Adam Dumphy
Even into the late 90’s Pine Valley, a bucolic village in the mountains above San Diego, CA was a divided community. Not by race or religion but by propane vs electricity, piped in water vs a walk to the well, and septic vs outhouse.
Responsible for the maintenance of all of these was Osh Oshman, the premier fixit man in the hill country. In his propane powered, ancient Ford truck he putts up and the down the dirt roads to keep his neighbors connected to the conveniences of modern living.
His other attributes include baking the best bread anywhere, talent on the banjo, and a penchant for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Now in his mid forties his recent marriage to his boyhood sweetheart has brought a dislocation in his life and his diet. The new little bride worrying about the longevity of her man, insists on organic, vegetarian meals and, a waitress only for a lifetime, as a cook the things she turned out often didn’t turn out.
When three outhouses in the area were rendered unusable by the deposition of a dead body in each, Osh reluctantly decides that it is his responsibility to stop this desecration of the time-honored edifices.
With the aid of a Cocker Spaniel, reluctant courier of the bad guys, and a half-grown and half-tame mountain lion with a penchant for chasing motorcyclists, he investigates the deaths successfully.
It requires a good deal of local knowledge but fixit men who are in an out of the backdoor of all the houses in the area when the owners are not at their best, know a lot about their neighbors, and common sense, while uncommon does bring results.
About the Author:
City born and bred Adam Dumphy was sickly as a child. As a result he developed an inordinate fondness for that which he could not know, the country and the out of doors.
He thought, dreamed, read, talked and sang country.
And this persisted. So that as a young man the sight of a wide, blue sky with a buzzard circling effortlessly over head; the feel of the mosaic bark of a California Pine; the smell of sage on a hot afternoon, its leaves dove grey with russet tips; the sound of a feisty squirrel protesting Adam’s walking a dirt road; the peace, the quiet, the awareness of the nearness of his Creator gave him a breath taking nostalgia. Still does.
As an adult however, family duties and the responsibilities of a Medical Practice kept him town based. Finally in the mid seventies he learned of the USDA Forestry Service Plan of allowing ownership of cabins on National Forest Land, ownership of the cabin that is, but not the land itself. And taking advantage of this allowed him to be in the country as much as his health allowed.
In this story he tells a little of his very favorite place and of the people he met there.
“The hell with the cholesterol, Mandy, I want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast like before.”
“For breakfast and lunch and dinner, like before, I suppose, if I’d let you. Now you sit down to your breakfast and eat slowly chewing each bite twenty times.”
He looked down at a bowl of soggy white mush. “What is it?”
“Low fat farina and skimmed milk. Next week, maybe,” her voice down geared from defiant to cajoling, “you can have an egg.”
They faced each other across the steaming ironstone bowl on gingham place mats on a spindly-legged Victorian table. Osh a great, shaggy-bear of a man with more hair sticking out of his ear canals than over his scalp, peered out through a scruffy, grayish beard and shaggy eyebrows. His only visible features were a patch of sun-tanned cheeks, a stub of a nose and two baby blue eyes. His shoulders stretched to the limit the extra-large L.L. Bean shirt. Wide wale corduroys hung low on his flat belly and he wore size 14, rubber-bottomed leather-topped pac boots on his feet as winter or summer he was wading in water most of every day.
A patter of gravel on the roof interrupted the scene.
“I’m not at home.” The great man shouted so loud that it echoed off the hills above the little cabin. He glared back down at the farina his more immediate problem.
Mandy hurried to the window. “It’s that nice, new couple from the Forestry Cabins and Osh I wish you would put in a phone or at least leave the gate open so customers won’t have to throw gravel to get you to come to do their fixit.”
Osh tasted the farina.
Mandy encouraged. “There wasn’t that good? Rich and smooth?”
“Aargh.” Osh groaned.
He turned to glare at the pert, redheaded bundle of contradiction across the table from him. She was plain featured except when she laughed, which she did most of the time, then she glowed. Short, slender if well muscled with a remarkably large bosom which had been the bane of her existence since girlhood and which she made every effort to hide with floppy shirts, lace sewn at the bodice and wrap around scarves. It was her pert little behind that caused men to look, and then turn and look back again but she didn’t realize that and she bustled about heedless of the attention it attracted.
Osh got to his feet, after the first taste of the mush he was less reluctant to get to work than before so he headed out into the yard. A white Ford van was parked at the foot of his gravel drive on the County Road and outside his locked pine-pole gate. A stocky young man stood at the fence.
“What the trouble?” Osh bellowed.
“Toilet drain is plugged.” The young man called.
“You got a drain snake in your garage.” Osh countered.
“Tried it. No go. No flow.”
Osh considered. It was probably a plugged septic line, which was not his favorite type of fixit. But then since it was sort of an emergency he could leave home breakfastless and eat at the coffee shop in town, that is if he had any money. He searched his pockets to find thirty-eight cents. Hell, a
