News

Hearth and home builder

It's the little things that count: his dogs, his guitar and a pot of coffee.

By ERIN SULLIVAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 11, 2007

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ADVERTISEMENT [Erin Sullivan | Times] Most days now, John Hogg and the two dogs sit on the far end of the comfy couch in the living room and watch TV. The set is surrounded by a wall of 20 8-by-10 photos of kids and grandkids.

CYPRESS BAYOU - The man who made his career out of building fireplaces doesn't have one of his own. He planned on it, when he and his wife bought this land some 20 years ago in Cypress Bayou just off U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes.

But then John Hogg broke his back and it never healed right. Then the diabetes set in, making his feet all cold and tingly. It was one thing after the next and then his wife, Laura, said enough, don't worry about building a big house with a big fireplace. We're fine in the mobile home. And John said, okay. And he meant it. The house is fine enough for him right now. The AC is cold and the kitchen is big. There's room enough for him, Laura, their youngest son, 21-year-old Jarrott, and their two chihuahuas, Tippy Lee and Anne Mae, who are both about 4 pounds and 10 years old.

But he and Laura dream about when she can retire from nursing in a few years. John's 67 and Laura's 56. They want to move into a nice old house with a big stone fireplace a little ways up north, maybe in John's hometown of Richland, Ga. He's still got family up there.

"They say I was mean as hell," John says of the people in Richland. He leans back on the couch and exhales smoke from his cigarette, an off-brand in a bright orange pack he gets cheap off the Seminole Reservation. His voice is steeped in Georgia and smoke. His silver hair is slicked back. His eyes are set so deep, it's hard to tell if they are blue or gray.

"Why did they say that?" a visitor asks.

"Cause he is," Jarrott says with a smile and closes his bedroom door. A few seconds later it opens.

"Dad, I'm just kidding," he says quickly and closes the door again.

John laughs. He says he never got into fights for the fun of it. But his family moved around a lot and he was always the new kid at school. With the last name of "Hogg," the kids could be so cruel.

"They called me 'piggy, piggly wiggly,'" he says. "I didn't like that."

"Did you smack them?" a visitor asks.

"Well, ah," he says, pausing, as if he's searching for more democratic words. Then, as if giving up, he says "yeah" and nods.

He learned that if he beat the biggest first, he could save himself weeks of torment. It seems to be something he carried with him into adulthood, having an arrest record dotted with aggravated assault and battery. His last arrest was in 1994, before the diabetes and the back pain softened his mean streak and turned him into an elderly man, cuddling and kissing tiny dogs and telling stories from his couch.

He talked about how his older sister caught him smoking.

"I was about 4 years old," he says, "or 3. I can't remember."

When he heard her coming, he stuffed the lit cigarette into a dresser. She questioned him and he said no, I haven't been smoking. Then she saw the smoke billowing from the drawer and gave him a whupping.

The same thing happened when he decided to catch a mess of strange looking goldfish from his cousin Thelma's pond next door. Turned out they were pet fish.

"And I got tore up again," he says.

His dad was not a man to be messed with. Charlie Martin Hogg was scrawny, about 5-foot-2 and 120 pounds, but he fancied himself a Wyatt Earp type, John says.

"He could throw up a can and shoot it twice before it fell down," he says.

John's dad was born in 1885 and did almost anything - building bridges, homes, surveying for the railroad. John says his dad killed six or seven men: trespassers, thieves and the like. He had a car but never liked driving it. At every red light, he would mash on the brakes and hold up invisible reins and say, "Whoa. Whoa." He liked horses better. His first wife died of yellow fever. His second wife died in childbirth. His third wife was 20 years younger than him and bore him 10 children, five boys and five girls.

When John was about 10 years old, his mother left his father and took off for Florida, taking John and the other youngest kids with her. They settled in Tampa. John went to school until the sixth grade, then went to Georgia and joined the Air Force. After he got out, he played guitar in country bands.

But everyone in that scene was on dope, John says, and he didn't want to mess with that.

"Anything stronger than a cigarette is not for me," says John, who also drinks two pots of coffee a day. He still uses cream, but he switched from sugar to Equal after his diabetes worsened.

He married, had a son, and divorced and then moved to Florida, where work for builders was plenty. His brother married Laura's sister - that's how they met, when she came to Florida from Ohio for a visit. John and Laura married in 1973 and had three boys.

"Good thing I never had a daughter," John says. "Poor thing - she'd a died an old maid. I'd a run all her boyfriends off. And I'd a spoiled her rotten."

Most days now, John and the two dogs sit on the far end of the comfy couch in the living room and watch TV. The set is surrounded by a wall of 20 8-by-10 photos of kids and grandkids. His wheelchair is parked in front of him. His crutches and walker are at the other end of the couch. He can walk, but not very far without help. And he needs his coffee - so when he's home alone, he figures out a way to get to the kitchen.

His deep red Trini Lopez Gibson guitar is beside him, for when he feels like playing, which he does, from time to time.

He keeps his important documents in a black bag next to him. Inside is an album of many of the fireplaces he built and the thank-you notes customers sent. Some are well over 20 years old, yellowed, but preserved. He'll still build fireplaces, but he has to hire someone to help him lay the brick. He can't get up on scaffolds now.

John doesn't drive much anymore, but when he does, he gets in his 1978 rusted Ford truck and drives around to the places he touched - where he built fireplaces and fences and homes and it makes him feel good to know that an old man in suspenders and Velcro shoes once did all of that, made those things with his sweat and brawn, and that they'll still be standing when he isn't anymore.

 

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About this feature

Pasco People is a regular feature that will spotlight the people who make Pasco County the kind of community it is. Got someone you think we should profile? E-mail us at pasco@sptimes.com.

 

[Last modified September 10, 2007, 23:09:11]