Sarah Haas, Peak to Peak. Scheduled to arrive at my house at noon, Bob Anderson called at 11 a.m. to tell me he’d be right on time and he was, no matter that his mouth was numb from a dentist appointment or that the two inches of forecasted snow was already more like six. At 11:59 a.m., I locked away my barking dog and at exactly 12 p.m. Bob knocked twice on the door, shoes unlaced and ready to kick-off, boom boom, so he would leave-no-trace on the way to the stove he was there to sweep. At 12:05 p.m. he’d finished the indoor part of the job and by 12:06 p.m. his boots were back on and he was out the door. At 12:07 p.m. I ran out to tell him where to find the ladder to the roof, but he was already on top. By 12:15 p.m. the inspection and cleaning were done.

Bob worked with the same pep as the second hand of a clock that was as eager for the next tick as it was for the previous tock, and his punctuality seemed likewise internally driven. By his pace, I’d assumed he’d have been out the door the moment he was done but it turned out Bob didn’t work fast because he was in a rush; he worked fast because he was good at his job, enjoyed the work, and because hard work made leisure all the sweeter. So, when he was done, he lingered awhile, talking and laughing over coffee about his mountain life—about his dog and his geo-dome—and meanwhile I noticed his speech, too, was spring loaded, each word and sentence ending with an upward slant.

Before Bob left, he asked to meet the barking dog I’d locked away, “how else is he going to get used to people?” Nervously I relented, warning him to keep his hands tucked in and, at least at first, Bob obliged until, like magic, my dog’s ears went flush against his head as he traded in his bites for Bob’s gentle pets. Amid the sea of “good-boy’s” that followed I realized the rising intonation in Bob’s speech wasn’t just an affectation but the kind of thing that swells from deep inside a person, the kind of spirit only a dog can know.

A week later I’d get to meet Bob’s dog (a big white Maremma named Daisy who, at 70 pounds fancied herself a lap dog) and see Bob’s geo-dome (technically a decagon). In effect, the house was spherical, each room leading to the next like overlapping concentric circles spiraling upward, but in actuality it was made of hundreds of triangles finding strength in their own ever-present tension. A home as much as an ongoing project, the dome was in various stages of renovation: the all-done kitchen sparkling with smart LED lights that changed colors with the touch of an iPhone, surrounded by equilateral panels of still exposed dry wall.

When he first bought the house, Bob had a desk job at the Department of Interior. The only one with a finished to-do list at the end of every day, he was always eager to leave work and get home, “coming through the front door and out the back,” so he could keep at projects around the house, i.e. “real work.” Good as he was at his job, he longed for the satisfaction of self-directed manual labor, the kind he’d gotten used to during his time as a mechanical engineer in the Army.

“What’s a mechanical engineer?” He says, asking and answering his own question. “Mobility. Counter Mobility. Sustainability. What does that mean? Walking through mine fields and looking for IEDs. Repairing blown up roads and bridges. Basically, infantry with explosives.”

The uptick in his still voice stubbornly present, I looked at him, finally skeptical of his tone: “Sounds dangerous.”

“Yeah… but it was awesome.”

A Sergeant E5, Bob was working with IEDs in 2010 Iraq, after the war when, as he said, “things were pretty chill.” Keenly aware of the damage an IED could inflict, Bob never saw one go off, and for that he was glad, happy enough to work on repairing the holes they’d left behind. It was a seemingly endless project that was right up Bob’s alley and not unlike his house or his company, Chimney Service of Colorado, new but always busy. Bob is never tired from work, he said, “I like it. Life’s not supposed to be easy, but that doesn’t stop me from having fun.”

But just to confirm the intonation in his voice, I ask one final follow up question: “Bob, one last thing: Are you an optimist?”

“No,” he answers quickly and, for the first time, flatly and seriously. “I don’t think the world is heading anywhere good.” Surprising as his glib reply is, I suppose it’s understandable for a guy who spent several years of his life fixing an endless line of war-blown holes in the ground.

“Our environment is in a real sorry state,” he continued. “I studied sustainability in college and we’re gonna run out of water soon. Heck in parts of the world we already are.

“But you know what? Here, we’ve got it pretty good. We’re rich, you know, and if you doubt it just turn on the faucet and see the clean water come out. You just gotta keep everything in perspective.”

Mountain Folk Tales is a weekly column about locals living along the Peak-to-Peak. To suggest someone for a profile please email Sarah at mountainfolktales@gmail.com.

(Originally published in the February 21, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)