Home is where the heart is, Part 2:Putting in the foundation

Well, the first thing to building the house was putting in the foundation. My brother [redacted], the heavy equipment operator, borrowed a bulldozer from his boss for the weekend, and dug out the hold for me. Once that was done, all my brothers came over to put together the forms.

"Forms?" I ask.

Yeah, forms, see, you know when you pour concrete, that it's wet. It has to dry. It's the consistency of... pudding, with rocks in it. Anyway, you have to pour it into moulds, which are called forms. We built the forms out of plywood and 2x4's. At one point, I was up on the scaffolding, putting something together and [heavy equipment operator] says to me, "Can I borrow your hammer real quick?"

So, I said, "Where's your hammer? You had a hammer just a few minutes ago."

"I forgot it, it's down there." And he pointed into the hole.

"So go get it"

He says, "Keep your voice down, or [carpenter brother] will yell. He's always yelling at me, he says that I lose stuff."

"Well, you seem to have lost your hammer."

Now, by then, [carpenter] had noticed that we weren't working, and he comes over. He wants to know what the hold up is. So, I tell him [heavy equipment operator] left his hammer down in the hole, and he doesn't want to go get it, he wants to borrow mine. Boy, did he ever start yelling.

Those were the days you know, those were great days, all together, working. Those were good days.

Grandpa has a misty, far away look.