All of my sons could tell a backhoe from an excavator long before they were two years old; no book pleased them if it didnt feature at least one dump truck, forklift, or steam roller, and an actual construction site was better than any Disney film. If I ever needed an extra hour to work on deadline days, I had only to grab my laptop, buckle them into their car seats, drive toward the highest crane, and park across the street. For years the sound of demolition triggered a profound Pavlovian sense of peace in me: the boys were safe and happy, and I could read or write or think without having to keep one ear open for the sound of something (or someone) crashing to floor in the next room. Now that the house next door to us has been sold to a construction company specializing in tear-downs and my office window opens onto a construction site, Ive been thinking about how much work Id be getting done if my boys were still small. And if I could remember how to think a single coherent thought with the smell of diesel in the air and the sound of chipper trucks grinding 60-year-old maple trees into splinters, and the sight of that too-bright blank place where my dear old friends used to live.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 17:43:15 +0000