Bobby D showing off his wood
I have always been one of those guys who feels more at ease with the miscreants, derelicts and deviants than the frat boy “fu*kheads from buckhead” types that I see all too much of now that I’m back down south……. If you are from Georgia you know what I’m talking about! I never was a “GO DAWGS!’ type of guy, and I still have a really hard time with that mentality, but to each his own. As long as you don’t f*ck with me I promise I’ll never f*ck with you.
My good buddy Bobby D from high school is a redneck, I on the other hand am not. But as I always say us assholes gotta stick together! He ain’t changed a bit. He’s just lost his hair and his belly has gotten bigger, but who am I to judge? He’s still a GOOD f*cker with a big heart, and I’m truly grateful to have friends like him…….Back in High School we used to smoke weed, drink beer and raise hell! Not much has changed with him except now it’s a blunt, Evan Williams and in bed by 9:30……..
In a prior life I was a builder. For 30 years I worked in the construction trades as a carpenter and for 22 of those 30 I owned my own company building houses for clients in Colorado. I’m a damn good carpenter and know my sh*t inside and out when it comes to running a job or building a house, so when Bobby asked me to come help him with the house he is building in central Georgia I told him yes, I’d be more than happy to come and help him. I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into, but lately I’ve been looking for experiences, adventures and re-connecting with old friends so I said “What the hell” and told him I’d be up soon to give him a hand and hang out. And what an adventure it was!
Bobby D’s little slice of heaven
I rolled into Lincolnton, Georgia late in the afternoon. Lincolnton is about 40 minutes northwest of Augusta on Clarks Hill Lake. It’s a boater and Fishermans paradise with a lot of rural Georgia thrown in and when I showed up at his place it was just as I imagined rural Georgia to be like. I could almost hear the banjos playing and a little scared someone would be telling me to “Squeal like a pig boy!” before I had the stairs I had come to build finished!
When I arrived at Bobbys place he and his lady Ginny greeted me among the massive piles of lumber with the dogs and the chickens. Bobby raises champion roosters as a hobby and the dogs are their best friends and one named “Midnight” immediately became my best friend for the duration of my stay! Bobby and Ginny have been basically “camping out” in a corner of the basement while constructing the house and living conditions are still a little primitive, but they are happy and making do with a makeshift kitchen, very little electrical and “rustic” bathroom facilities to say the least! But I know when he’s finished with it it will be BEAUTIFUL and artistic. Bobby has a vision and I know its a grand one. This is his dream home and I’m proud he asked me to come be a part of it!
Roosters that haven””t gotten old enough to try to kill each other yet. 
Fightin” rooster. They need to be kept separate so they don”’t try to kill each other!
Can’t remember this one’s name. 
Midnight……my buddy at the farm……
That night we cooked Bar B Que on the grill, shot the shit and went to bed early so we could hit it hard the next morning. Annie (my camper) was too hot to sleep in without a power hook up to run my AC but they had AC and fans in the small corner they called a bedroom. Midnight decided she wanted to sleep with me, so we curled up on the mattress on the floor and called it a day! Later that night I had to use the “facilities” so I stumbled through the unfamiliar rooms and I almost s*it my pants when something large moved in the darkness in the pitch black house. It was “Billy” the goat. IN THE F*CKING HOUSE! I screamed like a little b*tch it scared me so bad! Bobby in a foggy voice informed me that the goat gets afraid at night and sometimes breaks into the house to crash also! All I could think to myself was that it was pretty f*ucking weird for a goat to sleep in the house, but it is going to be an awesome addition to my story!
“Billy.” The goat that was in the house the first night
The next morning we awoke, and after Bobby’s morning blunt went into town to get breakfast and a few things we needed for our first days work. Building Stairs! If you do not know what you are doing you can really screw them up. That’s the main reason I came up……..To build the stairs. After some math and layout I got busy and about six hours later ( Bobby proceeded to smoke another 3 or 4 blunts) we had them installed. Now getting to the upper floor was a whole lot easier than climbing the ladder that had been there that morning!
The stairs I built
The “Throne” is in the middle of the room. Note the barrel to the left and the bucket next to it for dipping the water out of the barrel to fill the tank to flush it!
Living in a jobsite!
After working in 85 degree humid weather all day sweating my ass I needed to wash the four important spot on my body. Two of them were my armpits and with a little imagination I bet you can guess the other two. If you can’t send me an email and I’ll tell you……..
Now in typical Chateau Doyon fashion you can probably guess where the shower was……..Well if you can’t then I’ll tell you, it was OUTSIDE……. Bobby calls it the B.O.S.S. ……An acronym for “Bobbys Outdoor Solar Shower.” Basically it was a black barrel on top of a platform heated by the sun with a rudimentary plumbing valve to get wet, shut off, lather up with soap, then turn it back on to rinse off. It was quite pleasant on that hot day, but I’d hate to have to use it on a sunless or cold day!
The B.O.S.S. Bobby’s Outdoor Solar Shower
I spent another couple of days installing windows and helping Bobby and Frankie lay out the post holes for the entry deck up to the second story front door.Bobby uses Frankie around his property for odd jobs like weed eating and other manual projects. I found it pretty amusing that Frankie drove a lawn mower down the highway to work as he does not have a drivers license. Frankie is your stereotypical Georgia “good ol’ boy” and Bobby informed me that he was a little “off”, (hence the no drivers license) but he seemed like a pretty good guy to me, although I got the distinct impression that you DID NOT want to piss him off!
Life is a journey, not a destination…….. And this is just a way stop on my journey to try to untangle my mind and find a new groove in life. I’m lost , confused and for the first time in a long time have no idea of my special purpose, but deep in my heart I know everything will work out in the long run.
Ginny and Bobby, thank you so much for the hospitality . And Bobby, I WILL find my chi and my feng shui………..I just don’t know when or where…….
livin' before dyin' 