Hooching the Homeless

Well, well—today on the morning trot I was absolutely convinced I could combat global warming, solve once and for all the problem of the homeless, and provide visual delight to an island in need of it.

Hey, pretty good for a morning’s walk, right?

Well, I was informed over the dinner table that no, it’s not such a great idea.

Readers of this blog will know of my interest, actually my passion, for tree houses. It’s like Mom and apple pie—who could be indifferent, much less averse, to a tree house?

Readers may not know that Puerto Rico has a lot of bamboo, which Mr. Fernández avers was brought in to keep the roads from eroding in the earlier part of the last century. And like the iguanas, that bamboo has done well. About the only thing that can stop it is the road itself.

Readers of the blook—and by the way, sales are terrible, buy it please—will know that I am not a fan of contemporary Puerto Rican architecture. Right, when the population was exploding in the 50’s, nobody had any time for aesthetics (except, of course, for hair…). And yes, there are exceptions. But face it: the average Puerto Rican house is a cement box with windows punched into it. Hot, airless, and dark.

“But what about the hurricanes,” cried the students, when I suggested—very delicately—that there might be other materials than concrete to use in construction.

“When was the last hurricane?” I’d ask.

…’bout a decade ago.

And when was the last time you sat outside, enjoyed the night breezes, shared a chat with your friends?

They go to the Hilton for that….

It was no use.

Why not work with nature, not against it? Why not build a series of bohíos—little Puerto Rican huts—and link them in with thatched-roofed pathways and make it all very simple and rustic and then, when the hurricane comes, put all the stuff that’s truly important (electronics does come to mind) in a concrete room, where you’ve stockpiled the salchichas and the beer. Then, when you come out, well, you just rebuild! And look, you always get stuff wrong the first try or two, so on the third or fourth rendition, you’ll have the morning bohío perfectly sited to catch the breezes, and the evening bohío perfectly placed to see the stars.

Well, one person in the room liked the idea….

“Crime,” they chorused.

Bougainvillea, I cried. Nobody can get through the stuff—nature’s barbed wire!

“What, and have the baby run into it and poke her eye out!!?”

It’s deeply ingrained, this phobia of nature. And it may be —hold onto your seat here—a class thing as well. Mr. Fernández suspects that the majority of Puerto Ricans are a little too close to their jíbaro (peasant) past. Abuela may have grown up with the chickens roosting under the stilted-wooden house. We have concrete!

Well, it turns out I’m not alone. Some guy in the western part of the island felt the same way, and guess what!

He’s a gringo!

And quite an interesting guy. Where did he get the idea of the hooch? Well, he never says, and to a not-very-engineerical (lump it, computer!) person, I’m a little unclear as to the mechanics of it all. Better to let him explain it:

The hooch is an evolutionary, revolutionary building system that turns architectural conventions on its head. It stands on a single point, and maintains its balance by a web of cables to the surrounding trees. The foundation is minimal. In fact, the hooch holds the record for the smallest foundation of any land based building. The advantage? Minimal disruption of the site, and environment; quick and economical construction (no foundation); and easy dismantling, in the event that the hooch is moved. The hooch is an ideal structure for a place of respite in an environmentally sensitive area. I built a 10' by 10' version for a friend along a riverbank. The site did not lose one fern, a species abundant in the understory of the forest.

The treehouse requires no special engineering, or architectural design to fit in a particular tree. It stands among the trees, and relies on them for support. It is intimately entwined with the trees, and yet does no damage or requires any alteration of the site. The design has been worked out for quick and accurate pre-fabrication of the components- away from the site. Quickly assembled and situated at the site, the hooch is raised up by a pulley system and secured -perfectly level.
An architectural gem, the triangular shape maintains rigidity, yet is free to move about its foundation, flexing as a unit.

The redundant cable system is self correcting—any stress or distortion is quickly relieved back to the original position.
As a place of respite, the hooch served its purpose well—whether in the backyard, or along a mountain stream. It is safe, secure, and above it all.
After a warm reception of every hooch I've built, I now offer plans, kits, and complete construction services for everyone. I have plans and specs for a 6' by 6 , 8' by 8', and 10' by 10' version (floor area). Our 6' by 6' backyard hooch served well in our backyard of a rental house. Last year, we moved to our new mortgaged house. The hooch proved itself as a ephemeral architectural gem. It was dismantled, and moved in a few days. It now has its place among a grove of douglas fir trees, with a killer view of Mt. Ashland. Check out these other sites for even more perspective on the hooch. 

Right, maybe a picture would help….

What a tremendously cool idea! Wow—what a stunner! My palms are sweating, so eager am I to get my hands on that ladder and start climbing.

Mr. Fernández was less impressed.

“I’m not sleeping in any bamboo grove—rats!”

I dispute that, and point out that we can sprinkle some warfarin here and there.

Well, he also wasn’t too excited about my brilliant idea to home the homeless.

Build ‘em hooches!

Maybe it was excess oxygenation of the brain brought on the morning trot, but it seemed logical at the time. We have the bamboo, we have the homeless, why not get ‘em to build their own hooches? Or get the Evangelicals (whose numbers roughly equal the iguanas…) to build them. If you’re homeless, and the rope ladder is down, then you climb up it, pull up the ladder, and bingo! You’re safe! No more sleeping in doorways!

“Fire,” said Mr. Fernández.

“Extinguisher,” I completed.

“What if they trashed it,” he complained.

“Build another!”

“People using ‘em for drugs or rapes,” he said.

“Anyway,” he added, ”I read somewhere that most homeless don’t like shelters. They don’t like rules. You can’t show up drunk or high….”

Well, I understand that. We were on our second bottle of wine—who are we to talk? 

“It’s a good idea,” he said, “just needs more work….” 

I think it’s brilliant, of course…..

Rain Walk

Well, the question of the moment is whether whoever controls the weather is also reading my blog.

Good reason to think so. I wrote about cold and wet yesterday, and what do we have?

Right.

So what to do? It certainly wasn’t torrential, nor was it a drizzle. Just a fairly respectable rain. So—do the trot and get wet or stay inside and funk….

Well, I decided to challenge the depression mindset—a fancy way of saying that I’ve been saying “I can’t do that because (insert excuse here)” 90, 000 times a day for the last forty years. What do I hate about rain?

Water on my face. Damp clothes are no problem—on sunny days, they’ll be drenched with sweat in seconds, anyway. And I don’t mind wet feet, as long as it’s not cold wet feet.

So that led logically to the question—umbrella? Poncho? Hat. And we have two—an Australian sheep farmer’s affair and a genuine Panama hat made in Ecuador. In fact, it may be genuine—I remember reading some place that Panama hats are from Ecuador. You have to live in these parts to see the logic of it.

Well, I ask Mr. Fernández—which one to use. He’s yawning in front of the bathroom mirror, where he has stood for the last five minutes looking at his face. The Australian hat, he says. Seems you can’t get Panama / Ecuador hats wet.

It doesn’t rain in Ecuador?

Whatever. Now the question—which side is front? I’m still doing my mindfulness, so I study the hat. There’s a sort of jaunty prow at one end and a rounded bun at the other. I go off to ask Mr. Fernández.

Hah! I was right—it’s the prow (well, that at least is logical) and is there an umbrella.

“I hate umbrellas,” I tell him.

“No, for me.”

“I’ll leave it out.”

“Don’t forget,” he says.

“You know, there are some phrases that assist in the development of a relationship. Others do not. Let’s practice some of the former. Repeat after me.‘Darling, you’re wonderful’”

“Just don’t forget,” he says.

Well, I go off in a swivet and storm out the door and stride down the street and it hits.

OK—do I go back and put out the umbrella or do I let him find it himself.

Well, decide on that and reflect that it’s really very pleasant. Easy on the eyes, is a rainy day, and the colors are different, too. Partly, of course, because my sunglasses are red-tinted, which makes the reds redder and the blues bluer. (Can’t explain about the blues…). And the water on the rocks makes the rocks rockier.

Also fun to hear the little squish sounds when you go through puddles.

Nice, too, not to be hot. And, best, to be all alone—just the sea, the rocks and I, as well, of course, as the 40 foot walls the Spaniards put up to fortify the city. Everyone else has decided to forego exercise on this really lovely morning, since getting wet = monga = 5 days in bed = probable pneumonia = possible death.

Guys—ever hear of London? According to your logic, it should be a ghost town…

So that gives me time to think about what I really want to do—since I no longer have the distraction of seeing incredibly sculpted guys moving horribly-too-fast away from me. I begin to see why Bertrand Russell (or whoever it was) disliked sex so much—it really does limit time for serious thinking.

This blog, I think—it’s now over 100 posts, which is really quite respectacle (duh, computer—use your imagination! What happens when respectable meets a miracle?) I mean, I started it in February, and I have been doing other things—losing my mind, writing a book, ignoring the house, addressing the cats. And everybody gets weekends off. So it’s a body of work. 

Right, since absolutely NOBODY is buying my blook, what about a blear? Will that be the ticket to success? Yeah, gather all the posts thematically—which is to say stick all the Franny posts together, all the music posts together, you-get-the-idea. Put them all together into a blook-that-is-a-blear! A year’s worth of a blog!

Then it hits—just of course as I was getting excited about the idea.

The images that I have freely ripped off the Internet.

Ms. Taí is not gonna let me get away with sticking them in a blear—not without checking permissions. Remember the Blue-crowned motmot?

OK—back to Puerto Rico by Público. 

But what I really want to do, I think, is build a tree house in a bamboo grove. Using, of course, the bamboo to build the tree house. Think of the sound of the bamboo rustling gently, lulling you to sleep! Wow! And could you construct it so that the house itself swayed gently? Tremendous idea.

The Japanese would know, I reflect, and probably have done it. Not much they haven’t. So they’ll have written about it.

Though most likely in Japanese.

Well, it was a wonderful walk, and a delightful surprise, as most new things are. Get home, and discover that I may have three more days just like this. The eye of Hurricane Sandy is in the Bahamas.

The tail is in Puerto Rico.

You guys hear me up there?

Hey—guess what!  Someone HAS done it, and no—not the Japanese.  Check this out—google “bamboo tree house Rincón”….)