Laying Foundation

When I was little, maybe in kindergarten or 1st grade, I remember getting a special permission slip so my sister and I could ride the bus after school one day. We had special permission not only to ride the bus but also to get off, not at home, but in a new neighborhood – in front of one of several houses under construction where my grandfather was working.

We were very excited about this. We would get to ride the bus that the big kids rode. We would get to go to a real live construction site. And we would get to see my grandfather. Any one of these things alone would have been fabulously exciting to us at the time, but all three! There was no end to our good fortune.

When we got off the school bus, we ran across the street and through the muddy, nail-strewn and trash-ridden yard to be received into my grandfather’s arms. Then we were to be good little girls and play by ourselves. Or we could stay back and watch, which is exactly what we did.

We were wide-eyed and completely exhilarated to be in such a perilous environment. Our mother and grandmother had warned us of all the hidden dangers, what with the hammers and nail guns and wheelbarrows and bricks.

Tejano music blared. There were men without shirts speaking in Spanish. And I remember mounds of trash, mostly What-A-Burger bags and bottles of Big Red in haphazard piles on the sidewalk. We walked circles around the trash and bombarded my grandfather with questions.

"What is that machine, Papaw?"
"How does that work, Papaw?"
"Papaw, what is that called?"
"Why are they talking like that, Papaw?"
"Papaw, what is he saying?"
"Why do they like the music so loud, Papaw?"
"Papaw, why isn’t he wearing a shirt?"
"Is that DANGEROUS, Papaw?"
"Papaw, what are you doing?"
"Papaw, Papaw! WHAT are you DOING?"

They were laying foundation. There was a cement mixer noisily turning around and around and the air had a chalky tinge to it. Someone would tilt a handle on the contraption and cement would pour out. And then my grandfather and some other men would use flat instruments with handles to shape the concrete and level it out.

"Papaw! Papaw, can we write our names?!" We begged.

"Naw, you can’t write your names. Y’all be quiet now and let us work." The men laughed and smiled at my grandfather and he smiled back at them and then explained to us that the house belonged to somebody and they didn’t want little girls’ names in their living room floor, or something to that effect.

I remember he told us about rules and why they are good and why they should be followed. I remember he poured and leveled out several loads of wet concrete until a whole room had a new floor in it, while we stood watching behind two Big Red bottles that marked a boundary we were not allowed to cross.

As he leveled out the concrete, I remember he talked nonstop about how the rules we had to follow would take care of everyone. They would take care of the workers that were building the house and the family that would live in the house and the little girls that were playing in the house while it was being built. He explained that the rules made us safe and why we should stay safe even when the rules didn’t seem very fun and even when they didn’t make sense.

And we listened to every word and even though I don’t remember precisely which words he chose to explain it all, I remember being absolutely convinced. And by the end of that afternoon, they had laid the foundation. He finished his work and then he took us home.



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(This entry is in response to this week's Mama Says Om Theme: Foundation.)