Family 1

 Building a Log Cabin

By Rodney Syler

After graduating from college and teaching for a while, I went to work in the lab at Jack Daniels Distillery.

I bought nine acres and began building a log cabin in my spare time. Part of the job, a few days a week, at Jack Daniel, required me to process some filters and there was dead time between turning valves on and off. I needed to learn how to build a cabin so I checked out books from local libraries and read up on everything from finishing concrete (with the help of my brother), to properly installing shingles. There was a lot to learn. Fortunately, I was adept with tools so that helped.

Over the course of the three years, I spent building the cabin, I read about twenty books. (Concrete, wiring, laying blocks, design and building a chimney, plumbing, notching logs, these, and many more.) In school, I read only whatever was required for a course. Building the cabin, each time a task came up, I read a book that explained how and why.

I lived nearby and once the foundation was dug and the concrete poured for the basement, I began sleeping on site.

I would get off work at four p.m., work on the house till one a.m. Roll out the sleeping bag, eat some peanut butter, set the alarm clock for 6:30, and sleep like the dead on the cool concrete. The next day, rinse and repeat.

Occasionally friends would come over and help with a big log etc. but for the most part, it was a one man operation. I loved it! Though many of you don’t even know what an eight track tape player is, that was my companion. I would slap Credence Clearwater Revival or Olivia Newton John in the car player with the windows down and it might play through all eight or ten songs five times before I took time to climb down and swap the tape.

Any of you have favorites from the early seventies? Anyone besides me still have an eight-track player and tapes?

It was not all work and no play. Usually, one day a week, Don and Alice or Gore and others would come by or meet me in town. Great times with great friends.

The cabin came together. Gradually, I got it furnished and was all set. I had a good job, a car, a truck, a dirt bike, a home and land. All paid for with hard work. I even had a Mountain Curr dog, Jed sleeping on the porch.

Perfect time for the love of my life to come into the picture. Enter Lisa, stage left.