RIVER CITY JOURNAL: NOW I KNOW HOW THAT GUY WHO BUILT THE TAJ MAHAL FELT

There's something enormously satisfying about putting up a building, especially if you're a first-rate klutz.

There was not only a barn raising at the Sullivan spread the other day, but also a barn moving.

And a barn filling too.

The end of this barn project has been the cause of great rejoicing. No one is happier than my wife. She is ecstatic that the garden/tool/storage shed project is over. She's truly grateful there isn't room for any more barns on our property. This is it. It's over and done with.

I was wrong when I told you the writing on the box containing all the barn pieces-parts said the shed could be assembled in two hours. What it said was "less than two hours."

It took me four hours.

But the instructions clearly said this was a two-person project. The only other advice in the instructions: Windy days aren't good for assembling small sheds with large, flat pieces that easily catch in the breeze.

So I left early one afternoon with my mind set on assembling my barn.

When I got home and started, I had a hard time following the instructions. That's because they blew all over the back yard.

This was a sign from God, I'll swear.

But did I take heed?

Let me put it this way. If Noah had paid as much attention to that voice from heaven as I did, we'd all be salamanders trying to find our way out of the muck onto dry land so we could shuck our tails.

And we sure as heck wouldn't be building any prefab barns.

So, there I was, putting upright pieces into a frame on the ground. As soon as I would let go, the wind would blow the upright pieces over.

I looked like that guy who used to be on Ed Sullivan's TV show on Sunday nights. Remember him? The one with the plates spinning on top of slender poles? He would run all over the stage to keep all those plates spinning while America sat on the living-room couch holding its breath, waiting for the first piece of china to hit the stage.

Of course, I didn't have a national TV audience. Just a flock of annoyed birds who wanted me out of the back yard to they could get to the feeders.

I wouldn't swear to it, but I think some of those birds weren't just chirping. I don't know for sure what it sounds like when a bird snickers, but I think that's what they were doing.

But, being a member of the most intelligent species on the planet, I used my wits. Without anyone else around to hold the upright pieces, I had to rely on ingenuity.

Let me pause here to tell you that a truly ingenious man would have called a friend to come help. That's not something you'll see many Sullivan men do. We're proud. Asking for help is admitting defeat. That's why we're always lost when we go to strange towns. We'd rather be hopelessly lost or botch a job than to confess we need assistance. It's in our genes.

Oh. Does that run in your family too?

My ingenuity produced this solution. I had three six-foot-long dog-eared pickets left over from the fence project. In a kitchen drawer that holds all those things that don't go into any other drawer I found some big rubber bands. I had lots of nails in the garage.

So I constructed a barn-builder's helper.

Are you following this? Do you realize how clever you have to be to build a barn-builder's helper out of three boards, three nails and three rubber bands?

By wrapping a rubber band around the nail stuck in one of the boards and around the upright pieces of the barn, I was able to brace the upright pieces long enough to get the top part of the shed in place.

Even when God sent that bolt of lightning, I didn't flinch. I said, Send your rain and your floods and your whirlwinds -- but I'm gonna build this barn.

Did I tell you I built the barn in the middle of the back yard, not in the corner I'd picked out? I had to be able to get all around the barn to work on it.

The day after the great barn raising, I found three volunteers at work to help with the barn moving. Believe it or not, this took all of five minutes.

Then came several hours of carrying the stuff in the garage to the yard in front of my new barn's doors. And several more hours figuring out how to make it all fit.

It did. Finally.

And guess what? That cramped two-car garage is now a spacious two-car garage. My wife likes that part.

If anyone ever asks me for advice about barn building, this is what I'll tell them: You can do it yourself, but expect to hear voices.

And if even if you're a man, listen.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.