Let Me Tell You About Osh
Fixit Man And Reluctant Detective
by
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“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.
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.”
Mandy encouraged. “There wasn’t that good? Rich and smooth?”
“Aargh.”
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.
“What the trouble?”
“Toilet drain is plugged.” The young man called.
“You got a drain snake in your garage.”
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About the Book
Even into the late 90’s
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,
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
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 In this story he tells a little of his very favorite place and of the people he met there.