The Shoulder Sync

Another fun Blaine memory.

Krehl Blaine and I were building the middle bottom apartment of 237 the spring and summer of 1999ish. I believe Blaine was a Senior. (There is some guess work on the dates) Blaine was similar in weight to Krehl and I but definitely a little taller. So any overhead wiring was his by default. Krehl and I needed a step ladder or an overturned five gallon bucket to reach high enough to thread wires through the rafters. But Blaine just had to tip toe a little and with that wide wing span of his he could reach over the rafters. (No stepstool or upside-down bucket)

Another fun memory from that summer: We would start early and stay late so we could justify taking off an afternoon or two during the week to drive down to Shelley Idaho. This was one of those record setting runoff years so the Shelly wave was running that spring. The Snake River overflowed its banks and flooded I-15 at one point.

A couple years previous, when I got home from my mission, Sandra sold me her Chevy S-10. It was perfect. It worked great for hauling lumber, doors, and it worked great for hauling kayaks. No rope or tie downs to mess around with, just throw the boats in the back. The only downside was shoulder room. Imagine Krehl, Blaine and I in the front seat of a tiny pickup. This required a couple peculiar group behaviors. I would push in the clutch and tell Blaine what gear I wanted and he would shift. Another idiosyncrasy, my favorite part of this memory, was our shoulders had to be in sync. If Blaine wanted his left shoulder forward, Krehl and I had to put our left shoulders forward. If Blaine put his right shoulder forward, Krehl and I had to put our right shoulders forward. A lot of fun memories of kayaking with that amazing man.