Can You Dig It, I Did.
As I grew older, the need for more room grew as well. My dad and mom, Carl and Sybil Miner Beck bought a small house along Route 711, between Indian Head and Normalville, Pennsylvania. The basement was large enough for a coal bin, large coal furnace, and a water heater. Mom found room for a wringer washer as well. The running water for the house came from a spring about 200 yards away. The rest was a crawl space.
As my parents needed more room, my dad chiseled an opening in the cinder block wall. Then I helped my dad dig the heavy clay soil. He used an old, iron wheeled wheelbarrow to haul the dirt out of the cellar. When he got closer to the outside wall he threw the dirt onto the wooden bed of an old truck.
It seemed that digging filled much of my youth. In my preadolescent years my hands were filled with a pick, mattock, and a spade. Our house didn’t have an inside bathroom. We had an outhouse instead. At the prodding of my mom Dad decided to build an indoor bathroom, I helped to dig the pit for the septic tank and the drainage lines.
My brother Ken and I had to help dig a new water line from the springhouse to our home. The old line had corroded. Water pressure had been decreasing for almost a year. Digging the line was a daily chore. Dad would assign a certain amount to be dug and Dad expected it to be done. One day he came home and was upset to see we hadn’t reached our quota. After chewing us out he went to finish what we hadn’t done. What he found was a huge flat rock almost 18 inches thick and the size of a dining room table top. It extended two feet beyond both side of the sides of the ditch. He tried to break it with a sledge hammer. When he couldn’t break it, his solution was to dig under it pushing the plastic pipe beneath it.
A small stream flowed behind our house. Dad would have us remove the silt that would fill it causing it to flood. We‘d spread it to one side lessening the flood of the winter thaw. Dad loved his lawn mowed and neat.
In the winter summer tools were put away and the heavy scoop shovel came out. Its main purpose was to throw coal into the furnace and shovel out the ashes. But when the snow accumulated, it was used to remove snow from walks and the driveway. Shoveling snow wasn’t as bad at home as where I live now. My childhood home was partially sheltered in a valley and drifts were rare.