Let There Be Light

The day I not only worked like a mule but also like a gopher!

Not too long ago, I watched an old movie on TV called “The Great Escape.” It was during World War II where the POW’s dug a long tunnel in order to escape from the German POW camp. It made me recall a time when I also had to dig a tunnel for myself; not to get out but to get in. Let me explain: Being in the house moving and leveling business all my life, there were times when we came upon certain situations. Here is one example. The three brothers and I under the name of Kana Brothers, Inc. contracted a job to raise an old house and put a new foundation under it The problem was when we got to the job site we realized this fairly large house was practically sitting flat on the ground!

This was in the Cistern community about 10-15 miles west of La Grange. It was situated on a sandy hill in the middle of a mesquite pasture. Over the years, the wooden blocks or tree stumps it was resting on had rotted away, thus the reason it was so low to the ground. In raising a building we would position our railroad jacks about 10 feet apart all around the house under the load bearing sills. It was my job usually to crawl onto the middle of the house and install a bottle jack or hydraulic jack under a load bearing sill. This would keep the building from sagging while the outside jacks started to lift the whole building.

Here is where the problem started. Since I couldn’t just crawl under that house I had no choice but to start digging a tunnel about 20” in diameter. This tunnel had to be at least 30 feet long in order to reach to the center of the building. I had welded up a short two foot long shovel (or spade as we called it) It had an indestructible pipe handle and I could maneuver this tool easier in tight quarters. As I tunneled under that house I hardly could move my arms and elbows, thus making it hard to move the dirt once I loosened it with that short shovel. I only had six inches of space to push this loose dirt between the 2”x6” joists.

It got very dark as I moved under that house. I tried to be on the look-out for scorpions and especially those black widow spiders that were often present hanging under the floor boards that were nailed to 2x6” floor joists. As I worked deeper into that tunnel it got pitch black and I could only work by feeling my way around. I didn’t like that at all so I backed out of the tunnel and asked for a flash light After searching the trucks for one, we found out there was no flashlight to be had. Well, whenever I came upon a problem, I always came up with a “plan B.”

Since it was a hot July day and the sun was shining brightly, I figured I may as well make my min light. I proceeded to unbolt two of the large mirrors from our tool truck and placing one against the picket fence, I directed that mirrored ray of sunshine towards my tunnel. Then as I kept digging, I had plenty of sunlight to see what I was doing. Once I made a 45 degree turn, I merely placed the other minor into the tunnel and it directed the ray my way again! The only problem was all of this digging took time and as the sun moved that day I had to yell to my brothers to also move that mirror and keep it shining into that tunnel. This took the better part of the day so after we installed all of our outer jacks and I finished digging and installed the hydraulic jack it was time to go home for the evening. We would proceed to lift that house the next morning.

Overnight we got a shower of rain and when we came to the job site, we found that the drain pipe from the roof gutter drained right into the area where my tunnel was. There was about three inches of water in my tunnel. I had no choice but to strip down to my pants and dive in and work that hydraulic jack! Lucky for me it was already installed and all I had to do was “swim” up to it and pump the handle up and down.

Needless to say, I looked quite a mess when I finally emerged from under there. The guy we were doing the job for saw me come out. He said no wonder there weren’t too many of us listed in the phone book. By looking at the work it took, he understood why.