by Pete Thorsen
Korean Chaos
Pete Thorsen
Released on Kindle & in Print
August 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author, except that brief selections may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, provided that full credit is given. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely accidental.
Prologue
“Lars, your wife finally let you out of the house?”
“We have been pretty busy working all the time but the house has come together, and we have some free time now.”
“You watch the news last night?”
“Yes, at least as much as I could stand of it.”
“That guy in North Korea is totally crazy. I mean just plain old wacko.”
“I think most everyone in the world would agree with you. It makes him unpredictable, and that makes him a little scary.”
“The President tweeted this morning that the United States is totally ready to use massive force against North Korea if they persist with the threats, nuclear testing, and missile testing.”
“We certainly have a bizarre situation with North Korea. They have not done anything to us, but they have been threatening to annihilate our whole nation, or sometimes they threaten to obliterate one of our large cities for years now.”
“Well, South Korea and Japan sure are worried about them.”
“And rightfully so too. The North has shot a bunch of test missiles into the Sea of Japan, and a couple of them have come close to touching land. There is no doubt that the North could strike Japan anytime they want to. The only question is if they have miniaturized their nukes enough to put them in their missiles.”
“They could certainly hit South Korea anytime.”
“They always could have with their almost countless pieces of artillery. The North has all that artillery always ready and pointing at the capital city of South Korea. That crazy leader could say the word at any time, and likely millions of South Koreans would die, and there would be nothing that anyone could do to stop it.”
“It is a complicated situation that’s for sure. Think about it, two nuclear powers threatening each other about every week. Plus the US just admitted that they think Korea has at least sixty nukes now and that they have miniaturized at least some to fit on their missiles. What a bad situation.”
“You got that right. I’m glad I’m not the President. He inherited this situation that the last three or four Presidents have just passed on to him. They all should have stopped North Korea back then, but they did nothing. Now I fear that the can cannot be kicked down the road much longer.”
“Yes that’s right, and it is going to get very messy, no matter what our President does or doesn’t do.”
Chapter 1
The last cement block. What a good feeling. For those who don’t know, I can tell you that cement blocks are very heavy. And you never use just one. It is always a wall full of them. But I believe this is my last one. The end after I started it well over a year ago. Working just a little at a time when I had enough money and time available.
The whole project wasn’t done, but the walls and support columns were done. There was still plenty of heavy work left to be done. Some of which I would be hiring professionals to do. Or not, I had not totally decided yet. Everything was way cheaper if I did it myself. And my funding was very limited. Like in, I was broke most of the time.
I was living in a one bedroom apartment that was really almost just one room and that room not very big. The make-shift kitchen, living room, bedroom, dining room were all just the same room. The whole bathroom was about the size of a bath tub. It didn’t have a bath tub of course because there was no room in there for it. The bathroom consisted of a toilet and a very small cramped shower. That was it. Not even a sink. You wanted a sink you used the one in the kitchen that was just out the door from the bathroom.
The whole place was about the size of a nice sized bedroom. But it was cheap, really cheap. And that was why I was living there. I once had some money saved up. But I spent it, for a good reason though. When I turned eighteen my parents deeded over seven acres of land to me. It was a corner of the land where they had lived for many years. At eighteen I was a landowner.
It was bare land. It was flat land surrounding a small hill. It had a field driveway going into it from the county gravel road. There were a couple of trees, grass, and weeds. But I was a landowner, free and clear. Because it had almost no value, the taxes were very small. Small enough so even I could afford them.
At eighteen I graduated high school and started working full time. I changed jobs a few times through the years as most people do. I never got fired from a job, but I was laid off a couple of times. I was learning trades as I worked. After working in mostly construction type jobs, simply because that was the only jobs I could get, I was able to finally get a mostly inside job.
I used my construction background and took a few classes and then I was a house inspector. It was a tough start up, and I had some lean times, but I always gave full value for my fee. In the area where I lived, I soon had the reputation as the best. Most of the realtors in the area suggested me to home buyers, but when selling a house, they suggested someone else. The buyers wanted to know everything that could be a problem and the sellers wanted the inspector to find nothing wrong.
The two larger local banks always called on me when they needed a home inspector before authorizing a loan. The bankers wanted no surprises down the road to jeopardize repayment of the loan.
I was now making some money, but it had been a slow road with many twists and turns. I was usually broke most of the time. Then I very gradually started to build a small nest egg. Then the egg grew a little bigger. I lived in the cheapest apartment that I could find in those early days.
The apartment was so tiny that most landlords would be ashamed to even to call it an apartment and offer it for rent. But for me it was fine. I rented it and lived there for four long years. I made a few friends, worked a few jobs, and when I got some money built up in the savings account I used it to start my dream.
I had those seven acres that my folks gave me. I was careful and always paid the taxes on that land. I spent a little time there now and then doing hand work on the land itself. Cutting brush and trees. Planting different trees in different spots and planting different bushes around the edges of the property.
I only used hand tools; often those consisted of an axe and a shovel. I hauled dirt in my old pickup that I loaded by hand and then unloaded the same dirt by hand onto my land. First I built up and widened the driveway but only after I had scored a well-used culvert that was really too long for the application I thought at first.
The culvert came from a place about a mile away from my property. Those people had tore out that old culvert and installed a new larger diameter one. The old one was lying in the ditch there, so I stopped and asked what they planned on doing with it. They immediately offered it to me for free.
It was way too long to haul in my pickup. I had no trailer, so I just dragged it down the road for the mile or so. That cleaned up the outside of the culvert pretty good but did little real damage.
After I had that long culvert in place was when I started working so hard on that driveway entrance. Making it way wider and building it up more. I basically did whatever I could to improve the land and make it better if I ever built a house and moved there. About the only things I could ever do were things by han
d that required no cash outlay or at most very little money. It was always my dream to build a house there though and I was very determined to make that dream come true.
For a long time, the dream seemed very unlikely to ever come true. A very long time. Then there was a tiny flickering light at the end of the tunnel. I started to save a little money. And ever so slowly that money I was saving grew.
If you looked up frugal in the dictionary, it would have my name. I squeezed every penny I had to save money for my dream. I had some bad times along the way and some of those just added more reasons to pursue my dream.
My folks did not have much money. But they did own that land and that old house I grew up in, where they still lived. Then my mom got sick, and I will always think that is why my dad got sick shortly after her. They both had cancer. They had been together for so long and had done everything together for so long that when one got cancer it almost seemed inevitable that the other would also.
They lived for some time after the diagnosis but not too long. The doctor said they both must have lived in pain for quite awhile before they ever came in to see him. Maybe if they had come sooner, there was maybe a chance they could have extended their lives a little longer but we will never know.
By the time they passed the hospital bills far exceeded what money that they had and what the house and land were worth. The place was sold, and some of that money paid for a low-cost funeral. The remaining paid what bills it could and then that was it. There was no more money. The seven acres they deeded to me had been just long enough before they passed so it could not be taken from me.
After that my dream house would also become a tribute to my parents. It made me fight even harder to achieve my dream. So I worked, and I saved. I also learned. I learned many things, and many of those things would help me achieve my dream. Or I sure hoped so anyway.
When I had saved some money, I rented a backhoe and started clearing, scraping, and digging on my property. I had laid out the building site a long time ago by that point. I used that back hoe to ready the spot and dig the big hole for the basement.
Then I used more of my savings to pay for the cement and rebar for the basement floor that I had formed and ready. I had the plumbing stub-outs all in place. Once the cement was poured, I was the only one who leveled and finished that floor.
When the cement was fully cured, I bought cement blocks and then mixing my own mortar I gradually built the basement walls. Then I quit working. I was out of money. Or at least I did not have enough to do the ceiling. And I kept working at my paying jobs and saving every penny that I possibly could except for the small amount I needed just to live.
I scavenged some materials from some of my construction jobs. I had no place other than my land to store these items. But I did not worry about anyone stealing that stuff because it was all recovered from dumpsters when I got it anyway.
Eventually, I had enough money and a couple of friends that would help me. I built forms from used plywood and had a poured cement ceiling done on the place. The basement was mostly enclosed now. Then there was nothing done for some time again because I was out of money. This time it was a longer stretch of time with no work being done while I was just saving money, all the while I was living in that apartment about the size of a shoebox.
I enlisted some free help from friends for jetting in a well. The water table was fairly high in that area, and that was one of the reasons I planned the build on the highest point of my land. Soon the well was in, and the water tested as good. I then capped the well for now. Next was renting a back hoe and putting in the septic system. Again I did all the work myself. When that was done, I had a septic in and a well in and also a now fully enclosed living space.
The septic was low enough so the drains I had put in the basement floor would need no pump and could gravity flow into the septic tank and from there into the leech lines. I worked finishing off that basement a little at a time. I used many scavenged items in the process. Working in construction was paying off.
There were electric poles along the county road that passed my property. I finally convinced the electric company to put in the pole I needed and supply my place with electric power. It cost me a bunch of money, but it was money I had to spend.
After I had got that electric power installed, I had a steady payment every month to the electric company. But with the power installed and the well and septic installed and the limited inside finishing work I had completed, I moved into that basement. Illegally of course, even though I owned everything. But I had to be careful, so the county did not find out I was living there. It was not fit for habitation because it did not meet many of their qualifications. But it worked for me, and I no longer was paying rent.
Chapter 2
Once I moved into the basement and out of the apartment, I had more money. The rent money I had been paying could now be used to completely finish the basement and then be saved for the house itself. And that is what I did. I had put a small bathroom in the basement. It was just a shower stall, toilet, and sink. It was still better than I had lived with in that apartment for so long.
I got a used gas range and a used gas water heater. I hit it lucky with the water heater. It was less than a year old, and the owner had switched to natural gas and bought a new water heater. I got that lightly used one for a song because he just wanted it gone.
Gradually I got a whole kitchen setup in the basement. And I finished off a bedroom down there. Not a legal bedroom but one that worked for me. There were no windows at all in that basement. When I wanted light, it was electric light and never any natural light.
Access was through the one opening in the ceiling that one day would be from the house above. It was in one corner of the basement. At first I had rickety make-shift stairs, but eventually, it was a nice stairway that I built. More rooms were added in the basement. These could be bedrooms or storage rooms or whatever.
I had temporary uprights for ceiling supports. Gradually these were replaced with cement columns that I built myself, of course. The inner walls in the basement were standard stud walls except for the room the basement stairs entered. That had cement walls on all sides. Of course two of those walls were the outside basement walls. The other two walls were made with filled solid cement blocks.
I lived in that basement for two years, six months, and nineteen days before I even started on the house that would sit on top. The house build went very slowly too because I was doing all the work at first myself. The walls were cement block. These walls, of course, had many openings for doors and windows.
I had carefully planned every opening. I had planned everything because I had so much time from when I first had the dream until I even started on the basement and then eventually the house itself. So there had been plenty of planning with many changes over time until I thought it was perfect.
My dream was a very long project with many stops and starts along the way. I had started on the house, and shortly after that, I started on working towards getting out of construction jobs and into the house inspection business when my life took a hard right turn.
I met a girl. It happens to many, and it happened to me. She was a check out gal at one of the stores I patronized. She was friendly and quite pretty but other than stare at her some I thought little more about it. Many clerks are friendly because that is a big part of their job. She was way too pretty to have any personal interest in me, and she would very likely be married or have a whole flock of boyfriends.
I did notice she seemed really nice besides being really pretty and after seeing her in the store a few times I thought I had nothing to lose so I asked if she would like to go to a movie or something sometime. I admit I was totally shocked at the answer.
“I would like that. Here’s my number, I can’t talk right now at work but call me after six.”
I gave her my name and stumbled out of the store. I did call her that night, and we did go to a movie a few nights later. And the rest is hist
ory as they say.
She was only working at the store part-time while she was going to school. She soon graduated from the technical school and got a job as a dental hygienist. We continued to date, and I told her and showed her my dream. She was impressed with what I had done so far and as things progressed she added some input to the house design.
We were married and moved into the basement of my, and now our, dream home. She was not afraid of work and helped as much as she could on the house. Now with two incomes, there was more money available to continue the work.
Eventually, the house was enclosed, and it was dry inside. Work slowed when I switched professions but then as word of mouth spread and my business picked up the house work increased. My wife Karen was a trooper through the whole thing. I wanted only the best for her, but she accepted the hardship of living in the basement for a long time.
While the bones of the house stayed about the same Karen changed my mind about many aspects of the house. It became way more expensive to build, but at the same time now there were two solid incomes to help with the added financial burden.
A solid real rock face was put on the entire exterior of the house, hiding its plain cement walls. Two by six walls were on the inside for added insulation making the whole wall structure quite thick. A metal roof completed the exterior of the house.
The inside of the house was mostly Karen’s baby, and I just went along with almost everything she wanted to be done on the inside. As long as she was inside with me, I was happy. And it was way more expensive to finish the inside because of the way she wanted things done. She was not extravagant; there were no gold plated fixtures or things imported from other countries or expensive finishes where the only reason was to impress those who saw the house.
No, she wanted things nice and long lasting, keeping up with new trends or impressing people was the last thing on her mind. And eventually, the house was done. And it was a very nice house, inside and outside.
