The year was 1979, and this was part of the plans that Paul made to make a brick patio under our carport. This part of the plan was to calculate the number of bricks he needed, which was 1800.
A year or so previously, he had made a brick floor out of used sidewalk bricks for the shed in the backyard, and liked how it turned out.
The idea for putting bricks under the carport probably stemmed from the fact that I didn't really like the look of the blacktop driveway that went under the carport.
He decided to put sidewalk bricks on top of the blacktop, and did a lot of research and planning before attempting this.
He bought the bricks from Gagliarducci Construction, a paving contractor, at 227 Mill St. in Springfield. They were old sidewalk bricks from downtown Springfield, 8 cents a brick if you picked them up yourself, which he did because he wanted to hand pick them. This was a real bargain. Used building bricks were only 5 cents a piece, but new or used sidewalk bricks were at least 25 cents a piece everywhere else.
Paul cut holes in the blacktop along three sides for the anchors that would hold the 4 x 6 fir beams that would be the border. Then he had Kristen and Mark scoop out (with their little hands) the amount of dirt equivalent to 45 lbs of concrete (half a bag).
The focus of these pictures was the kids working on the brick carport project, but I love so many other things about these old pictures. You can see our cat Callie on the back steps, the trash cans with "Radtke" that Paul put on almost everything, his grandfather's old wheelbarrow, and my little fenced in flower garden. In the back yard you can see the shed with just the wheel of what was Kristen's bike, and Mark's bike with the training wheels on. Kristen was 7 at the time and Mark was 5.
I have always loved how our brick carport turned out. It is still perfect even after almost 39 years. We use it as a patio in the summer, but we can still park under it in the winter.
Job well done, Paul!
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