This picture is of my beautiful old cat Chloe, on top of the heavy paver bricks that were once the roadway of Clinton Street Hill, in Lockport, New York. Behind are the bricks salvaged from the old train depot. I have kept a journal for years detailing my many adventures. This entry details how I aquired some of the many heavy paving bricks that form the landscape borders around the house.
Fall Brick Adventure 1/17/2001
Time to backtrack a bit. This will be my trip to New York State the end of October. (This would be 2000) I had a few vacation days to burn up, so decided to take a trip back to the old hometown. Got the truck and my supplies all ready, for this was to be another brick run! Arrived safely after a long haul. God, I have gotten to hate that drive. Got in late Thursday night.
Friday was a beautiful morning, I went to my brick hoard to get things in order. This has to be done in a very certain sequence!! This property was a railroad right of way many years ago, but it is now private property. Located in a dying industrial section of town in a gully, it is in the shadow of a chemical plant that makes nerve gas. People really don't pay too much attention to what goes on here, but I don't want to get busted for stealing bricks!. (Note: this is prior to 9/11. Things really changed after that!) All this area is now, is a junk yard. Along the polluted creek bank there are still quite a few bricks dumped years ago when an old street was redone. These are heavy duty paver bricks, each one weighing 10 pounds. I make piles of 12. It takes a while to get ten piles made up. But, all the rain has made the ground so soft, that I'm able to get up a lot of bricks half buried in the dirt that were usually like being in concrete!! Once the piles are made up, my work is done for the day.
Saturday morning....it is pretty grey and miserable. The adrenaline is pumping, and I head out at 7:45 to get my bricks!!! Arrive at the brick area, and park the truck as close to the brick hoard as possible. It is still a haul to carry the damn things, about 300 feet. Go to my brick piles, with the cat litter buckets...I can fit 6 bricks in each bucket. Do twelve buckets the first trip. Carry two buckets a time to the truck. Have to do them in a relay. Am out of there in twenty minutes. Don't need anyone to see me doing this!!! On my way to the last trip I call Denise and will meet her for breakfast. The last eight buckets go real fast and I get out of there in record time. We have a great breakfast together. I was starving!! Back at Joe's I unload the truck to save the suspension for a bit. It will be a rough trip back to Alabama. My poor truck will be hauling 1,200 lbs just in bricks!!! On the way home, driving through West Virginia. my arm starts to itch and blister....yup something else I brought back,,,poison oak!!! Not a bad case. The plant nurse Billie gave me some cream to put on. I told her it was a case of Yankee Poison Oak!!..Well enough, I'm at work in the skill center, and my break is up..I have to run back to my center machines, I have to run two today.....