The Power of Testimony

MARK BOUMAN || 21
and even the backs of our shirts and our hair. Once latched on, they’d
worm their minuscule hooks deeper and deeper, irritating our skin. Our
shoelaces became so intertwined with clumps of burs that we could no
longer untie our shoes. Removing the burs with our fingers was painful
and usually pointless. Few came out, and more would quickly take
their place.
While Jerry and Sheri and I were dealing with the burs, and Mom
was lugging water up and down the sandy hills, Dad plunked down a
good-​sized chunk of his paycheck for private flying lessons.
When his desire for a real house became strong enough, though, it
overpowered many of his lazier instincts. Dad already had plenty of land,
and he struck gold at a county auction when he was able to purchase two
entire houses for a grand total of two dollars. They were being torn down
to make room for a new highway that the state was punching through
a section of Grand Rapids. Dad picked those houses clean like a crow
on roadkill: lengths of lumber, partial sheets of plywood, cinder blocks,
cabinets, bathroom fixtures, pipes, and even the occasional straight nail.
Soon, atop one of our sandy hills nearest the road, there was a pile
of building material bigger than our trailer. Over the days, weeks, and
months that followed, we watched Dad slowly transform that pile into a
new house. It was a simple rectangle built from cinder block, twenty feet
by forty feet, set lengthwise where the driveway ended. He mapped out a
kitchen, a living room, a laundry room, one bathroom, and three small
bedrooms, all of which he framed with the scavenged wood. While we
continued to live in the cramped trailer, the Bouman residence steadily
took shape, and with each completed step came a bit more of the feeling
that better things were in store for us.
• • •
“Dad, is our new house ready yet?”
I was trying to keep still so as not to bother Dad while he was working,
but the sand and burs in my shoes made me shift from foot to foot.