Every town has one, the guy who does everything.
The first time I met Mike Skalski I was standing on the porch of the empty general store in Ashfield, looking in the window, when I heard a fight coming down the street. A grown man and his two little boys were pushing each other in a wheelchair, only at that moment nobody was pushing and everybody was arguing.
“You just got a turn!”
“I did not! It wasn’t a real turn!”
“It’s my turn anyway!”
“It is not!”
There was to the eye, about a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old and a grown man duking it out. To the ear there was a 10-year-old in that bunch somewhere. Suddenly the 10-year-old grown man saw me and dropped the boys and the chair.
“Hey!” he said and stomped up on the porch. Skalski always stomps — even when he’s being gentle and fun. “You’re that lady who just moved here from New Orleans and wants to buy this store, aren’t you?
“I’m from New Orleans but that’s about it,” I said.
“No, you’re gonna buy this store, I know you are.” He turned to his little friends, “Troy! Sean! This lady’s gonna buy this place and turn it back into a store again!” He turned back to me. “And when you need something done, anything at all, you’ll call me.”
He handed me his business card which read:
“STandIServices
No Job Too Odd”
“Wait — what’s the name of your business?”
He pointed to the 8-year-old: “Sean.” He pointed to the 6-year-old: “Troy.” “And I” (he pointed to his chest) Services!”
Well how in the world did I miss that?
“And what sort of services do you three do?”
“Everything,” he grinned. “Call me. And I get dibs on the wheelchair.” He jumped gleefully into it, the two boys cried out, “Not fair!” and the wheelchair jitney took off with the little boys pushing their daddy and business partner off toward the Town Common, me staring after them like a puppy who’s trying to understand what just happened.
That was in 2005 and the two little ’uns got big and moved off into their own worlds. Mike stayed here in Ashfield and continued doing all the jobs anyone might need doing. He owns a fleet of vehicles that’ll come over to pick up your trash or plow your snow, move your refrigerator or take it away. He employs a crew of guys who do all of that as well as cleaning out homes after someone dies, and just about anything else in the world one might need someone to do. Not much in this town happens without Skalski’s help.
Or did anyway; after 25 years, Mike’s moving to Deerfield to take up residence in the house his mother used to live in, and he’s putting his house (the one he roofed himself, with the big workshop) on the market for someone else to come and try to fill. They might fill the house. The shoes, no one can fill.
The news in town was met with as much disbelief as if we’d heard he’d passed on to the other shore. Mike’s several-acre yard sale at Ashfield’s annual Fall Festival (full of everything he cleaned out of houses all year) is as big a draw as Gray’s fried dough is. How are we gonna have a Fall Festival without that?
I saw his next-door neighbor at the Post Office yesterday and she said that, while it’ll be a lot quieter over where they live — Mike doesn’t sleep much as he’s always working on one job or another with those trucks — she cried for three hours when she learned he was leaving.
“How am I going to do anything?” she asked. “He was the best neighbor in the world!”
But he’s moving on, looking toward the rest of his life, and thinking he might not want to work as many hardcore hours in the future as he has in the past. He built and opened Catamount Storage down on Route 112 in Shelburne Falls last year, and he’s hoping to buy another property in Shelburne as well, where he’ll rent space to anyone looking for a place to sell their collected wares. Kind of like Fall Festival, but all year round.
What’s gonna happen in Ashfield without Mike Skalski to show up and say, “Pa-RAH-ti! What’re you doin’ now? Wait, don’t do anything, I’ll be right back!”
What happens to the years when you’re not watching them? When you’re running the restaurant you turned the store into, depending on Mike and his guys (and his little boys) for every tree that needs to come down and every pipe that freezes?
The boys grow up and their daddy moves to Deerfield, leaving a big old hole in the heart of a town, that’s what.
Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.