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09-17-05
Compressed
Day 1 on the job.
We had a crew of 9 guys that
included me, Ian and Brandon. For the 1st job of the day we went
over to a nice woman’s house and helped clear out some downed trees from her
yard. It was a fairly large yard. She had 3 children and her mother living with
her. She’d been divorced for 5 years and couldn’t afford to pay
someone to remove the trees. We found out, later, that she had a friend living
in a tent beside her house as well. Her friend lived close to the ocean and
lost everything.
I think her name was
Jennifer. She had a dog named Bella and a fluffy white cat. We met one of her
children, a 13 year old boy who enjoyed skate boards and surfing.
The sun was hot and beat
unmercifully down on us. But, we learned to pace ourselves. Mr.
‘C’, Crazy Joe, led the one. That man was a one man cutting
machine.
After that job we went back
to the church and had a most awesome lunch. It was simple, but, it was good.
After lunch we drove down to “Lover’s lane”, on the ocean to
see some of the devastation.
The 2nd job was
just down the street. An elderly couple had a neighbor’s tree fall on
their property and into their pool. The pool hadn’t been cleaned since
the hurricane. It was as black as oil and stunk to high heaven. Talk about hot.
It was hotter in the afternoon than in the morning. Joe took the lead again and
went to work on that tree. We tried to avoid getting the limbs in that stinky
water… but, it was to no avail.
We took a group photo once we
were through cutting the tree down. I took some pictures of the group. Joe took
a turn and got me in the picture. So, do the math… and you can figure out
which one’s Joe.
Joe’s crazy. Did I
mention that? While everybody else was through for the day he got another name
and we went looking for one more person to help. It turned out to be an elderly
gentleman. We drove up, got out, and tried to figure out what he needed done.
He pointed to the tree and said he wanted some limbs cut down. That’s
it??? Wow… thank you Lord. It was an easy task.
After we finished with that house
we went to an All-You-Can-Eat fried chicken place. It was GOOD!!!