Don’t let the title confuse you. I didn’t have a sex change procedure or anything like that. In fact back then, I don’t think I’d ever heard of such a thing.

I had a big project one time in Southwest Austin that took me though the property of a well known Austin doctor of female parts. I guess after what he had been looking at all day, a nice trip out on his farm was something he deserved. He would want me to show him what we were doing and explain how we were we going to accomplish certain tasks. He was rather elderly but still curious.

I never knew where our conversations were going to head. I think he would start to tell me all about his occupation just to get a reaction from me. Talking about dealing with an old gal with a prolapsed uterus was plowing new ground for me. I didn’t even know how to seem interested. I would usually try to get the subject back to excavating rock or knocking down trees as quickly as possible.

Our contract allowed us to push all the trees into piles along the right of way and burn them when conditions were right. When going through his property we encountered a lot of perfect sized oak trees, that were great for firewood. So I had guys with chainsaws go ahead and collect truckloads of nice oak firewood.

Driving along one day I asked the good doctor if he would like some of the wood. He said he would appreciate that. Since we only had a small fireplace at home and burned wood in it more for ambiance than for the heat, so my need for wood wasn’t very great. I had several friends that used firewood so I made sure to spread it all around.

I had a big front end loader that when he wasn’t busy, we’d haul load after load up and then have guys stack it by the barn up by the doctors house. We must have hauled 20 or more cords of wood to him. His enormous home had several fireplaces but there was no way he could use all we brought him. He mentioned that some of his children had fireplaces and they would help burn it up.

Then one day I got a call from the city telling me the doctor was very upset. He had seen me stealing firewood from his land. Now remember, that our contract allowed us to pile all the felled tree up and burn them. We didn’t have to cut any wood. After I explained a few things to the city, they were in complete agreement. What ever we had given him was purely a gift and he wasn’t entitled to anything.

He dug in his heals, but legally there wasn’t anything he could do. I broke off contact with him and soon we had moved on upstream of his land and all was forgotten. It still bothered me, but you win some and lose some.

Several months, maybe even more than a year later, on Christmas morning early, like 7:00 AM he called my house. He said that he knew he was wrong about the firewood but was upset with the city about another matter and was using me and the firewood to help him get what he was asking for. The reason for the call was just to apologize because he had wronged me and the Christmas spirit had sparked something in him.

I was stunned by the phone call, but accepted his apology. I never saw him again. I just chalked it up to the stresses that his work had caused him. Kind of the PTSD related to spending a lifetime looking at women’s issues. I guess maybe it had driven him crazy.