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Whenever there is something to be built, men strap on tool belts and demonstrate their innate engineering ability. Power tools are brought out for admiration by other men, tape measures are bandied about, and sometimes there is even spitting. Building is a man's craft, a man's life. Thus, when Renaissance Resorts owners offered to provide the materials for a large Pavillion in the Ghetto, the Men of Renaissance sprang into action to offer both the labor and raw engineering expertise necessary to construct this.

Well, most of the men sprang into action. There were actually two or three of us who openly admitted that we couldn't build a sandwich, never mind a Pavilion, and while we would be happy to lift anything that needed to be lifted, paint anything that needed to be painted, or otherwise assist the Real Men in their heroic tasks, entrusting us with power tools could easily lead to Forlorn Widows and Nasty Lawsuits. It was decided that this was Good Policy, and we were given token hammers and told to Stay Out Of The Way.

In due course foundations were dug, cement was poured, and the announcement was made that on the next weekend we would begin construction. In anticipation of the manly work to come, I actually went out and bought a new hammer, which seemed to amuse my wife considerably.

On the Saturday morning following, I was up at my usual 6:00 AM. After a quick breakfast, I pulled on shorts and a tee shirt (reasoning that splintery lumber and nude skin would not mix well), picked up my shiny new hammer, and headed out to the construction site.

Of course, no one else was up.

Bob, who had hauled all the lumber and other material to the site, was standing on his deck, sipping coffee and apparently mentally running through the days work ahead. I waved at him, and walked to the site, where I kicked the foundations, and tried to look Manly standing there with my shiny hammer and not a clue as to what would happen next.

Eventually Bob walked over and told me what would happen. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand most of what he was talking about, what I could understand I couldn't visualize, and what little I could visualize was obviously not within my capabilities. The shiny hammer in my hand was beginning to feel more like a symbol of impotence than a manly tool for building Pavillions.

However, soon enough some Real Men arrived, wearing tool belts filled with tools that had actually been used in the course of real projects, and some of them had large power tools that weren't even shiny, and I was mightily impressed. One of them examined my hammer, handed me something much more ancient, and gruffly said "Use this". He seemed embarrassed about something, but I don't know what.

Interestingly, some of the men didn't seem concerned about the interaction of splinters and nude skin. Although most had tool belts strapped over at least shorts, there were pure nudists to be seen. That one of them seemed to be intent on operating a power saw remains a thought that still sends shivers down my spine.

The initial stages of construction were simply to erect large timbers on the foundations, drill holes through them, and square them off appropriately to the other uprights. As the intelligent part of this seemed to be better handled by others, I concentrated on lifting, carrying, and twisting when told to.

The next part involved running connections between the tops of the beams. I am a bit afraid of heights, and again decided that I would be happy to remain on the ground and pass things up to the men above.

By this time, most of the camp was up and about, and we attracted a fair crowd of on-lookers and cheerleaders. Apparently a lot of women really enjoy watching nude and semi-nude men working with tools, sweating in the sun. I'm sure that the opportunity to admire our manly muscles, and our superior tool using ability is quite a turn on, although I do wonder why there was so much laughter and giggling.

Someone set up a coffee and water station, running an extension cord from Carla's deck to a nearby table, so we had hot coffee and cold water all morning.

As we had plenty of stay-on-the-ground and pass stuff workers, Bob soon assigned me the job of painting rafter stripping. I felt I could handle that, and as it seemed relatively safe, I decided to shed my clothes before laying out the first stack for painting.

Next (Pavillion Part II)