Our father, and a couple of our uncles, worked together occassionally to demolish old houses. I have no idea whether they were paid, but I do know they ended up with a lot of lumber, bricks and other building materials. As an 8 year old boy, I thought it was fun to watch the process and even a few mishaps. Like the time they stripped off all of the interior walls and clapboard siding. My uncle Harry was on the roof as the house slowly leaned to one side and ended up in a heap on the ground. Harry road the roof like a surfboard, all the way down. The experience probably scared Harry, but I thought it was awesome.
My two brothers and I were tasked with cleaning the bricks from the chimney, removing the nails and stacking the boards. We would use a hammer and a block of wood to straighten each nail and toss the nails into an empty coffee can.
In my free time, I would take short sections of 2"x4" and pretend that they were cars or trucks, driving them around in our backyard. It wasn't long before my imagination took over and took me to bigger things.
I "borrowed" a few short sections of 2X4 and some nails. I nailed the boards on the big Elm tree. I spaced the boards about the right distance apart to make steps up the tree to the first fork. Those haphazard steps allowed access to a good place to stack longer boards. I carried enough 2X4's and planks to build a frame and platform large enough for myself and my two brothers. And all for free.
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