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Authors: Kate Whouley
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disappointed, but Tony assures me I will get the general idea. He watched the process twice and it was pretty much the same. He’s right that the general idea is really what we need. I sent him to take the photographs because I am thinking of writing a children’s book based on the cottage story. I’ve talked to my local postmistress, Nancy, who is also an artist, about the possibility of illustrating it. “Take lots of pictures,” she said, and so we will. For Nancy’s purposes, the photographs of any cottage being lifted off its foundation will do. But for sheer documentary purposes, for the thrill of seeing what I missed while I was in California, I wish we had a shot of my very cottage in midair.
“Hayden’s guys sawed through the screen porches first thing. So they just fell to the ground as the cottages went up in the air. It was something,” Tony says. The cottages were already loosened from their foundations when Tony arrived, so he didn’t witness that part of the process. But he saw the liftoffs and he saw the crashing porches, and he saw the cottages being carried on a flatbed truck to their new location. “And those guys—they really get right under the house. Man. There were two or three guys working underneath one cottage while they were moving it from the flatbed to the concrete blocks, and something slipped. They got out from under there so fast! One of them barely made it. And I was shooting the whole time. I was afraid what I might get on film. But those guys know how to move!”
Of course I am concerned for the house-movers, but this story of a house almost missing its landing worries me for the cottage as well. “Oh, they righted it just in time,” Tony says. “And after that, they decided to use the crane to lift the cottages off the truck. Mr. Hayden said they had the crane; they might as well use it. Even though it was really big for the job. I guess it was the only crane they could get today.”
“You talked to Mr. Hayden?” Somehow this surprises me, even though I’d told Tony he should get permission from him to take pictures. It wasn’t until Tom Howes made a call on my behalf that the house-mover returned any of my five—count ’em—phone calls. On that return call, he identified himself as Mr. Hayden, and so our uneven relationship of names and titles began. He was Mr. Hayden to me. I was Kate. Once, I think, he even called me Katie.
Mr. Hayden didn’t exactly apologize for taking so long to return my call. “I get calls from a lot of kooks who aren’t serious about moving houses. They just want to waste my time.” His voice matched exactly the gravelly message I’d heard so many times. I recognized it immediately, even at 7:30 in the morning, a time when I usually refuse to answer the phone. But I’d been rising early, waiting for his callback for many days in a row. I was as ready for him as I could be.
I assured him, as I had Tom Howes, that I was serious, but that I needed him to see my location, to make sure it was possible to move the house. I told him about the driveway access, the big spruce trees, the steep hill, the bog. Could he come take a look?
A weather-beaten man of few words, Mr. Hayden could just as easily be spearing whales as moving houses. He has a rough, reddish-blonde beard on its way to gray, and his matching hair has been styled by the time he spends outdoors. He talks in spurts and you have to listen fast to hear what he says. He is not fond of repeating himself. We walk the property; I show him where I want the cottage. I fill the space with details he may or may not want to hear. But I don’t know how to talk to him, or what he needs to know. He wrinkles his brow, he squints, he nods occasionally, but he says next to nothing.
“Need a crane,” he finally says. “Can’t do this mechanically, too steep. Have to get Baxter over here.”
“Baxter?”
“He owns the crane. Get him to figure out how to do this. If he says it can be
“Hayden’s guys sawed through the screen porches first thing. So they just fell to the ground as the cottages went up in the air. It was something,” Tony says. The cottages were already loosened from their foundations when Tony arrived, so he didn’t witness that part of the process. But he saw the liftoffs and he saw the crashing porches, and he saw the cottages being carried on a flatbed truck to their new location. “And those guys—they really get right under the house. Man. There were two or three guys working underneath one cottage while they were moving it from the flatbed to the concrete blocks, and something slipped. They got out from under there so fast! One of them barely made it. And I was shooting the whole time. I was afraid what I might get on film. But those guys know how to move!”
Of course I am concerned for the house-movers, but this story of a house almost missing its landing worries me for the cottage as well. “Oh, they righted it just in time,” Tony says. “And after that, they decided to use the crane to lift the cottages off the truck. Mr. Hayden said they had the crane; they might as well use it. Even though it was really big for the job. I guess it was the only crane they could get today.”
“You talked to Mr. Hayden?” Somehow this surprises me, even though I’d told Tony he should get permission from him to take pictures. It wasn’t until Tom Howes made a call on my behalf that the house-mover returned any of my five—count ’em—phone calls. On that return call, he identified himself as Mr. Hayden, and so our uneven relationship of names and titles began. He was Mr. Hayden to me. I was Kate. Once, I think, he even called me Katie.
Mr. Hayden didn’t exactly apologize for taking so long to return my call. “I get calls from a lot of kooks who aren’t serious about moving houses. They just want to waste my time.” His voice matched exactly the gravelly message I’d heard so many times. I recognized it immediately, even at 7:30 in the morning, a time when I usually refuse to answer the phone. But I’d been rising early, waiting for his callback for many days in a row. I was as ready for him as I could be.
I assured him, as I had Tom Howes, that I was serious, but that I needed him to see my location, to make sure it was possible to move the house. I told him about the driveway access, the big spruce trees, the steep hill, the bog. Could he come take a look?
A weather-beaten man of few words, Mr. Hayden could just as easily be spearing whales as moving houses. He has a rough, reddish-blonde beard on its way to gray, and his matching hair has been styled by the time he spends outdoors. He talks in spurts and you have to listen fast to hear what he says. He is not fond of repeating himself. We walk the property; I show him where I want the cottage. I fill the space with details he may or may not want to hear. But I don’t know how to talk to him, or what he needs to know. He wrinkles his brow, he squints, he nods occasionally, but he says next to nothing.
“Need a crane,” he finally says. “Can’t do this mechanically, too steep. Have to get Baxter over here.”
“Baxter?”
“He owns the crane. Get him to figure out how to do this. If he says it can be
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