Everything at The Old Style Place
remains upright, anchored in stubbornness. Its steadfast preachment to tenacity
has denied gravity its victory. This stubbornness was earned by hammer and saw,
shovel and plane, elements of willful ambition. Having endured tornado-force
winds, the yearly push and pull of cold and hot, nearby forest-fires and
electrical wiring that’s older than the oldest goat, somehow it’s still
standing.

It’s also resisted
“updates.” There is no indoor plumbing or bathroom. To leave it all
behind, I walk outside to a small outdoor toilet where I encroach upon the
world of bugs.

Spider webs hang over the
doorframe. On a narrow window sill facing north, dead flies pile up forming a
grizzly pyramid to mortality.

First built in 1945 as a simple
framed hunting cabin, it remains a testament to quality. The two by four framing
boards really are 2 x 4, not the cheap sticks sold now that have been shaved
over time until what we call 2 x 4 is really more like 1 5/8 x 3 5/8.

Here, work finds me and tattoos
its truth upon my bones, and I unmask the lessons to absorb what I need to
learn. I sit at the metal table in the cabin’s main room and I’m reminded of
the hours my brothers and I sat here. We argued and competed. I cheated by
moving game pieces or hiding cards.

For hours,  we challenged one another in Stratego, Clue,
Battleship, Five Straight, Password or Jeopardy.