It was 1999, and the eve of a new millennium. It was also the year my wife suddenly and remorselessly informed me I wasn't sixteen any longer.

"What?" I asked with a wide-eyed 'who me' expression. "Forty? I'm f-f-f-forty! As in..." I held up the fingers, "...Four Zero? You're a loon!" I said, dismissing her with a wave.

Memories of high school began to flood in and it became increasingly clear I had been cheated during the indoctrination of knowledge forced upon me. My science classes short-changed me because I was of the understanding only light could travel that fast. Then it occurred to me Einstein wasn't so smart after all because he wasted entirely too much time on his Theory of Relativity. Instead, he should have looked a little more into explaining how a person can go from sixteen to forty without the slightest notion of having done so. I staggered a little then sat down to reflect on my previous thirty-nine years and for reasons I cannot explain, my thoughts settled on how healthy I've always been. Don't misunderstand; I hadn't been living in a bubble. I simply don't chance things when it deals with my personal safety. Granted, there were several instances where a few cuts required some stitches but nothing was ever serious enough to incapacitate me for more than a day and that record alone was something I had grown rather fond of. However, someone once said records were made so that they can be broken and that was the day when the cows came home.

As I lay on the couch with my right foot elevated above my torso, the fond memory of another man who once found himself in the same awkward yet very similar position came back to me. That man was Claude W. Ritchie, AIA. Don't worry if the acronym eludes you, it would probably stump a lot of people. It stands for American Institute of Architects.

Claude was his given name but back in my hometown of Remington, Virginia everyone knew him as 'Toad' and aside from being an extraordinary individual, Toad was an extraordinary architect. If there was ever an architect capable of achieving Frank Lloyd Wright emulation, it was he.

I say he was an extraordinary architect because he didn't go to college to be an architect - he became a certified and licensed architect though correspondence courses. And, I say he was an extraordinary individual because of the things he could accomplish. To understand why I say this you only need to see some of his creations. Because, to merely say he could be expected to take great pains to accomplish simple things would be like saying Moses was a decent magician. Toad simply couldn't build anything to be functional. That was against his grain. He had to 'design' it. One that immediately comes to mind was the stove pipe for a woodstove in his house. Since it was no ordinary house, it just wouldn't do for the woodstove to have an ordinary stove pipe. That's just the type of man he was and I admired him for it. So, up to this point you understand the level of his creativity, but to give you an idea of the caliber architect he was I must relate a story told to me by my life-long friend, Scott Shepherd.

Scott still lives in Remington, along with his wife Debbie, in the same house where he grew up. His brother, Ricky, was considerably older and was already off to college while Scott was still in high school. I don't believe Toad had any direct influence on Ricky's decision to study architecture, he just wanted to be an architect. Years passed and his perseverance paid off when he graduated with a degree in architecture. Perhaps it was fate or just poor timing that would disappoint Ricky the weekend he graduated because that was when he realized the magnitude of the things they don't teach in college. For you see it was his lot to graduate at nearly the same time Toad began the construction of his dream home and Scott, excited about his brother's graduation, took Ricky to the construction site.

I've already told you that Toad could never do anything simple and so it was that he felt compelled to design and construct an elaborate pedestal, which would stand proudly in the middle of his construction site, and whose sole purpose was to display the house plans. Having arrived at the site, Scott and Ricky walked over to the enshrinement and began to study the plans. Now, it's important for you to see the proper picture, so I'll paint it again. There we have Scott, a budding carpenter, and Ricky, a very recent graduate of college architecture, standing in front of a pontifical podium studying Toad's house plans. Neither of them is saying anything, they're just studying them. Soon, Scott sees something that piques his curiosity.

"Ummm, Ricky," he said, pointing to it, "what's this?" Ricky turns to look at Scott and shakes his head saying, "I don't have any damn idea. I can't make heads or tails out of any of it."

In the almost five years it took for Toad to complete his home he frequently found himself in the position of where he had to design and fabricate something first before he could start the next phase of his construction process. You probably think that reason in itself is why it took so long, but you really have to see the house to understand the complexity of it and why some of these other things had to be made first. A shining example of what I'm talking about can be found in his circular garden wall that lies at the end of the driveway.

Looking at it today, you'll be impressed with what can be more accurately described as being a carpet rather than a wall because it is not only perfectly circular, but perfectly sloped and all perfectly perfect. At the time, however, I was more impressed with the way he went about creating that beautiful stone addition to an already beautiful setting. See, Toad knew the end of his driveway needed to have a focal point that could reasonably divide a visitor's attention between the home itself and the surrounding exterior, so a simple, vertical stone wall just wouldn't do - it needed to be a whole lot more complicated than that.

He went uphill a certain distance from the eventual location of his stone carpet and semi-permanently planted a central pivot pin in the ground. This purpose of the pin was to support a tall vertical shaft that in turn would pivot on the central pin. Attached to the pivoting shaft was a long arm fashioned from bent lengths of pipe supported by guy wires from the central shaft. Toad spent the better part of a week bending the pipe in just the right shape and just the right length so that as it was rotated around it would set the level of each rock being laid against the sloped ground. It was sheer genius. There were, however, other things he did that required considerable speculation on whether it was genius or perhaps something else a little more sinister.

He called it scaffolding but the bulk of his work crew - those who weren't brain dead that is - did not share the same passion in his definition. In fact, if you ever looked upon any of his scaffolding you'd be more apt to define them as widow makers. As a testament to this, one fine day Toad and his crew found themselves faced with the task of installing siding on the house. Before they could do that, they set about throwing together a seemingly suitable surface to work from. They worked at it for several hours and when it was done they all stood back to look at it. Some even had to look at it twice and most were speechless at the sight of it until finally one of them turned to look at Toad then peered at the structure again.

"Ahh…gee, Toad," Haywood said, you think it'll hold us up?" With sheer assuredness, Toad turned to look him straight in the eye and said, "It'll hold 'til the cows come home."

With the agility of an ape they all climbed, swung, leaped then dropped upon that marvel of architectural engineering and got to work. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later the cows came home and the whole shebang came crashing down. Men, tools, boards and plywood all tumbled to the ground below. Listening closely a few "Awww, shit's" were clearly audible in the resulting din of the collapsing structure. When the dust had cleared and most of the grunts and groans subsided, they took stock of each other's well being. For most, only their pride was hurt, but Toad's injury was more serious than superficial; he had suffered a broken ankle.

The memory faded after shifting my aching foot as much as I dared but smiled as I did so. Ain't it funny what flashes through one's mind during the time after a sudden happening? They say history has a tendency for repeating itself. I believe they're right. What's all the more comical are the positions we who are all but brain dead find ourselves in after throwing together a seemingly suitable surface to work from. I hypothesized that one of those positions could be lying on a couch with your foot elevated above your torso as I closed my eyes in an effort to erase the not so fond yet very recent memory that was currently playing in my mind's theater.

I was applying plywood sheathing to the exterior walls of my shop and to make the job easier, I built what I thought to be a moderately scary widow maker. It certainly didn't border on anything really scary because I had already moved the darn thing six times as we progressed around the shop. As we were nearing the end of the job we could stand on it with a reasonable confidence factor that hovered above a 6. Ok, maybe a 5. Alright, perhaps it was more like a strong 4 but we certainly weren't uneasy working from it. We were right in the throws of shifting another sheet of plywood into place when all of a sudden I heard this rather loud and extremely annoying CcccREEaaaKKK!

Not having much time to determine it's origin and while having heard such sounds in the past, I puckered up for what I feared was about to happen. Just so you know, I don't feel it had anything to do with any special gymnastic ability, but I was able to turn around swiftly enough to watch the grisly spectacle. I think I was able to so because deep down I really wanted to watch it first hand instead of hearing about it from someone else. As the moment unfolded I was quite unable to utter anything to herald the event or shout any words of encouragement to my young partner as we both began the rapid decent from our elevated position six feet above the ground. Coming into contact with Terra Firma, I watched my right foot twist into an odd angle. I say it was odd because it was one I'd never seen before. It didn't break but I knew that I had twisted the ever-loving piss out of it and at that moment the Incredible Hulk and I became kindred spirits when it instantly swelled up to the size of a grapefruit; threatening to split my leather boot.

The painful shifting of my foot showed me something else, too. Any more I don't have to look for my cows to come home nor do I anticipate them coming home. For Toad Ritchie and I they're already home; grazing happily nearby knowing they may ignore us because we're brain dead.