> Don't forget culvert crawling.

                Oh, yes... I was a country kid and we did lots of culvert
crawling, both big
                and small. You remind me that one time I dug a hole deep
enough to stand in,
                along side of a popular pathway and slid a flat rock over
the top. When people
                would walk past I would start yelling at them. I guess our
personalities only
                mature with age.

                ][<en

So this is how you got your start as a mason! I take it you don't yell at
people anymore.

There seems to be a trend emerging here regarding the early childhood
influences and inclinations of preservationeers...
*       An attraction to confined spaces
*       A tendency to be victimized by older siblings
*       A predilection for scaring mothers and other passers-by

Any other ideas?

In trying to dig up my early childhood influences that might have directed
me towards this field, all I could come up with was the usual back yard
excavation project: "Lets see if we can get to China!" We never seemed to be
concerned about winding up at the bottom of the South China Sea.

Primal Shovel