Guest Column
VIEW FROM THE PIER
- VIEW FROM THE PIER
- By Herman Sillas
Our oldest daughter, Debbie, is getting ready to move into her new house in Pennsylvania. Moving into a new residence is not that important except to the seller and buyer. In this case there is neither a buyer nor a seller only a builder. See, Debbie, husband, Craig, and their daughter, Sophie built it. It took them five years to do it, but let me go back about twenty-five.
Debbie has always been our dreamer. She graduated with an art degree from UCLA but wasn’t sure what to do with it. So, she went back to school and got a degree in psychology. She met Craig there. They married and settled in Orange County and while giving folks advice on how to cope with life, Debbie provided us a granddaughter, Sophie.
Then Debbie and Craig became active in their church and committed themselves to save souls. On Sundays they visited the poor in Garden Grove. The two concluded they would be more effective if they lived with the folks they were attempting to assist. So they moved into an apartment complex where English was hardly spoken and drugs were more plentiful than wholesome meals.
They started by inviting kids over for Saturday breakfast pancakes. The attendance in the small two bedroom apartment increased each week. On the first Christmas there, they took the children caroling around the neighborhood. The impressed landlord offered Craig and Debbie the community room for their pancake breakfasts. The number of children in attendance increased. By the second Christmas, parents joined their children for Christmas caroling. Law enforcement took notice and began policing the area on a regular basis. Drug dealers became scarcer and soon left.
Craig and Debbie’s apartment became the center of help for neighbors. After three years, Craig decided to return to Pennsylvania. His ancestors had received land back in the sixteen hundreds from William Penn. Now Craig’s siblings were returning to live on part of it. Debbie would follow her husband with a dream of owning a house some day.
Cora and I were present at their apartment when they left. The local children came to say goodbye. Their parents dropped in to thank Craig and Debbie for all they had done to improve the neighborhood. Many of the parents were Vietnamese and could only express themselves in their native language but their thankful eyes and smiles conveyed their appreciation. Children wept as they waved good-bye to the pancake makers. Tears filled my eyes as I said good-bye to our oldest daughter and family.
They settled in Hanover. The years passed and then one day she called and said they had picked out two acres from Craig’s family plot and had the plans for their house. It would be made of hay and they would build it.
“What?” I said. “Are you crazy? Don’t you remember the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs?’”
Debbie laughed and assured me that people have built houses of hay before. So she and Craig embarked on their new venture five years ago. Two years ago we visited them and saw the baled hay house in progress. They were coating the straw walls with lye. The outside of the house had one coat and they were working on the inside walls. The walls would ultimately have two coats. Debbie said the thick three-foot wall would keep the cold out during winter and the heat out during summer.
Sophie hated the house because it sucked up every weekend, holiday, and vacation day. She was tired of being a construction worker. But as the move-in-date nears, Sophie is excited. Monica, Debbie’s sister, and her family are flying back to see how a dream became reality. Sophie can tell them. It’s called hard work.
That’s the view from the pier.
Mr. Sillas can be reached at: herman.sillas@sillaslaw.com
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