World Headquarters Is Returning to its Roots

To celebrate the 116th birthday of their home, The Great Ducknik and The Great Plotnik decided it was time to redo the front of World Headquarters. Simple, Plotnik might have thought before he lived through the first two renovations at World Headquarters, the two he and Duck did on spec houses in Stiletto City and the one they did on their old house in Dwell Park. After each renovation, they both swore to each other they would NEVER do this again. NEVER? NEVER, I PROMISE.



So the new renovation starts with a new roof, then removes the old aluminum siding that was put up perhaps fifty years ago, covering the classic redwood channel siding, then repairs that siding, then paints it, then removes the current front window and returns it to the style it had when the house was built, then adds back the Victorian trim that was removed to add the aluminum siding, but whose 'ghost' will still be visible on the siding when the aluminum comes off, and paints that new trim, and you'd think the job was done, but no. You can't have one new window without another new window and when you're replacing the windows you have to replace the doors. The doors need knobs.

Why? You have every right to ask this question. People around the world are hungry and the Plotniks are changing windows. Here is the reason: World Headquarters did not know it was World Headquarters in 1892-3, when the Deterding family from Bavaria built it on what was then Palmer Street in an unincorporated section of Saint Plotniko. He was a decorative iron designer (see the fence in front?), but died young. She lasted long enough that she could be hauled away frequently by the FBI during World War II for standing in the middle of the street and yelling "HITLER WAS RIGHT, YOU BASTARDS!"

No joke. Anyway, all the good, gingerbready stuff was removed in the 1940s or 1950s, when postwar modernization dictated out with the old and in with the new. Another half century later, the 'improvements' don't look so hot and what was originally a marginal neighborhood is now trendy. The houses have acquired value. So it's time to return them to their roots, or the roots of people the age of Plotnik's great-grandparents.

There is another answer: The Plotnik/Ducknik Unit desires the job done.

As you all know, in any marriage both parties do not have to agree equally as to the efficacy and desirability of every task within a given project. In some projects, one member may have final say and in other tasks another member may.



The garden, for example. This is Plotnik's. In the end, a plant goes where Plotnik thinks it should go, sort of, more or less, though Ducknik has a good eye and she may suggest, as in the case of her beautiful stone path, that she do painstaking labor to perfect it.



The house, inside, outside and around the town, is Ducknik's. Plottie may suggest, he may frown, he may have a hissy fit or two, he will be asked to participate in all conversations with all tradesmen and then his opinions will be solicited and considered, and in the end the decisions will be Ducknik's.

You wouldn't ask your dog to write a song. Duck reads about these things, studies them, keeps files for years about them. She knows more. Her opinions have value. Plotnik usually just whines and says one thing: "Whaaa, I liked it the old way."

Of course, World Headquarters belongs to the legions of Plotnikkians around the globe. And to Viewers Like You.