How Bernice and Mr. T the T-Square Made My Last Spring Break
by Maggie Gordon
Soft pastel by Jordan Kammer, artist-in-residence
When my roommates and I started discussing our last spring break trip, I imagined myself traveling by airplane. Instead, I met Bernice.
Bernice is, of course, the name I gave the minivan I was entrusted with for driving myself and six other volunteers 22 hours from Syracuse, New York to Lakeland, Florida. Sure, Bernice wasn’t what I had imagined as my desired mode of transportation for the week, but this wasn’t the typical spring break either. Instead of lounging on the sun deck of a cruise ship in the Caribbean, I got to spend my vacation laughing and hanging dry wall for Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing low-income families with homes. Every year, the company hosts the Collegiate Challenge, which gives college students the opportunity to participate in an alternative spring break. My school dispatched dozens of us all around the country to help build homes. Some of my friends worked on framing houses, some painted and tiled, and others worked together to build an entire house from the ground up. Meanwhile, a group of eight of us dry-walled a house on Beech Street in Lakeland.
Although my tan can't compare to those who lounged on sun decks or hopped around Acapulco, I had the best spring break of my life. Not only did I manage to get a trucker to salute Bernice with his air horn, I also spent quality time with new and old friends.
However, the best part of the trip came when I met the woman who would one day live in the house we helped build, and the feelings that flooded through me as she told us – perfect strangers – she loved us from the bottom of her heart. Life has been a long journey for her. She is a mother and a wife, someone who has overcome challenges that I cannot even fathom in my sheltered, college mind. And now, she told us, she is getting a fresh start.
Being a tiny piece of her fresh start made the aching muscles, the sore back, and stubbed toes all worthwhile for us; it was impossible to be inside that work-in-progress without having a smile across our faces.
I was charged with the task of dry-walling the bedroom downstairs, along with my sorority sister Suzie – say that five times fast! As we learned more about the process and eventually hung the sheets without supervision, we fell in love with the idea of power tools and T-squares. We named every piece of equipment: “Bert and Ernie,” our favorite hammers; “The Crazy Italian,” the grater that shaved the edge of the sheet rock; “Herbert” the drill; and “Mr. T” the T-Square.
We would giggle and sing as we measured twice and cut once, using fake voices to make up stories about the lives of the tools, especially “The Crazy Italian” who owned a nice bistro. When the end of the day came at 2 p.m., we would load our dusty bodies back into Bernice to head back to the loft where we shared a wood floor covered in air mattresses with a group of 20 other students. We were all happy to be there and to know the work we were doing could actually help provide a house for a real family.
Everyone who worked on the project was enjoying the fact that a few hours of their time could add something as important as a home for a group of strangers or future neighbors. Perhaps the most touching and inspiring features of the house were the bare beams beneath the sheet rock that were gradually hidden throughout the house as our group worked to put up all the walls.
It seemed as though there was not a single beam without a personal message from someone who had contributed to the project. “Bless this house.” “Bless this family.” “Thank you for letting me be a part of this project.” “Home is where the heart is.” Notes of love and well wishes were written by local volunteers, as well as other college groups who had traveled from around the country to lend a hand during earlier stages of the project.
I don’t remember exactly what I wrote. I know I left a short message in purple marker inside the closet Suzie and I worked on during our first day at the site. But on that first day, when there were still plenty of beams to scribble on, the meaning of the whole project and the feeling of being part of something larger than myself hadn’t really sunk in yet.
If I could go back and write something now, I think I would tag the closet in the bedroom downstairs, where Suzie and I played peek-a-boo as we hung sheets of dry wall. “I hope this house brings you smiles every second,” I’d write. “Just like it did for me."
Published July 15, 2008. All rights reserved.