.”

I hope I am not eccentric. But if I am they would probably just tell me to hush up talking about it, since I talk so much.