12/08/2021
One of the unintended circumstances of my stroke was a really big hiccup in the project that I was working on. It is amazing how much stuff happened in your head, scheduling subcontractors, people who needed a call, material needed delivered, a to-do list in my mind. That information was gone. I was not the contractor for the job. Kalem Kazarian, a friend of the camp, agreed to be their contractor, and I would be the job supervisor. It was a pretty good arrangement for both of us. I ran the job and Kalem ran the business. Ultimately Kalem was in charge and I was his employee, which probably kept the job alive. But unfortunately it was a big hiccup and Kalem had to take over the duties that I was doing, without the knowledge of what was going on in my head. When I finally came to the job site after my stroke, probably 4 month later, I met with Kalem. I told him what was going on in my head – did you remember to do this, did you figure this, did you do this. He said yeah we figured all that out. But to do that was a nightmare. It knew it wasn't my fault, but it made me feel bad.
There was a mosaic emblem for the fireplace that we decided on, way back before the stroke. Like a lot of the things that were in my mind, the mosaic, the design, the tile, the colors were in my mind, decided upon, that were not written down. So I thought I would try to make it happen. I worked on the layout, I got the tile water-cut, I took a trip to the camp to check the dimensions, and hired a tile contractor. After we had the mosaic made up, the contractor and I went to the camp and put it in.
Maybe not much, but something little I could contribute. This project is about wrapping up. Paint if drying, carpeting is being installed. It is happening about a year after it was supposed to. The building is beautiful. Kalem, what you are doing matters so much. I wish I could have helped you more than I did. The camp is an influential place, lives are being changed. It was worth it, even with the hiccups.
