Home is where the heart is. Part 3: Putting up the walls

Now, like I said, I used to work pretty late into the night. I'd work until the sun went down, then I'd finish by the headlights of my car. My brother [the carpenter] would come over, and he'd check my work. One night, I had been in a hurry, but I'd finished this whole wall. Well, I was pretty proud of myself, until he stopped over to check my work. He took one look at it, and said, "You gotta tear that all apart and do it again."

It looks good, what's wrong with it?

So he says, "It's not square."

"Square" I asked Grandpa?

Yeah, square. See, all the corners have to be square... uhh, right angles. If they're not, then the whole thing can fall down. Carpenters have this tool, called a square, which they use to check everything. A square, it looks like a big metal "L" and you hold it up on all the angles, you can tell if they're the right angle, and if they're not, then when you put some weight onto the structure, it'll fall down. That wall I made, the studs weren't square with the top. It was only off by a little bit, but a roof weighs a lot, and if I didn't fix it, then the house would fall down before I got finished with it. So my brother explained all of that to me, and the next night, I took the whole wall apart and started doing it again, started doing it right this time.

Grandpa went over and patted the front wall of his house, "See, it hasn't fallen down yet, and it's been up more than 40 years."