Oddfellows

This morning I ran into my friend Dennis, who's been renovating his coachhouse for the last 15 years from objects scavenged from local alleys. He gives generous tours on request, detailing the beach glass he and his daughters mosaiced into the panes of a discarded French door, or the drawer pulls he's fashioned from the burls of trees on his friends' Mitch and Jacqui's property. He cooks on an industrial stove he found behind a closed restaurant, and he shaves in front of a vanity with doors made of wooden chess boards. I could go on, but I'd never do it justice.

When I saw him this morning he'd been on a salvaging trek, and he was carrying a pair of petite wooden crutches, possibly from before the turn of the century. They'll likely become the balusters of his staircase or a detail over one of the dining room windows, which once resided in the Chicago Historical Society.

Dennis was also carrying a small china gravy boat and two cream pitchers, spied in a box behind the Oddfellows Hall, one of the most strange and coveted buildings in our neighborhood.

When John and I first moved in, the Oddfellows still ran the place, meeting in their long maroon robes or throwing occasional pancake breakfasts. Since then the building has changed hands a few times. For a short time it was home to the Iglesia de los Santos Muertes. The founder drove a repurposed ice-cream truck with a skeleton in a long blond wig in the passenger seat. Their tenure in the building was short.

It's now in the hands of one of our neighbors, who's planning a major green renovation that will preserve the integrity of the front facade but actually make the interior liveable. On Dennis's tip, I now have my own piece of Oddfellows history, the sweet ephemera pictured here. I picked up five more sets for my neighbors, who also prize the building--and Dennis--as neighborhood wonders.