Day 8, Thursday 8/9/01

I woke up around 7. I'm still having trouble sleeping. Woodbourne materials opens at 7:45, so I eat and wait for them to open. The radio is saying that the heat wave will continue with today's heat index around 105. Yikes. Its already warm at 7:30. I call for stone and the stupid cell phone makes the conversation tough. I ask for Phil who we have been dealing with and who has been great, but he is off. I explain who and where I am and they agree to send a stone delivery. I'm cleaning up and I hear a truck pulling up the driveway. It's a beautiful near new dump truck full of "crusher run". Crusher run is a type of material that comes out of a stone crusher, hence the name. It contains different size rocks from about fist sized to sand and stone dust. When its put down at 4 inches deep and compacted and rained on, it packs tightly together forming a solid base for a road. The driver's name is Donnie. I direct him to the top of the hill and he goes into the site and turns around. Now facing downhill, he lifts up the dump bed and dumps the stone wile driving forward in short bursts, to leave a few big piles a few feet apart. This makes it easier to spread (my job). At the moment he's done dumping 10 tons of stone in big piles in the driveway, I hear another truck coming up the driveway. Naturally, it's the Verizon dude! He quickly pulls his truck into a small clearing I had made for storing snow and lets the dump truck past. He hops out still eating his morning bagel, unfazed. I say good morning and he nods. I think he is still half asleep. He walks the rest of the way up the driveway past the stone piles. We look the job over and I say to him "piece of cake, right?" He says should be no problem, I'll have phone service in a few hours. I ask him if he minds if I watch. He doesn't. I jump into The Big Yellow One and spread the 10 tons of stone out. It goes about 50 feet, takes about 10 minutes. It took Laurie and I many hours to move that much by hand. God bless that machine. The phone guy has a small bucket truck which he now pulls all the way up to the camper, and pulls out a box of wire and starts at the pole nearest the camper.

With the bucket, he runs the wire up the pole to an anchor he hammers in. Then he comes down, takes the box of wire to the next pole laying the wire on the ground. I follow him around and try not to get in the way. He is waking up now. Nice guy, we bullshit about the weather, trucks, Hassidic Jews, his daughter dating, growing up in New York verses New Jersey. He drives the bucket truck to the next pole and asks me if he gets stuck can I pull him out. No sweat I tell him; I have all the equipment! He buckets up and pulls the wire tight and anchors it to the pole. He gets out no problem. I tell him I can run the box of wire to the next pole for him if he wants. He chuckles and says OK. I'm on it. I scurry off like an enthusiastic moron and meet him at the next pole. This pole is tricky because he can't get the truck very close to the pole. He says he will try it. He goes up and can just reach but the wire doesn't appear to be high enough. He says he is expecting a helper soon who wants to see him climb a pole so if its not high enough he can move it up later. He buckets down and tries to head to the pole on the street, but the truck is stuck. I go get Mr. Plow and a chain. Four wheel drive low range and a tug does the trick. Now we wait for the helper. We shoot the shit. Looking at the phone poles, he asks if I cleared the way myself. He tells me about when he built his house and all the trees he had to cut down. We compare stories. Verizon guy #2 shows up. They head out to the street. More stone arrives and I run off to spread it. When I'm done, they are gone. They went someplace to do the connection. They come back just as another truckload of stone has been dropped off. Uncanny. I spread and then they install the interface box on the pole by the camper. #2 plugs in the orange test phone and it rings. He looks at me and asks if I am expecting a call. I think this is some phone guy joke, right? He answers it. He asks if I'm Billy. Uh huh. Its my Mom. No shit! Mom tells me about grampa's car offer and I rush her off the phone so the guys can finish up. We all get a good laugh that you can never get away from you mother!

I spend the rest of the day spreading stone. Nine loads in all, 81 tons. Add that to the 100 tons I had put on the bottom half of the driveway. Totals about $2000 not counting buying the backhoe. Not bad considering I got a quote for $5,000 just for the bottom half.

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I take a break to run and get a phone wire and grease fittings. I email Laurie. Butchie called. He's coming up, due around 8 PM. Hope he brings cool weather with him.

Butchie arrives, drinks beer, pees a lot. He didn't check his email before he left, the one where I told him that we aren't ready to build footing forms yet because there is no well. I wrote to "bring your chain saw and fishing gear, we can cut wood and fish". He says "what the hell am I doing here?" I apologize. I tell him we can fish or cut firewood. He gives me the eye, suspicious as he is. We sit around the fire and BS. It took 2 hours for him to get here straight from work, not bad. We go inside and set up. Its still hot and sticky. Unfazed, Butchie is asleep in minutes.

12 hours, sunny and 97