Dreamland

Skateboarding, Digging Bricks

I'm at the park with my son; I'm teaching him to skateboard. He tells me he wants to be in the Olympics in a couple years; Skateboarding has just been added as a new sport in the summer games.

The park has gentle hills and lots of paved walks; it's a nice place for kids to learn basic skateboarding. Soon enough, Nick is riding along with the other kids. He says "I bet I can ride better than you now, Dad!"

Not one to let that go unchallenged, I take the board to the tallest hill in the park for a fast downhill run. I weave through the turns smoothly, proud of my skill at handling the board. As I grind the board to a stop I lose my balance and crash into the shrubbery at the bottom of the hill. The kids are all laughing at me, and I'm laughing too. "You wanna try it again Dad?" Nick asks.

"No, you go ahead," I say, handing him the board. "I'm getting too old for this." He laughs, and skates away with the other kids.

I dust myself off and start to walk around the perimeter of the park. I see a large pile of old bricks and cement in a corner of the park. There is a Hispanic family there, chipping at the bricks with picks and hammers, salvaging the bricks. I stop to watch.

They dig the bricks free, chip off the old cement, and stack them in a child's wagon. I ask what they are going to do with the bricks. "Our house is too small for the four of us, and we will soon have another," the man says, as he smiles at his obviously pregnant wife. "We will use these bricks to build a foundation, to add another room to our house. Would you like to help us dig them out?"

"Sure, why not?" I reply, having nothing better to do. The man hands me a small pickaxe, and I start to dig. I break the first couple bricks I try, but pretty soon I am able to dig them out and clean them successfully. Once the wagon is full, the two boys drag it across the street to their house and pile the bricks in the yard. Then they come back for more.

Suddenly the ground begins to rumble and shake beneath my feet. "What's that?" I ask.

"Oh, it's the subway, The main station is below us," the man replies.

"If we keep on digging up the bricks, won't we cave in the top and fall into the subway?" I ask.

"Only if we take too many," he says. "My friend Miguel worked on laying the bricks for this station. He said they dumped all the extra bricks and cement here when they were finished. He said we can dig down until we reach the area where the bricks are neatly cemented in place, then we must stop or we will fall through."

We continue on, digging out more bricks. We don't appear to have reached the area where the bricks are neatly laid yet. The ground shakes again, harder than before, as a train passes beneath us. I hope Miguel is right...