One further incident sticks in my mind from the Ridgefield days... this was the chimney we built on this place. One day down at the office, Chuck passed the word that after work, he and I were to put on our overalls and bring the truck around back. As soon as it was dark, we were to drive Pop to New York City - there was something down there he wanted "to pick up".      

     We were ready at the appointed hour and off we went. George directed us by various routes down to Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx. It had come to his far-ranging attention at that time that they were taking up Bruckner, preparatory to widening and paving it anew. What was coming "up" was thousands and thousands of Belgian Block with which the thoroughfare had been paved so long ago. Belgian Block, for those who don't know, are hard quarry stones - usually granite or similar rocks - which have further been hand-trimmed to fairly uniform size and fit. They often have a slightly crowned face on one side to shed water when they are laid horizontal and to enhance their appearance in any event. They are about the size and shape, with this crown, of a medium size loaf of bread.

     They are the creme de l'creme among building stones, and command a good price per each, due in part I suppose, to their individual hand-trimming...

     In any event, the Borough of the Bronx was taking them up all along Bruckner, and by this stage they had large stacked piles of them every few blocks down the street. We arrived on one quite deserted stretch that night - no one was around - in fact it was getting late, and all that you could really see was the piles of stones stretching away down the block - each with a red warning lantern aglow on top of it.

     Instructions seemed superfluous. We parked silently, and silently went to loading. We loaded a whole truck of those Belgian Block - thousands of them - and whether the Bronx was less unruly in those days or what - no patrol car or citizen ever showed up to express curiosity. When the springs were flat and the wheels egg-shaped, the Boss said ''Nuff!" and we shifted into low and crept away. (We did leave behind the red lanterns. After all, we didn't want others to step into any holes along Life's byways...).

     Gingerly, and way overloaded, we made our way all the way back up to Ridgefield and dumped our purloined stones in the yard. In the days and weeks following, these stones were laid up by George and us helpers, course by course, into the huge reconstructed chimney of the old farmhouse. The great enhancement of these stones and the reason he had risked all (we had risked all!), was the fact that they had been ground and rounded off by first, years of iron-tired horse carts, then later by rubber-tired vehicles which smoothed and polished them like a jeweler's lap. On rainy days, that chimney-facing at Ridgefield once shown like a waxed piece of fine furniture. I hope it still does.