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Reply To: | BP - "Callahan's Preservationeers" |
Date: | Fri, 5 May 2000 01:05:44 EDT |
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The following is from my preservation journal
it take a minuet to read if not delete my friend delete.
All rights /Mdd
Yale dig
Monday 7 am in New england an another cold wet spring day;
oh we have had our share of
sunny days magnicient with dog woods blooming
and curvaceous coeds traversing the historic green.
There is an abundance of such beauty at Yale, smart savvy and very cute.
But today is not one of those days .
It is a dull day with cold moist ground fog that strains the larnyx and
cramps the bones.
There is also a general rain that won't quit.
The costruction yard of historic Branford/Yale is full of mounds of earth
,some 30 ft high from the recent excavation of the stone foundations.
Back hoes and bobcats with bucket loaders merrily skip and spin in the mud
making the mounds higher.The down pour is incessant.
For what ever reason the men this morning have gathered in their rain
slickers outside the famous halls to watch the furious action of the digging
machines.
Rain runs off their hard hats in rivlets as they smoke ;posture; and cosume
hard donuts and coffee in paper cups.
Their faces are worn and haggered from the week end;
For the young.... if they make it in at all... its from not enough sleep and
too much alcohol.
They posture with machismo as they share their bawdy tales; tatooed with gold
at neck and tooth ....smoking half wet cigarettes.joking and laughing as
rain pisses on down on them.
The senior trades men are more stoic; quiet ,introspective... actually
relived that they are here as like there are to many women and grand babies
at home and there is no where to go.
.The rain pisses on them too.
but they have the more protected view from under the scaffold.
I recall my half smoked cigar butt still warmed by the compressor and
fetch it to join their circle to watch the dig.
The sweetness of the cigars broadleaf recalls summer and the months it
spent in the sun; a much needed rememberance on such a wet day.
The yard is a quagmire of slime and berm.
The mud filled pot holes are crossed with construction bric a brac.
The holes are scattered with the litter of human consumption which bob and
sink with the pelting rain....An odd daffodill blooms nearby .
The machines are entertaining to watch;
they spin load and un load like childs play.
Most of us will spend the day indoors but untill the super makes his move we
are most content to watch this in the morning rain with the rain pissing down.
Then it happened...a backhoe in a back scrape exposed a debris field of blue
delf pottery 4ft below a surface.
For a full minuet no one noticed. It was clearly 19 cent and no one was
going to notice it.
so I passed the saftey line and jumped into the pit and began gatthering it
up..
There were perfume bottles and really old wine bases; and decorated delf
pottery in broken bits not to mention bones of an undetermined origin admixed
a scattering of oyster shells.
By now the machines had stopped and the pit boss was bellowing with rage.
at me. I quickly gathered all I could in a costruction box for bolts and
scrambled out of there.
He was really pissed off and looked horrible in the pouring rain but I
didn't care.
I told him you can't just bust all that stuff up.
Just then the super had called time
and everyone moved off to work including me and my pottery shards.
Later over dark guiness Leland and I reviewed the chache and specualted on
its age and origin.
Next step is to date the pottery and see if the bones are human
wh knows it may be the first Yale man. Digging the past michael
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