Brick Driveway Prologue II

 

After I returned from my first visit to Tuscaloosa the wheels were set in motion for packing up the house. Books and records were boxed up first. The original double hung windows were pulled out of the garage to be refinished and reinstalled when the stained-glass panels would be removed.

It was in late March 1996 things were very slow at work. I had been farmed out to building 7 stacking radiators. It was no problem to get time off for a fast trip to Tuscaloosa.

I bought a cap for the truck to facilitative hauling stuff to Alabama. Having a cap eliminated dealing with tarps and the worry of bad weather infiltrating the load.

It was a wet evening when I first began to dismantle the brick patio that had not even seen eight months of use.
Aftermath of that initial brick removal:

The fall of 1978 I prepared my backyard for a colourful spring. The bulb catalogue from Michigan recommended to throw handfuls of Crocus bulbs onto your lawn and plant them where they landed. I had Crocus plants growing everywhere in my yard!

 

After nearly 20 years they really multiplied. You could not mow the leaves down after the crocus bloomed as they supplied nutrients to the bulbs. The raggedy leaves and grass drove Ron to distraction! I basically just scraped off the sod and laid the bricks into the dirt for my first try at a patio building. The crocus bulbs were still intact.

Nothing says spring like Crocus in bloom. Ron’s old Tabby cat Chloe and Mom’s old cat Fuzzie having treats outside on the remains of the patio.

This Alabama trip would be my first long distance journey driving the 1995 Dodge Dakota overloaded with bricks. I had the weight in the front of the truck bed to attempt to balance out the load. There must have been some 125 bricks in the back.

This was my initial foray driving to Alabama. Google maps and Garmin had not been invented yet… or if they were out there, using them was very limited. I missed the turn off for I-71 outside Cincinnati so it was a straight shot down I-75 to Knoxville, TN. Williamsburg, KY was my stop for the night. It had been a nerve-wracking drive through too much snow in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The outside of the truck was white from the road salt.

A supermarket Deli provided my supper. I learned an important lesson for driving in the south at this stop. A beer would have been so relaxing with my sandwich to calm my frazzled nerves. I was in a dry county. The nearest place to buy beer was 12 miles away! From that time on, taking road trips in the south, I always made sure I had a six pack to fall back on.

I had arranged to rent a storage locker on Skyland Blvd. I drove direct to the storage facility when I arrived in Tuscaloosa. Those rear springs seemed to be breathing sighs of relief as the boxes and bricks were unloaded. I was a happy boy to see the truck bed rise up off the axle to the “normal” position.

I have no idea how many trips were made in the months leading up to closing on my Tuscaloosa, AL house in late August. That little storage locker was pretty full this time. It was emptied the day after I closed on my house.

The bricks were stored in the backyard. The big “square ended” bricks are the pavers from Clinton Street Hill.

Ron’s old cat Chloe perched on the Clinton Street bricks fall of 1996. Dagney on the old train station pavers 1999.

It was in the spring of 1999 I got the approval from the preservation board to install the cast iron gate and brick sidewalk.

I was still a novice working with bricks. I laid out this sidewalk in a simple "basket weave” pattern as I had no way to cut the bricks. I was so proud of that project. My friends were told how those bricks would never come out in my lifetime!!