When you spend all your days and all your nights keeping vigil, you just don’t have time for the creature comforts.
Like, say, a nice shower.
Well, on the day before Thanksgiving last week, a certain selfless Mountaineer finally got his first one. Ever.
Make that, the Mountaineer.
As in, the iconic, bronze statue that has stood in front of WVU’s Mountainlair student union for nearly 50 years.
This tale of monumental hygiene comes courtesy of Mitch Wood and his Powerwash Bros (no period) company that does such work.
Climbing the ladder
WVU recently hired the company to clean its buildings and other campus fixtures.
With the students away on break last week, Wood wielded his exclusive SUDZ ‘N DASH spray system in the direction of the well-known sentry.
“Exclusive,” because he’s the guy who invented the nozzle system that made the shower possible.
He sketched it out, then ground it out, in a machine shop.
After that, he applied for the patent, which is pending.
Wood’s design puts the power in the power wash process.
The spray is magnified and intensified.
“Those things you buy to hook up to your garden hose don’t give you enough pressure,” he said.
And those home pressure washers are OK, he said, except that the nozzle system they come with still isn’t oomph enough to go up multiple stories in your house or building.
“You don’t want to mess with ladders if it’s just you doing your house,” he said.
He logged a lot of hours by his father’s bedside to have that safety point power-washed home.
His dad, who is also an inventor, fell 26 feet off a ladder a few years back and fractured his pelvis.
The elder Wood made a full recovery, but he was in critical condition in the hospital for a time.
“He’s why I started thinking about this,” his son said.
Wood, the younger, meanwhile, studied biology at Fairmont State University and followed his entrepreneurial muse to South Carolina.
He eventually docked at the oceanfront Mecca for Mountaineers everywhere: Myrtle Beach.
Contents under pressure
He launched a cleaning business in the Palmetto State, and success in that endeavor took him on big commercial jobs across the country.
He was power washing garages and gas stations in Detroit when he hosed off the design principles that eventually morphed into SUDZ ‘N DASH.
“And I wanted to get back home to West Virginia,” he said.
His design was a way to work quickly, efficiently and safely, he said.
It was also a way to get commercial-grade technology in the hands of the DIY set, also.
“Our company can clean anything,” he said. “This technology can clean anything.”
“I could have the Mountaineer looking like a new penny,” Wood said, while the icon was getting gussied up.
“But the university wants to keep the patina.”
Getting to know the Mountain Man
So, while the decades of grime, organic presents from pigeons and all the other standard-statue flotsam and jetsam that occurs when art does its work outdoors cascaded down, the character stayed.
Character, it is.
WVU commissioned Donald De Lue, the renowned sculptor whose works also grace the Gettysburg battlefield and Omaha Beach at Normandy, to do the statue.
It was dedicated at the ‘Lair on Oct. 2, 1971, during Homecoming weekend.
The “Mountain Man,” De Lue’s preferred name for the work, has been watching over the downtown campus ever since.
And no, the sculptor didn’t use WVU and NBA basketball legend Jerry West as the model, even though that rumor persisted for years.
The statue was signature De Lue, rendered in his solitary, well-muscled, Romanesque style.
Just in time for the photo shoot
In 48 years, the Mountaineer has launched a million marketing campaigns, and just as many graduation selfies, since cellphones took off.
Wood said he’s heartened the university went with his company for
the task of taking off all that grime on the
things that make up its community.
Look for him in your community.
He’s been cleaning houses and buildings across north-central West Virginia on the way to establishing the home office of Powerwash Bros at 1896 Grafton Road.
To find out more, call 833-304-WASH, or visit online at pwbrs.com.
Wood can clean the outside of your house, or eventually sell the nozzle system to you, so you can do the work without a service call.
He’s even done smaller jobs for free.
“Just to let people know about us,” he said.
A family — a husband, wife and their two young children — walked up to watch during this particular job.
They know the Mountaineer and work with him on a seasonal basis.
The husband and wife politely asked if Wood was done. They wanted to pose their kids in front of the statue for the family Christmas card.
“Hey,” Wood asked back, smiling.
“What do you guys think of the Mountaineer? Looks pretty good, doesn’t he?”
