Good Men Are Hard To Find

I don't know about you, but finding good help around here has been a bit difficult for us. It took us the better part of a year to find someone willing to work on our wood stove chimney, and though it has worked out, my experience was a long way from what I sought.

We asked for recommendations about someone that would do the job, called the folks recommended, left messages, but never got a call back. I suppose we didn't hear back because the person recommended didn't want to get involved in our chimney replacement after driving by perhaps, wasn't hungry enough, or knew they didn't have what it took to get the job done.

My goal was to get the job done without getting involved on the roof or having to bother my neighbors for help. As long time followers of The City Slickers know, our farming neighbors have come to our assistance numerous times and we've not been able to return the favors, and frankly I don't like to ask for help... I want to cover my own butt if you know what I mean. So when I found a guy willing to do the work from a newspaper ad, I thought we had contracted someone to do the job so I could relax and get down to doing things I know how to do. To make a long story short, we had to get our neighbors involved, had to make a trip to Grand Island for parts for the job, and I had to actually complete the job... mostly because I was tired of messing around with the guy I "hired". I will say that I think the guy I hired wanted to do a good job, he just didn't have any experience on this type project, and couldn't anticipate problems.

That's not to say that there is nobody able to do quality work around here, just that they seem hard to find, and when you do find the quality guy, you probably gotta stand in line.

My example is John's Repair in Cambridge. John gets my highest 5 star rating for both work done, and price charged. If I was going to complain at all, it's that John is so popular that you may have to wait a while. John is a vehicle mechanic, and though I could have done the work on our Jeep myself, I didn't want to pull the transmission and transfer case out by myself since we don't have a garage, so we contacted John. It took a while to get Blackie into the shop, but once there, the work was completed in a timely manner, the work performed left me 100% satisfied, and price charged was well below what I expected. Two thumbs up!!

More good men...

My neighbor and his son came to our rescue AGAIN on our chimney project when I had to ask for tractor loader help to get high enough to get the chimney assembled on the roof. We needed to get higher than we could get with ladders alone. Once the chimney was assembled, it was quickly determined that the chimney supports were completely inadequate for the windy conditions we experience around here, and my resourceful neighbors came through for us still AGAIN with parts and metal support fabrication work so our chimney will withstand the winds that will try to knock it over. Thanks neighbors... Two thumbs up AGAIN!!

I'm hopeful that I can help these fine folks out this harvest with free labor! I was asked, if needed, if I'd be willing to run a grain cart for them. YEAH! PLEASE ASK! I WORK CHEAP... FREE! Anything I can do to help even my debt to them would sure make me a happy man. I just hope I can be close to as much help to them sometime as they've been to us.