"Little" Sister Pt. 06

Morgan said, early in our conversation, "It's hard slogging it out for years, then you make it look so easy." That was Rockford's take in the episode. Hearing it about myself was really irritating. What did I make look easy? Politics? Senator Robertson came to me for aid on one of her pet ideas. I threw time, resources and people at the project. It now was complete, except for the ribbon cutting. Morgan, not myself, would receive the bulk of the political credit.

Was it business? In less than three years I had invested well over a million dollars of my inheritance. In all that time I could count breakeven months on one hand. Cloudrest represented another half a million dollars spent money. If I did not have donors lined up to Sunday, there would be no way to do the restoration.

Heaven knew Morgan could not envy my personal relationships. I had a devoted assistant and some loyal associates, but my chief romantic interest was on a different continent. Physically, my relief used 110 volt AC current. What had I done that an accomplished professional politician should envy?

I started cataloging the people I relied on and the contacts that I had made. That was when it hit me. They say you can tell a person's character by his friends. If that was true, I had a damn fine resume.

No one can control their family, but mine was a significant asset. I had people like Francine Martel, Governor Sheehan, Pedro de la Garza and Adele Cabot on speed dial, not counting the ones in academia. The Rolodex included half the money men on Manhattan Island, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, most of the powers that be in both City of Boston and State of New Hampshire politics and a solid cross section of Hollywood.

I was traveling in the express lane and never noticed. Dr. Steele already told me that I had a tenured position, at an Ivy League University, available on request. I knew without thinking that MBC&L would offer me a mid six figure income, plus another for Elspeth, just for my contacts. Governor Sheehan had hinted at similar things. Indeed, I was out of her price range. The New Hampshire Republican Party wanted to groom me for Washington.

No wonder Morgan Robertson was a bit jealous. Washington was probably a dream of hers, one which she was giving up as lost. I knew what I could do about that. As I thought it, the whole patchwork of my life shifted. The decision to run for Congress was already made. What lay in front of me was the implications. I had been angling toward this moment, without realizing it. It was why I was here, now, in the place where the work needed to be done.

My reward, for working like a dog for ten years, was more work. Life's a bitch that way. I toasted life, one bitch to another.

Chapter 29 -- Capital Capital

Decisions often simplify other decisions. Mine certainly did. Once I decided to let myself be seduced by the Republicans, my driving objective was to find a competent person to run the Concord office. Morgan Robertson was ideal, if I could get her to take the job. In this I had an advantage and a handicap.

The handicap was that I was not going to offer the money others might. The advantage was that Morgan clearly thought my star was rising. She might want to hitch her cart to my horse. Lacking anything concrete, my gut said she was making me an offer, contingent on me finding suitable compensation. In this case, money was low on the list, but I could not ignore it.

Fortunately, I could find out what New Hampshire was paying her. That would be the baseline. Everything else would stack on top of it. For example, I could give her a 5% slice of FDC. That would leave me with 60%. Another carrot would be freedom to take speaking engagements and the contacts to acquire them. As a sitting Senator, her hands were largely tied.

Still, the biggest selling point would be my future. Morgan wanted to be involved, but only if I was headed up. With that in mind, I returned some calls. None of them were decision makers, but they were somewhere in the ranks. Word would work its way up the food chain. The call came from an attorney, no surprise, that Donald Erkfurt wished to meet with me.

Mr. Erkfurt was a former prosecutor for the City of Manchester. He had moved on to a series of law firms, all of which represented one political entity or another. After ten years as a lobbyist/campaign worker, he graduated to running mayoral campaigns in Manchester, Nashua and Concord. He managed Donna Lee's most recent election. At a guess, he was delegated to give me the sniff test. More investigative vetting would surely be done behind the scene.

We met for drinks at the local artisan brewer, the Barley Malt Pub. One point in his favor. It was the most authentic Irish style pub I had yet seen in New Hampshire. Sean would love it. To make the evening short, I had ale poached fish and a pint of red ale. Mr. Erkfurt had fish and chips, with at least five pints of stout. Our table was observed from at least two others, possibly more.

The low-light came when the waiter brought a bar tab for all but one of Mr. Erkfurt's beers. There had been a discussion about what to do about his drinking on duty, so I saw the showdown coming. This gave me the opportunity to watch the other tables. The most obvious pair were laughing at Mr. Erkfurt's reaction. At another table, the man facing me leaned back with a big grin. The other man was deep in a cell phone conversation. Coincidentally a man on the far side of the room was also in a deep conversation. Hmmm.

I thanked Mr. Erkfurt for his time and rose to leave. Sure enough, both cell phones went down together. I walked across the room to the third table. I said, "Thank you for an excellent meal. Perhaps we can talk face to face next time."

Turning to the door, I caught three shocked expressions. By far the most shocked was Mr. Erkfurt, who turned ashen. While I was exiting the parking lot, a boy came running out of the restaurant. He gave me a business card and went back inside. The card was for a local car dealer. On the back was a number. I drove home, changed clothes and brewed tea before calling it.

The short version was that I passed the audition, not that this made things easier. The next day was a constant reminder that I am easy to spot. Everywhere I went, I was followed. Where I passed, heads turned and conversations stopped. It was both flattering and annoying. When I arrived at the office, Howard Cockerham came in, asking what I had said last night. It seemed I had pushed the latest school shooting off the top of the gossip list. I told him to shut the door and pull up a chair.

Once settled, I said, "Howard, I came to Concord to make some changes. It has been very clear that more gets done when I am in house. I do not intend to be 'in house' permanently, so I will be putting someone in my place, meaning over everyone else. That someone will not be you."

I watched him closely. In my opinion, he expected exactly this conversation. He tried to work up wounded indignation, but his relief was palpable. I waited for his expression to settle down, then continued, "I appreciate all your hard work. I think the next manager will appreciate it as well. You have many skills and admirable qualities, but I do not think being the boss is one of them. If it is any consolation, I am going to try recruiting a veteran Concord insider. He or she will need your help."

It says something of Howard that his reply was, "Morgan Robertson?" There was approval in his attitude.

I said, "She's my first choice. Be aware that I intend to give her a lot of rope. If she wants to take speaking engagements, write a book or take up bridge, she can. All I will care about is building from our base. Also, I may be..."

He broke in, "...running for Congress. You do make things interesting. If I did not already know your relation to Sean, I would be asking, 'Do you plan to marry your workout coach?'" There was a definite twinkle with that quip. I told him to go back to work.

An hour later I had much the same conversation with Morgan Robertson. All that was left was detail work. I spent most of the summer tracking down issues. The September session of the Court was a goldmine of business. I was an interesting new face, but Morgan Robertson was well known and respected. Nothing was official before October 1^st. By then Morgan was essentially running the New Business side of the office. On October 15^th I went back to Nashua semi-permanently. Things had changed there as well. After two days I decided to visit Cloudrest.

Lest one misunderstand, I still spent at least one day a week in Concord and another in Boston. That said, I wanted to focus on my coming race, not on the renovations to Cloudrest. For that, I took a break. In hindsight, I should have let my people know in advance.

PBS had finished their project. This Old House had proven a difficult partner. While they supplied expert workers, I supplied the materials. Since I was paying, I wanted input on which materials they would use. They thought this was unreasonable.

Basically, they wanted to use cutting edge building supplies. I wanted the to use materials suitable for the original construction. We compromised. They used solid wood beams and boards, but were allowed to redesign the big fireplace and construct a wood drying kiln.

During the planning, we took to calling it the Woodshop, which would be our first use for the space. The following year, main house projects would need a sheltered place to build frames and fabricate pieces. From that basic understanding much discussion arose. Power, for example.

I went along with the show on this one. All electric power was generated on site and would be for some time. The show wanted to showcase alternate methods. Instead of electricity, compressed air powered the shop tools. This came from a diesel compressor and 500 gallon air tank. There was a whole show dedicated to running the high pressure lines throughout the building. More importantly, it worked. Almost all the necessary woodworking tools were available in a compressed air version.

One section of the building was rigged with racks for cured wood storage. That all looked very lumber yardish, but normal. So did the big fireplace, though it was almost anything but normal. Sure it had fire dogs and a screen, for normal use. If you looked more closely, over the flames were heat exchange pipes. These were for the drying kiln on the other side of the wall. From the outside it looked like a shed, built lean-to style against the stone wall. In this I sidestepped the show a bit.

You could also see pipes leading to the roof. George (my brother) assured me the rooftop solar collectors were state of the art. Evidently it was much easier to get solar heat than solar electric power, though we did both. Solar electric current ran the ventilation fans. The whole rig used cutting edge temperature controls and safety cutoffs. It was so efficient at heating the kiln, that the fireplace would only be needed during winter, if then.

Nearby was a small stone building, the new smithy. I had to look twice, because it had not been there before. Though it was not for This Old House, the same crew did the work. It was planned as a three part special on PBS, possibly leading to a new program.

Everyone knew I had affiliations with the Amish. This smithy was designed so that an 18^th century blacksmith would be at home. A portion of the stream was diverted to fill a large cistern. The smith needed a ready source of water, but the main reason was a water powered forge fan. It was a very Amish solution.

This all sounds rather static, but it was nothing of the sort. When I arrived at the hilltop, there were three different construction crews working, plus another work crew clearing trees from paths. Every work crew had an integrated camera crew. It was all coordinated from the main house, in fact from same room I used in the spring. During the summer the room had acquired electrical power and glass in the windows.

When I arrived, everyone was rushing to beat the winter weather, though there was another crew ready to cover that as well. Work on the main house would mostly wait for the new year, but winterizing the house was worth an episode of someone's show. A master woodcrafter was instructing several apprentices on the fine points of weather shutters.

The county had run a dirt road to the property line, though it was still four wheel drive due to stumps. The county would pull them in the spring. The driveway would be ready. It was already cleared of rocks, trees and stumps. That day a crew was digging drainage ditches and compacting the crown prior to spreading gravel.

The heaviest work I had already seen, at riverside. The little Boy Scout pier was still in place, though it had been shimmed level. Two hundred feet downstream, heavy equipment was driving industrial piers for a cargo dock. Dirt and rock from the driveway ditches was coming here to fill holes left by tree roots. Other trees were marked for later removal. In the spring, another drive would run from house to pier.

Tree removal was a big issue. The apple grove needed to be thinned, by at least half. The crown of the hill was treeless, but all around were thickets which needed taming. Mostly it was the smaller growth that needed pruning, but occasionally a big tree was marked. Often the marked trees were already girdled, so the wood would cure standing.

One row of markings went down a ridge, parallel to the stream. I followed it. There were several tangles, but nothing bad. Before long I recognized the rocky knoll, where Sarah and I had stopped in the spring. As I hoped, an area was already cleared. This would be a perfect place for a picnic gazebo. However, there was nothing suggesting a boat house. I would have to check into that.

The sky had been partly cloudy most of the day. As I walked back up the hill, the gaps between clouds filled in. Before I reached the main house, lights were starting to come on. Where the work used no electricity, light was from gas or propane lanterns. In many cases, this was intentional, to document non-electric techniques. In other places, it was just simpler than having a generator.

I was reminded how electrical power is a constant in our lives. One reason for pushing the construction of a cargo dock was a pair of 36,000 watt diesel generators. They needed to be on site and secured before the really bad weather hit. In the spring, they would provide power for construction, cameras, lighting and support. Even after the house was tied into the county grid, they would provide backup power. Til then it was portable generators or non-electric methods.

Dusk came early. Workers were scurrying to close everything up. As if to urge things along, a cold drizzle began to fall. I buttoned up, glad I had worn my raincoat. The long coat had been overly warm most of the afternoon. For this it was perfect, though my walking shoes were not. I had packed galoshes this time, but they were in the boat. Oh well, live and learn. I pulled a knit cap from my coat pocket and put it on.

The electric light in the main house was a beacon no one could miss. I had almost reached the entrance when the door opened. A man stopped in the doorway, looking surprised to see me. He turned and spoke to someone inside. After a short exchange another man came out.

He said, "This is private property. I am going to have to ask you to leave. How did you get here?"

I wanted to see how much he knew and what his chain of command was like, so I answered, "I have permission from the owner. In fact, I was in Concord last weekend. Call her if you like, but let's get out of the rain."

My reference to rain seemed to surprise him. He was under an awning, so the drizzle was not getting him wet. After a quick glance at my coat, he waved me inside. As I stood in the doorway, several cameras flashed. From the room, a voice said, "The Winter Queen returns."

His name was Simon Garrett, a forest and wildlife photographer. He was familiar with The Queen of Winter from a photo competition. Whatever the reason, it was a great way to open the conversation.

I said, "That was my fur lined sealskin coat, not this raincoat. I never knew what the fuss was about. It was not even twenty below." I extended my hand. We shook. "Siobhan Richards. This is my house."

Sean claims I have a thing for entrances. Maybe he has a point. I certainly played that one up. Unfortunately, it was to a room full of photographers and videographers. There are two video recordings, with sound, from before the door opened. I never counted the still cameras. Clips and prints kept showing up for years.

At the time, my claim to be the owner caused a stir. It did not take long to sort out that I really was Siobhan Richards and that someone named Richards was the owner. That was good enough for most of them, and quieted the rest. From that point I won them over by asking good questions. These men were hands-on types. They recognized someone that had walked the property. Once the ice was broken, they told me a great many things about a great many things.

For example, I was only vaguely aware of the tree survey. My property was unusual, since much of it was once harvested for timber, but was long fallow. Just as important, there were areas of virgin woods for comparison. The US Department of Forestry and the University of Arizona were doing a joint study, which brought Simon Garrett. National Geographic was documenting the survey. Mr. Garrett was their photographer.

It was interesting stuff. I learned that I owned a couple of truly enormous trees. There was an eighty foot American Sycamore in one valley. On a hilltop was one of the largest sweet gum trees in North America, almost a hundred feet. Nearer the house was a very large specimen of black walnut and several good sized black cherry trees. Evidently people were bidding for rights to make furniture from them.

Twelve varieties of oak had been identified. There were groves of native beech and linden, numerous examples of white birch (the state tree) and sugar maple. On the coniferous side, one section of pine trees may have been planted, following a clear cut. While not orderly, the hillside was almost uniformly Eastern white pine. There was also a wetland area, thick with cedar and birch, and the occasional black willow.

All the photographers were drooling over the fall color. Three of them started arguing about the best way to shoot the massive sweet gum. Others wanted to take shots of the river bank, from a boat. The most controversial idea was to make a shooting stand in the branches of a hilltop oak tree. Oddly, that led to a discussion of water for the house.

While there was a spring near the house, it was not a large one. Some of the nearby hills had springs as well. The tallest of the nearby hills—the one with the crowning oak tree—had a spring above the level of the house. It looked possible to build a proper filtration system and still get drinking water gravity fed into the house. HGTV was planning a multi-episode event around the project. News to me.

We talked til well past midnight. When I suggested going to get my things from the boat, three guys dashed for the door. I had the foresight to use a waterproofed bag for the bedroll, but it was not proof against standing water. My bedroll was half soaked. Several guys offered their roll, while two others offered blankets. That was when I realized there was not another female in the house. Doh!

We sorted out who had enough to spare me something. I slept that night in a couple of blankets, on my own sleeping pad, in a room with six guys. I had no intention of taking a cold shower, but several of them commented on getting one. This proved a running joke.