2.22.06 De Ridder Part 1

Here is a picture of the first day's work. As you can see the house is being built up on pillars. The first day was spent preparing the pillars for the floor. The last part of the day was spent actually putting the floor on the pillars.

The Pastor of the church, the youth pastor of the church, and some of the youth were helping with the construction this first day. I learned a lot about house construction during this trip. Larry the team leader was a good patient teacher.

During the last step of the construction of the floor, a double layer of half inch plywood covered the floor joist. The plywood was laid down and stapled into the floor joist. One of the sheets of plywood was laying on the joists ready to be stapled down when I stepped on the sheet. The sheet moved slightly. It was enough to slide off the support joist and flipped up which caused my left leg to plunge down into the three foot space under the floor. This in turn lunged me horizonally forward toward the exposed center floor beam.
Now the good Lord watched while I was being formed in my mother's womb and looked down through time and thought to himself, "this boy is going to fall off things, run into things, jump off things, fly through the air at things, and just generally try to damage himself so I better give him extra bone density, a hard head, and instints on how to fall and roll.

So there I am flying horizonallly through the air toward the center beam with all eyes on my antics. Luckily my old football instincts kicked in and I threw up a fore arm to protect the body from blockers. Just as I got the forearm in position, bam, I hit the center beam and my arm slamed into my chest. Being used to such things I stood up shook my self off and started back right where I left off. Everyone was kind of thinking that I should have broken or damaged somthing. The pastor of the church asked several times if I was OK. My reply was, "Oh yes I'm fine this happens all the time. The good Lord made me pretty durable and assigned me a legion of angels to watch over my dumb stunts in life." He wasn't quite convinced and later in the day made me lift up my shirt to check for bruises. None there but a couple days later, still checking, the Pastor discovered some slight brusing on the forearm.



This is a picture of the completed floor with the Mother-in-law's trailer in the background. The land where the house was to be built had a trailer off to right of the this picture that housed a son's family. This was where Ms. Jenelle was staying while the house was being built. Ms. Jenelle's trailer was completely destroyed in huricane Rita.