This was a year or two after I'd had my first articles published in magazines, work which I really enjoyed doing. Because I was not yet getting lengthy contracts in that field, I took construction-type jobs to get by. Usually I was an assistant to a seasoned carpenter, brick mason, or concrete tradesman.
I had moved to another part of the valley, and many residents were fixing up 40-year-old "pioneer" frame houses. One of my new neighbors, whom I liked from the start, had put an addition onto the house his family had moved into. Among other amenities, the addition had a modern full basement that you could stand up in comfortably. He wanted help lowering the soil level in the crawl space under the original house. I was hired to dig there with him... under the floor joists, on our hands and knees sometimes, and sometimes on our stomachs. We transferred the soil out in bucket loads.
It was hard, dirty work. But I was grateful for several things. One, I knew in advance how much I'd be paid per hour (guaranteed). Second, the idea was to make this into a more comfortably accessed crawl area, not intending to make this into a full height basement-type space. Third, the task lasted less than a week.
It was a job to remember, that's for sure! But Carl and I have remained good friends.
