Well, it didn't rain over this past weekend like I thought it might. In fact, the weather was beautiful.

The sun was shining and there weren't many clouds in the sky, which didn't hinder my outdoor ambitions. I wish I could say the same for my skin tone.

I drove to a friend's house Saturday morning, and drafted him to help me construct a catch-basin and install a culvert under my driveway.

Last week I paid a fellow to help me dig out the ditch down the side of the yard and across the driveway. I have a dip in the middle of the lawn that catches runoff from the roof, the hill behind the house and the yard. The ditch was designed to funnel the water across the driveway to a ditch line below the road. When you start digging a project like that, you learn that that's a whole lot of dirt when you consider some parts of the hole reached about 30 inches or so.

I had to go back and point-up the hole before we started working, removing dirt that fell back in and shaping the sides and corners to fit the pipe. Then I realized that I didn't have a big enough hole to hold my catch basin. My friend, who happens to install such devices right here in the fine state of North Carolina for a living, was more than happy to inform me of that fact.

Wherever he works, he is the boss. That's fine until I need to hire him to do something like that, since him being the boss makes me the laborer. He told me that I wasn't nearly as good a helper as his usual helper, a Hispanic man who speaks little English. He also told me that the day of white men is almost gone.

"He can carry two bags of cement at a time and four 12-inch blocks," he told me as I was huffing towards him with an 80-pound sack of quick-setting cement. "He is so happy to have a job paying a decent wage, I sometimes have to tell him to slow down."

He never had that problem with me, let me tell you.

He also told me that his workers were about ‘this tall,' pointing to a place about mid way of my chest, and ‘this wide,' reaching his hands outside my arms by about six inches. I think he was exaggerating, possibly trying to motivate me to carry him the bags of cement faster. After I had unloaded the cement and blocks, he told me to ‘open up' the hole for the box. That means shovel, if you didn't know. The hole was about two feet by two feet and he wanted it to be about three feet by three feet and perfectly square. It took me about 30 minutes to shovel it out and I lost three pounds of sweat, my shirt and most of my strength in the process. When I had finished ‘opening' the hole, he then decided that it needed to be at least six inches deeper. I could already tell I didn't want to work for him for a living.

After that was done, I started laying in my culvert pipe, 12-inch black plastic stock, when I realized it wouldn't fit in the ditch without some trimming here and there. Me and my new-found friend the shovel were on the job. After another hour or so, the pipe went into the hole. Notice I never used the word ‘fit' in the sentence. I must admit to jumping up and down on a few stubborn sections to keep from shoveling more.

It had to be at least 80 and not a speck of shade in sight. I was already tired when he told me to fetch a piece of plywood and a water hose.

Since I don't own a cement canon, we used the volcano method. In case you don't know about that, it means dumping a couple bags of cement mix on a piece of plywood, making a hole in the middle, filling the hole with water and shoveling the sides into the hole. Once done, you turn it all over and start again until it's all mixed. It is grueling, back-breaking work.

I could really tell that I haven't been doing enough shoveling in my regular life to handle such an extensive one-day job. Even so, I continued onward, hoping that there was light at the end of the culvert as I shoveled it into the form inside the hole.

As we were working, he explained that we didn't have the right equipment and such, but it didn't really matter. He told me he could build a passable collection box for less than $100, all told. However, he didn't tell me that I would be furnishing a million dollars worth of labor. Things like that always get left out in the original quote. "How much are you paying me again?" I asked him, joking. "It's not what I am paying you that matters," he said, "it's how much you are saving."

He informed me that the state often pays $1,000 or more for such a job. Obviously, the work is on a larger scale. Even so, I was still pleased as punch, getting it for under $300.

I finally remembered to put my shirt back on around four hours later, my back already shading pink.

He laid the blocks on the sides and finished up with mortar mix, leaving me to seek out a new grate and be satisfied.

That was some of the hardest work I've done in quite a while. If you don't appreciate your job, shovel, shovel and shovel some more all day sometime. It will really give you a new perspective.

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