Palace Construction

They are here! -- the concrete guys. 

The cast:

Guy, our fearless leader, a young Italian guy whose company I hired because he LOVES concrete.  Guy could talk forever about concrete in all of its permutations.  He is clearly a direct descendant of the Italian stoneworkers who are responsible for much of the sculpture in the cemetery where I walk, which is squeezed in between my city and Little Italy.

Joe, an older Italian guy,  who has spent the morning alternating between the Little Bobcat and the Big Drill.  He didn't want to work in the rain but, after two days off due to the heat, he's here.  He might be Guy's father.

Don, a quiet black guy, who smiles and trudges back and forth along the driveway.

Marcus, another black guy, with glistening gold teeth who, after I told him that we had a rat or two out there, stood in the middle of the garage wielding a lengthy piece of wood like a bat, yelling, "Come on out!  I'll get him!"

The garage floor is gone.  Not that there was much of it to begin with.  It was obviously a half-a---d job completed sometime after the demise of the horse-and-buggy days rendered some sort of surfacing beyond dirt necessary.

A big chunk of the drive is gone, too.  Some of it disappeared into oblivion following a loud discussion which must have clarified for all of our neighbors the vagaries of local landfill requirements.

The basketball hoop is gone.  We asked the contractors to remove it but I have to admit that its demise leaves me with a lump in my throat. It wasn't so long ago that we had little boys who got a basketball for their birthdays and helped their dad mix the concrete and put up the hoop.  When they come back again, there will be a patio out back where they can hang out with their college friends ~ but the days of "21" are over.