I had a week to myself recently. For seven years I’ve looked at an old warped, wretched, brick sidewalk. I sat on the front porch pondering what I would do with my free week. The wobbly sidewalk stared back at me like a dog wanting me to play fetch. I stood up from the rocker and said to myself, “today’s the day.”
So I got the proper tools and begin excavating the bricks one-by-one. The sidewalk was not level, some bricks were placed sideways, just to take up space. My first concern was where to stack 450 bricks. I did a little measuring on the driveway and plotted out how many rows and stacks I would build.
The temperature was in the 90’s so I had to work smart. I’d pick bricks for an hour and take a break to refresh myself. About halfway through, a rush of despair began to overwhelm me like a storm cloud on a sunny day. The ground below the soil was not filled with roots as I had anticipated. It was just pitted and rock hard. The roots I had hoped would explain the bumps in the bricks were really just years of erosion.
I would need lots of dirt and machinery I didn’t have to level the space. It was at that point I decided to call in the cavalry. I wrote two text messages and one email to three people whom I had worked with before on outside jobs. It buoyed my spirits to think once I had the bricks removed a professional would replace the bricks in magnificent fashion.
I finished my removal process, began raking the hard ground and waited for the text messages or emails to come my way. They never came. But later that evening rain did come. I turned on the porch light to see how the dirt path would sustain the downpour. To my pleasant surprise it held up very well.
DAY 2
The next morning, truly at the crack of dawn, I removed the old timbers bordering the bricks and headed for Burney’s Hardware for new timbers and paver stone.
The timbers slid into place and I began to replace the bricks – ten to a row in a horizontal/vertical pair pattern. After six rows the distance between the timbers narrowed slightly. After eight rows it narrowed more dramatically. My steel trap mind alerted me to something being wrong. About that same time my 82 year old neighbor dropped by. He eyeballed the timbers and asked, “You got a tape measure?”
We quickly found out the timbers needed to be reset two inches over. The magic number became 37 inches between timbers. Once the trench was dug and the timbers moved the bricks had plenty of space to take their place on the remodeled sidewalk.
The first eight feet went in fine. Mainly because the ground was level. Then the challenges began anew. Four challenges specifically.
- The next eight feet began a steady incline up toward the driveway.
- The ground sloped away from the house. Two leveling challenges.
- The bricks were old and definitely not square or uniform in any way.
- Many of the bricks had been placed with concrete and it took a sledge hammer to reduce the uneven surface the old concrete created.
These four challenges slowed the process down dramatically.
But I was at the point of no return. If this was going to get done it was up to me to do it.
DAY 3
Once again I was up at sunrise. It would be 25 degrees warmer in three hours so I knew getting up early was the way to go. Brick after brick was laid on top of the paver sand. Because they were all different each brick earned a different amount of paver sand beneath it. I had to resign myself that the sidewalk would not be totally level. The old bricks and the slope of the land didn’t allow for that.
When the last brick was placed I looked over the path with satisfaction, but not glee. Several bricks had to be raised or lowered at on point or another. They were easy to remove, add paver sand and replace. That process will continue for weeks to come I’m sure.
Throughout the process and to this day I tell myself three things.
- It looks better than it did before I began
- I did something I didn’t think I could do
- I persevered despite my lack of skills, experience and talent
I share this lengthy parable for these four reasons.
- You’ll never accomplish anything if you don’t start.
- You often times surprise yourself at what you can accomplish.
- If you looking to rely on somewhere else to accomplish a goal you may be disappointed.
- If you persevere you’re very likely to get a positive result
Just remember to take it one brick at a time.
Until next time…