Prague Journal—09.06.30 (Out of Order)

One morning last week I heard voices out the Farniks’ window and went out to investigate. There were three men in the backyard of the house across the street in what appeared to be a planning discussion for some project. (Workin’ men who are getting ready to work look and sound the same in any language.) Sure enough, later in the morning (even though the weather was threatening) a small tractor appeared and began grading.

A day or so later there was more consultation and laying out lines with chalk (like the foul lines on a baseball diamond, but not so neat), and then (while I was away for a while) a small backhoe arrived to begin digging some pretty big footings. Given the intermittent showers, I was surprised that the digger didn’t get himself hopeless mired in mud. But he didn’t.

Next day, a truck with a larger backhoe mounted on the bed arrived to do some heavy lifting from the road, removing excess soil from the backyard. The men gestured indicating a request that I move Jerry’s VW, which was parked in their way. It took a bit to get the sleepy van to wake up (I had started it a couple of days earlier without much problem). Soon it fired up and I was able to move it down the street a few yards.

When all the digging appeared to be complete, another large truck with a crane mounted on the back came in to lift the smaller backhoe out of the muddy yard. (They frustrated a couple of the drivers who could not get by and had to sit for a quarter-hour until they’d finished this little task. Because of the roadwork being done down on the main road, there was no other way around.) In short order, the efficient crew hooked up the crane and hoisted the little backhoe onto a waiting dump truck and away they all went.

One sharp in a fancy car made sure to squeel his tires a little when he could finally get by to let these proletarians (or anyone else in earshot who cared) know that he was not used to being kept waiting. I asked Buddy if he cared… he didn’t.

If there had been any little boys here, it would have provided some entertaining equipment-watching for a little while. (When our David was that age he liked nothing more than to watch “workin’ men,” especially heavy equipment operators like Jim Opie, do their thing.) But alas… no little boys.