JUNGLE BOY MOVES 320 TONS (#46):
My house was on the NE corner of Pass-a-grille (PAG) Way and 30th Avenue. You can see from the photo of the house under construction that there was no difference between my land and the sand alley that 30th Avenue became when it ran from PAG Way to the seawall.
The first thing I did when the house was finished was to buy railroad ties and make a curb in line with the one across the street. This left a 12.5 foot city easement between the railroad tie curb line and my 75’ lot and a half. I didn’t want the city to ever build a sidewalk along the alley to the seawall, so a began to landscape the city easement like crazy.
At the bottom of the photo of the finished house you can see a railroad tie and the beginning of a Viburnum hedge. I planted 75 three gallon container of Viburnum next to the sidewalk on PAG Way and along the alley (in the city’s right of way). That was a lot of work! Several years later the yard was flooded during the “No Name” storm and killed all of the Viburnum, plus two orange and two grapefruit trees. The next spring I planted 75 Oleanders and ten Carrotwood trees, all of which where salt tolerant. I grew my own Washingtonia palms and planted them in the right of way and along the seawall at the end of the alley (to discourage fishermen).
I also began collecting Augusta road bricks and old hexagon sidewalk blocks, you can see stacks of them behind the Viburnum hedge in the photo of the finished house. We had a BMW 320 and a Blue Toyota pickup truck we nick-named “Willie”. I-275 was being built through south St. Pete, just a 10 minute drive from our house and all kinds of good stuff was being scooped up to be hauled away. Have pickup truck, will scavenge!
First, think about this. Before a road brick or sidewalk block was set in its final resting place in my yard, it was handled at least 5 times: 1. Pick up brick and put in wheelbarrow; 2. Take wheelbarrow to pickup and put brick in truck; 3. Unload and stack brick; 4. When ready to use brick, put it back in wheelbarrow; 5. Put brick in its final resting place. So now you have handled an 8 pound brick for 5 times and moved 40 pounds. There was even more handling if the brick at a big chuck of asphalt that had to be removed with a hammer and chisel. A sidewalk block weighed 25 pounds, so by the time it was set in place I had moved 125 pounds.
I hated cutting the grass as a kid, so I envisioned big patios and lots of side walks around big planted areas. By the time I was finished I had 12,000 Augusta road bricks in place: 12,000 x 8 pounds x moved 5 times = 480,000 pounds or 240 TONS! I also had 1,000 hexagon sidewalk blocks: 1,000 x 25 pounds x moved 5 times = 125,000 pounds or 62.5 TONS!
I also had truck loads of granite curb, rocks, tie pole pieces, and nursery plants, easily bringing the total I moved by hand to over 320 TONS. “You load 16 tons of #9 coal” for 20 days, “and what do you get?” 320 TONS!
How does one acquire all of these treasures you might ask? Not without incident. I’ll share my favorite 3 stories, two involving the police. When I was scavenging at the I-275 dump site I always took the hexagon sidewalk blocks first, because unbroken ones were hard to find. One Saturday morning I found a spot where dump trucks had been backing over an actual hexagon block sidewalk to dump their loads. There were 6 or 7 sidewalk blocks that weren’t yet broken and I decided to get those first.
Before I was finished a Policeman walked up, “Hey! What are you doing?” I explained that I was scavenging to make a patio for a house I had built in PAG. The house at gone over budget and I was broke. This was the only way I could afford a patio. I also explained, “See all the broken sidewalk blocks? The next time a truck dumps a load, they’ll all be broken.” The Policeman gave me a curious grin and said, “OK. No problem, go ahead. We got a call that someone was stealing a sidewalk, and I had to check it out.”
I got the most sidewalk blocks when the City of St. Pete Beach was replacing the wide sidewalk on the bay side that ran from the point north about 16 blocks. They were going to use pressed concrete, which I hate, instead of repairing the original hexagon block side walk. There was a notice that residents could buy the hexagon blocks for $1 each. I went to City Hall, bought 20 and got a receipt. No one ever asked to see my receipt, so I just kept using it. By the time the city had finished the project, I still had my receipt and 500 original hexagon sidewalk blocks!
I got about 4,000 Augusta bricks when they were widening Gulfport Blvd. in front of my parents house. When construction started I noticed that there were Augusta bricks under the asphalt. I asked the guy operating the frontend loader what they were going yo do with the bricks. He said they were just going to the dump, but residents could have all they wanted. I told him that my parents lived right across the street and I wanted to make a patio for my house at the beach. He said, “Great. No problem. When I finish for the day I’ll scrape off the asphalt and leave the bricks for you.”
I started after work the next day and was on my third load of bricks. I could get about 275 bricks at a time without breaking down poor Willie. A Gulfport Police Office pulled up in a squad car and asked what I was doing. I told him, all the while loading more bricks. A few minute late a Sergeant pulled up in s squad car. I explained again and kept loading bricks. Then a Lieutenant pulled up in an unmarked car. He got pissed that I kept loading bricks, while I explained. “Stop with the bricks! We can arrest you for unauthorized entry to a construction site!” It took him about 15 to reach a superintendent with the construction company and verify that I could have the bricks.
Over the years my landscape plan matured, with an Oleander hedge around the property, then on the inside Pittosporum, Carrotwood trees, and lots of palms. One day I was trimming the hedge when a lady walked by with a little boy in a stroller. The boy was crying and the lady told me, “He’s afraid you are going to cut down the jungle!”
South of me were 5 three story houses where there had once been a house on 2 lots and my grandparents house on three lots. An attorney who owned one of the houses was living with an attractive younger yoga instructor. One Sunday I was at the PAG Community Church. They were sitting behind me and she had dozed off. When everyone got up to leave, she woke with a startled look at me and said, “Oh, it’s the jungle boy!”
