Oh, sure: Amy & I could have spent Memorial Day at a nice party at Breezy Point, in Brooklyn. But wouldn’t we have even more fun if I spent a second straight day excavating a portion of my backyard? In 88-degree weather?
Okay, we wouldn’t, especially since Amy stayed inside and degreased the stove/grill in the kitchen. But stay home we did, and I actually accomplished my goal of clearing a chunk of land on the corner of our backyard.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any “Before” pictures, largely because I was convinced I would never finish the job. But I found reservoirs of will to go along with my reservoirs of Patrick Ewing-like sweat. So, all you get are a couple of “After” pictures, here and here.
Doesn’t look like much? Well, it measured out to 23 feet by 24 feet, which comes out to about 550 square feet of yard that hadn’t been cleaned in more than 15 years. The thick layer of rotting leaves was a mixed blessing: a lot of the weeds hadn’t laid down deep roots, but those leaves get awfully heavy when they’ve been left for that long and that much rain.
Then there were the rocks, which sure made things difficult. My idea for this patch is to turn it into some sorta garden or zen-palace, so hauling out a bunch of those suckers is necessary. It wasn’t as bad as some of the small trees I had to rip up, since they did lay down some significant roots.
But you guys know I wouldn’t write about this sort of thing unless something funny happened, or if an ex-girlfriend was involved. Fortunately, it’s the former.
See, my father is genetically incapable of disposing of anything in the conventional manner. A few years ago, when he replaced his water-heater, he called me and said, “We can dump it behind the bank building in Ramsey tonight when it’s closed!” I told him that I’d gotten out of the dump-and-run business, and that we should see when bulk-trash day is in his neighborhood. It turned out to be the next day. We still had fun trying to roll the water-heater down his sloped driveway, nearly losing control of it, which would’ve led to the heater bounding across the street and into the neighbors’ front yard.
Which is to say, I had some trepidation about digging up that section of the backyard. This trepidation was warranted. Over the years, it seems Dad dumped a bunch of crap in that relatively small patch of land.
Airplane cables (from our dog’s run when we were kids), metal pipes and tubing from his old HAM radio tower in the backyard, flowerpots, a Sundae Smiley Saucer from McDonalds, cables, rope, shards of glass, and what appears to be a fuel-tank that was filled with rocks.
You read that last one right. I had to get all the rocks, dirt and rust out before I could haul the tank up to the pile o’ junk.
Now, you’d think that a fuel-tank full of rocks would be the piece de resistance for my excavation, but it’s not. No, that honor goes to this:
What’s that? Oh, it’s a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi from about 18 logos ago. If you check out the back of the bottle, you’ll notice it’s still two-thirds filled.
I hope everyone else had a good Memorial Day. I know I’ll remember this one for quite a while, especially if I get tetanus from that damned fuel-tank. . .
keep digging, Gil, I’m sure you’ll unearth lots more treasure in the bakyard – the gold is there somewhere! – if only “he” could remember where he buried it! – for sure, I never found it –
have you heard the story about your grandparents’ in Israel? – they moved into an old Arab house in Lod shortly after the owners had fled to Ramallah in 1948, with their leaders’ guarantee that they would return maybe a month later after the great Arab defeat of the Israeli army of Jewish infidels! …..
well, return they did, but in 1967, after the 6-day war – by which time they had a decent life in Ramallah, and were permitted to travel to Israel to visit – they knocked on the door, told the Roths who they were, and were invited in for tea – they also told the family that before fleeing in 1948 they had buried a large amount of gold on the property in anticipation of their eventual return home –
soon after they left, your grandfather and uncles spent a week, and a lot of sweat and energy, digging up the whole courtyard and property in search of the gold, and found NOTHING –
I guess the Arab had the last laugh after all! –
and thousands and thousands of pieces of glass from the two liter apple juice bottles he threw over the edge….
I am a collector of pepsi bottles like these and would actually pay you for that old 2-liter. Please E-mail me back on this if you wan’t to sell it. ( if you kept it, that is, which I hope you did, that is very unusual and they are not easy to find) Thank you!
I have a number of different glass 2 liter ,pepsi and mountain dew bottles very old and rare . email me if interested thanks .