Monday, November 29, 2010

Housemoving -

Left somewhere near Atlanta for somewhere not, Green Cove Springs, Florida if you wanna be exact. A small community set on the edge of a Walmart where there was quite a lot of Green,no discernible cove and a complete absence of Spring! - at least as far as I could see.
Edged the truck beneath low trees with even lower Spanish Moss, so when I finally stopped the resulting moss gave it a very nice textured look! (If only I had a camera!) Unloaded and got chatting to the Owner of Noah's last crane, seems this thing was originally a 1970 concrete mixer that got tipped over and by the time anyone sensible had noticed, the stuff had set! So it was consigned to the outer reaches of a concrete plant where my guy found it. He paid the tipper-over-er $1 and took it away!
So now he has a truck that pulls 150 ton houses around and all for a $1!
I asked the obvious question about why the poor thing had been exiled to Vancouver,BC.

It all started about a year ago when my guy got the contract to move an $8 million building from Savannah, GA to the docks. This involved splitting the thing into 8 sections and trundling them onto a barge - hmm, huge barge! Once aboard the company attempted to find some crew in Vancouver who knew how to read the flat-pack assembly instructions to put the thing back together, you know the kinda thing, "Locate hole B, align with Screw A - Insert washer X at point C4;Y6;R9;D1;F6;C10 and tighten in sequence as described in appendix Page 200054" I mean, who hasn't done this? Well apparently, no-one in Vancouver so they piles all the building shifting equipment onto the barge as well! Next some helpful passing tug-boat Captain offers to tow the thing from Savannah, GA down the coast, across the Gulf of BP and through the Panama canal. Next it's right, on up the west coast and head north until the butter sets, 11000 miles in all!
So somewhere in Vancouver, or a bit further north, there are 8 sections of something sitting on the beach waiting for the Lake to freeze so they can trundle the whole thing across the ice to it's new home!

Green Hand Gang! I was about 6 yrs old I think, ran into the gang culture in the small rural village that really wasn't prepared for us. There was me, Gord and Mick, we chose the name Green Hand Gang due to a lack of imagination, handkerchiefs and almost perpetual colds! If someone upset us, we'd give him the sign!
(Wipe back of hand across dripping nose, sniff and present for inspection - Strong men have been known to faint!)

The local Butcher shop was famed for it's Steak & Kidney Pies, we could only look and drool! The sight of three ragamuffins dripping and drooling at his display window was more then he could stand and he chased us off!

We plotted our revenge!

The next Friday, when all the women of the village filled the shop buying joints of meat for the traditional Sunday roast, we struck! At it's busiest, we entered the shop, plonked a dead dog on the counter and shouted, "That's the last one today, we'll bring some more tomorrow!" and fled!!!!
OK, we didn't get away with it - but that moment and the look on his face? it was soooo sweet!

5 comments:

Sausage said...

Damn you are close, I am about 20 south of there. Stop off for a pint or four...

Ponita in Real Life said...

I don't even want to think what it cost to move that building 11,000 miles, by barge, from the east coast to the west coast. Probably would have been cheaper to build a new one!

A dead dog!? You were a fiesty little bugger as a kid, weren't you, LHB??? ;-)

Too bad you hadn't known that Mr. Fingers was so close before you got there...

Hope you are reloaded and on your way soon... You are getting closer to home, though, so that's a good thing!

xoxoxo

Ms Scarlet said...

Losing points for the dead dog debacle...
I am here to add myself as a follower, so that I can keep an eye on your shananigans.
Sx

LongHaulBrit said...

Scarlet Blue ;
I was 6! There's not a lot you can do at that age to terrify "grown-ups"! We were chased for miles, (maybe short legs makes it seem more)I lost me best pocket knife and me frog, which all gang members where required to secrete upon there personage at all times!

I do not indulge in shenanigans - at no time in my life have I ever felt the need to shenanni ! and before you accuse me of "cocking a snook"too. I shall explain that I have never owned a snook, nor would have the least idea of how to cock it! There's enough trouble in this world by things going off half-cocked! LHB

Ms Scarlet said...

I will expect full cockery from this blog in future - at all times.
Keep it up.
Sx