The Friday before, the new lot-fourteen family had walked their dog past the bollard. The dog had stopped to sniff the trash-can sleeve. The little girl had said, in a clear small voice that had carried across the morning air to our porch, “Mama, is that the famous trash can?” Her mother had told her yes. The little girl had stood for thirty seconds looking at it. Then she had taken her mother’s hand. They had walked on. The bollard had not moved.
I sit on the front porch in the evenings now with a cup of coffee and the family hound, Reuben, at my feet. Yes, named for my grandfather. And I watch the south road toward Pinebrook Estates. The new family on lot fourteen is a young Wooster couple with two small children. They have not, by their own quiet introduction at our porch in December, crushed a single trash can. The children walk their dog past our mailbox every evening. The dog has met Reuben. Reuben likes the dog. The bollard sits at the road in its sleeve. The county trash can sits in the garage between collections. The shop is running. The Holmes County Joint Vocational School welding program continues. I have begun an informal mentorship for three of the current senior welders. They visit the shop on Saturday mornings. They are good young welders. They will be excellent welders by the time they finish the apprenticeship programs they will enter next May. I have written them all letters of recommendation. I sign each letter with the same closing line. Physics does not negotiate. Take care of the work. Quinn Galloway.
The fourteen residential property-protection bollards I have installed across central and northeast Ohio in the past year have, by my running quiet inventory, prevented an estimated thirty-eight additional vandalism incidents. Each installation is custom-fitted to the property owner’s situation. Each follows the same basic engineering specification. Schedule-80 steel pipe. Concrete-anchored footing. Custom cover sleeve that matches the original target’s appearance. Each is installed under my personal supervision. Each carries a small bronze tag with the Galloway Custom Fabrication serial number stamped into it. The serial numbers run from BL-00001 through BL-014. The retired schoolteacher in Coshocton County keeps her tag in her kitchen window, where she can see it from the dish sink. She has told me on her front porch that the tag is the most satisfying piece of metalwork in her house. I have told her that small metalwork is sometimes the most important.