IGM Construction

Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Construction
11-4-2010

Nita and I did something different today. We got up really early (see, already different) dressed in layers because it was chilly and drizzling, and drove into Rochester. A good-sized city which has not escaped the “downturn.” We avoid Rochester.
We made our way to one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, where every third house is abandoned and boarded up, even the pets are armed, and met several people we didn’t know—and a few we did—to build a house. Yep . . . Habitat for Humanity.
Our Stake (an ecclesiastical entity which consists of several congregations) has formed a partnership with the Third Presbyterian Church of Rochester to raise both money for, and donate time to, the construction of several houses.
Small, unassuming homes in which owners invest their own sweat-equity, move in and begin paying the mortgage. Indentured servitude (volunteers) keeps the price down. The plan is 100 new homes that will resurrect the neighborhood—take it to a tipping point where interest will turn to investment and a rebirth will occur.
Why would we do that, you might ask? Well, we’re retired. Most people go to work all day every day. It’s hard to say no. And it is a legitimately good cause. So far, we are a veritable PSA for Habitat and charity work, right? Now for the splash of reality.
Remember when I said it was raining? Not hard, but long enough to soak the ground. And it was cold. Upstate New York is like, fifteen feet from the arctic circle.
One house is up and they are hanging sheetrock. That wasn’t our house, that was just where we met. Then we drove a few blocks to the other house. And when I say house, I mean a large, rectangular hole in the ground, bordered by piles of mud, with a concrete footing and a huge pile of gravel at the bottom.
I looked at the supervisor, one-half of a identical twin team, and said:
“We’re unskilled volunteer labor. What are we going to do with a hole in ground? Fill it?” Well, sort of, it turns out.
The wooden forms were still in place. They are held in place by big nails the size of small spears which have been pounded into the ground with industrial pile-drivers and then nailed to the 2x12 forms—below the ground line. I don’t know how they did that. Our first job was pulling the forms, which meant pulling the two-foot spikes, which meant finding and pulling the nails . . . you get the picture. We were covered in mud after fifteen minutes. But we got the forms pulled. Then it was time to lay a black plastic pipe covered in fabric around the outside edge of the footing. It’s for drainage I’m told. But the key word here is drain. Which means the tubing (About 6 inches in diameter) has to start low then steadily ascend to the other end, or vice-versa. Whatever. Which means digging. Then shoveling gravel over it to hold it in place, then spreading the huge pile of gravel (Left over from those stables Hercules cleaned) into an even layer of gravel instead of a pile of gravel. That was when I went into a fugue state. I would move two or three shovels-full of gravel, and then wake up a few minutes later having gone bye-bye. I was exhausted to the point of . . . well, a few times I idly entertained the possibility that I was closing in on another heart attack. My body was resting whether I wanted to or not. But we finished the gravel while I joked about working harder than everyone else.
Did I mention the wall forms? Next to the giant hole were stacks of steel and something-else modular forms, two by eight feet and very heavy. They needed to be in the hole. Apparently this was a good job for unskilled volunteers. So four of us began to relocate the forms. We made six stacks about five feet high. Then one of the supervisors had the clearly inappropriate idea of taking us from unskilled to semi-skilled volunteers. He showed Nita and another guy how to assemble the forms. They made four corner sections. We had to carry them to the corners and stand them up. Then he showed us how to attach the two-foot sections together. They wanted us to make walls! The forms were for the concrete basement walls. So five of us began assembling wall-forms.
Oh, I forgot. Somewhere in there the Roach Coach showed up (How do they always find us?). I bought a Pepsi, Nita fed me two tuna sandwiches (with potato chips inside—yum!) along with half a banana and several Ibuprofen. I was a new man. It is scary how much better caffeine can make you feel. I wasn’t exactly a human dynamo—mostly I stopped feeling like an imminent heat attack, but I managed to find a groove and work steadily-if-not-heroically until quitting time. I am happy to say we got the entire outside half of the form built—all the way around the footing. Wow!
Truthfully—we had a blast. I’d attach a photo of the wall in the giant hole, but I don’t know how to get it off my phone. (Newell, you may now invoke the “Dork” word.) Neither of us have been that dirty in decades. We all had not just a sense of accomplishment, but a sense that it meant something as well. Some family, the working poor, with whom most of us can identify and/or sympathize, will get a new home in a few months. We interacted with several people from the very scary neighborhood, and they all were glad we were there and told us so. I feel this reduces the chance of being shot on the job. Which is good, because we’re going back. Tomorrow. I recommend it.
This evening, neither of us can move, and everything hurts. But it’s a “good” hurt, in the same sense that Vegas heat is a “dry” heat.