Photo from the Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
“My dad did a room onto a house including a fireplace and outside chimney for a man that was notorious for not paying people for work they did for him. This was in late Spring/early Summer and final payment was promised “by the end of the month.” Summer passed and Fall came. Then came the phone call. The chimney wouldn’t draw. They had built a fire and smoke filled the house. The warranty needed to be honored. ie the chimney corrected. Dad said the chimney would work as soon as payment was received. Payment was promptly made. Dad went down and broke the pane of glass that he had placed under the top row of bricks. The chimney worked beautifully.”
—Jackie McClung
Jackie has been a Blind Pig reader for many years. He knows a lot about the old ways of Appalachia because he had a front seat row for much of it.
I’m glad he shared this story about his daddy. Sounds like he was a very smart man.
Last night’s video: The Chastain Family & Pickles: Green Tomato, Pepper, and Okra.
Tipper
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Great story about Jackie’s Dad!
Great story !!!
His Dad was indeed a smart man. I miss the days when you did a honest days work and got paid a honest days wage.
I worked for the same man ‘handing off tobacco’. When he came to ask me to help his son the next day, I said I needed to be paid in advance. He said he had an appointment in town the next day and would get money and pay me as soon as he got home. He wasn’t home by the end of the day and I left with the son saying, “See you in the morning.” Mid morning the son came to see if I was ok and asked why I hadn’t come. I said, “I’ll come back when I get paid.” There was no further word from them. The next year the father came again asking for help and I said “I need to be paid for last year and each day this year in advance. About three days later he showed up with the money because the son was way behind and the window for handling the tobacco was getting short. {The humidity makes the leaves limp and easy to handle. If they’re too dry they crumble.) They never asked for my help again. I don’t know if they stopped growing tobacco or what happened. The son grew up to be an honest man and treated people right. As far as I know the father never changed.
In addition to being a worthless thief, the man who had the room and chimney built must have been a near idjit. The first thing any sensible person would do if a chimney didn’t draw would be to look for obstructions. Of course, the builder might have hid the glass pane where only he knew its location, too.
Her dad was a very smart man! Great story. Now days people get paid half or more for the work they do but they don’t finish the job when they know they got most of their pay. This happened to my husband and I when we hired a contractor to remodel our master bathroom. We paid a deposit and installment as work was being done. They had most of it done except installing the vanity with countertops, shower lip and glass doors, wiring to install lights with fan, install tub and put siding back on the outside where a smaller window had been installed. The guy told us they were going on a week vacation since it was his son’s college graduation up north and will finish up when they returned after June 5th. He asked my husband for another installment payment just so his crew would have some vacation money that week. My husband paid it without my knowledge. When I found out I was very upset and said he probably won’t be back because we now only owed just three thousand to finish contract price since we paid deposit and installments. My husband trusted the guy, but I didn’t. Well as you can imagine no one returned. We tried calling, texting and email but no reply after two months. A guy came out to put the siding back on the outside and told us the entire crew had quit because the guy had not paid them for in months. He only came out because he heard about our outside house being exposed and knew rain storms were coming and didn’t want our house to get damaged. We thanked him and paid for his work even though it was supposed to be covered in what we had already paid the contractor. He said the guy hadn’t paid him either but he was just trying to help some of the customers that he left with unfinished projects out with what he could. Needless to say it was a challenge to find someone to finish the rest of the bathroom. We were contacted by others that the contractor had not finished their work and they wanted us to go in on a lawsuit against the contractor. We knew that would cost more money and we needed the rest of our remodel money to finish our bathroom so we said no. Besides we figured he would have enough to deal with being sued by all the others. We finally got our bathroom finished, not like it was originally planned because of not having all the extra money we had to pay out, but it’s finished and we are thankful it is done. This happened almost 5 years ago and we wanted other things remodeled but after that experience we decided to just be content with how everything is in our house.
It’s sad how some people are willing to pay to get work done, but others are willing to take pay but not do the work.
We learned a very valuable lesson through our experience. Pay a deposit but no more till all the work is completed to satisfaction. Plus it made us more aware of how scammers work now and we don’t easily trust like we use to, which is sad but what we have to do to protect ourselves.
Miss Tipper, I guess the very smart builder showed the scammer, that’s what I’d called the purchaser of the chimney, how to get things done right. Good on him. Lesson learned. You could also call someone who doesn’t pay for a purchase a thief. Stealing is stealing. Okay I’ve said enough. God bless y’all today tomorrow and always.
Very smart man indeed!
Loved the photo. My Dad always said know what you’re getting into and there’s always a way around a problem – this wise man knew and figured out the solution before he began. 🙂
Genius idea!!
That’s a funny story and a smart way to deal with someone who doesn’t pay. My hubby told me about a few times he was not paid for work he had done when he was a young man. His best friends grandpa promised to give the two of them half the money from cutting mine posts. They worked all day long in the woods cutting and loading by hand, and never saw a penny. He had at least one other incident like that. It’s funny that he turned out to be a man who does lots of work and favors for neighbors, friends, and family…and would never accept payment…except for a glass of water or a bite to eat if they’re working all day. One of his friend’s wives always cooks a big meal when they are working on something, and insists on everyone eating. I try to do the same.
Brenda, not trying to toot my own horn, but back in the past when I was able, I would do things for my neighbors, especially the older ones, and would not accept any pay. I like to tell them when they asked how much they owed me “ If you don’t think it is too much, just pay me no attention and give me a drink of water.” Then I would tell them I may need you to help me sometime. The good feeling I had from knowing I had helped someone was enough payment for me.
That was very kind of you to do that. It is important to help neighbors, especially the elderly and widows.
I need to learn that type of thinking toot sweet. Honest repair men have disappeared where I’m now living as fast as the good books in the library. I’ve got some stories to tell that are kinda funny in hindsight but only because I have a weird sense of humor. People seem to think it’s a good idea to take advantage of the ones they see as weak and vulnerable. Surprise! Some of us are trying to give them an opportunity to do the right thing.
love this
Love that story! Wouldn’t Pap have loved that too? As my late sister-in-law used to say, “some
people are smarter then they look!” Thanks so much for the chuckle this morning.
That was a brilliant idea, and funny too. Hopefully, the homeowners didn’t ask what the problem was, as I’m sure Jackie’s dad would have had a hard time explaining without grinning or busting out laughing.
Always the way, the bad eggs force the use of countermeasures. Btw, on a side note about chimneys drawing, I once read that a chimney would not draw properly unless it reached above the highest roofline. That is the only place I ever saw that and never heard it said but I believe it. One reason I do is because of things I have seen in fighting forest fires. Also, I have looked at a lot of real estate listing and it is very obvious that houses built before about 1950 followed that rule on chimney height. Listings for houses built after that often show a metal extender on top of the masonry chimney to get its top above the roofline. Our ancestors knew those kinds of things. And some of them knew how to outsmart the take-advantage folks.
His dad was a smart man. Hope the other fellow learned his lesson.
Good for him. Lucky and his brother Rocky worked as welders and mechanics on tractors and trailers for years. Some of the big known companies never paid them for their labors. I am glad your dad was smart enough to figure that out before he finished that job.
Love this!!! Smart man for sure!
I talked to a friend last night that has worked for his own self all of his life after finishing high school doing carpentry work and has built many homes in our area. He tells stories about how hard it has been to get some people to pay. He will get a “kick” when I tell him about this. He is one of the few that does work for the public that I have never heard anyone “bad mouth” his work. Over the years he has also learned some things in dealing with people that don’t want to pay.
I helped my brother with his paper route. We had only two subscribers who wouldn’t pay. Our dad spoke to one of them about it, but he got no results. I figure that, with compound interest, those two deadbeats owe us several thouand dollars each. This was in the mid-1940s. Jackie’s daddy was my kind of man. As kids, we had no way to get our money. One lived on our street. I let some time pass and then let the air out of two of his tires.
That builder was a genius!
smart man
His dad was a very smart man.