This story ends with the owners too embarrassed to allow photographs, so there are none.
I passed an older home with huge piles of dirt neatly arranged in the front yard along one side of the driveway. I’m always on the lookout for a new story, so I stopped and met the owners. They explained that the dirt would be used to fill-in a swimming pool. It was a lot of dirt, apparently nine truck loads, piled daisy-chain style from the curb of the street to the wooden privacy fence and gate near the back of the house. The gate is the important part.
The owners explained in a way intended to take credit for their own brilliant forward thinking, that to minimize labor, the dirt was piled against the outside of the gate. All they would have to do, they reasoned, was open the gate and start moving fill-dirt to the hole that used to be a swimming pool.
I noticed that the gate hinges were on the outside – the dirt side – and that the way the adjacent fence was built, the gate could only swing one way. Before I could stop myself I said, “But your gate will only swing out toward the dirt pile. You’ll have to take the gate apart to bring the dirt to the pool.
So, that’s what they’re doing right now, tearing down the gate.
I asked if I could take pictures, but they said “no” which brings us full circle.
I just wanted you to know.
Thank you,
Andy Bozeman
Andy Bozeman is the author of
IF I’D KNOWN THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN I BUILT MY HOUSE, I MIGHT’VE GONE CAMPING INSTEAD
Available from Amazon Kindle
See similar educational articles related to the American dwelling industry at
American Home Journal, also by Andy Bozeman.
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