The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-06-21
MEN, WONTEN
 AND THINGS

The construction of the new annex to The Age-Herald building has afforded me entertainment from day to day for several months as my desk is in the rear of the news rooms adjoining it.
 l have watched the work from the day the workmen began to remove the garage which sat on the rear of the lot until now. when the building is nearing com pletion. I have seen the workmen shivering with cold and sweltering in the heat.
 Take the matter of excavation. It seems futile thing to see a few men start to digging. with spades when you know that great basement for presses is to be excavated, and yet after awhile the hole gets bigger and bigger, and one sees that the foundations will be laid broad and deep in order to carry the weight of the great structure which is to rest upon them.
 It seems impossible that the persistence and determination of men can remove as much dirt as was taken out of the basement with the use only of pick ana shovel to be carted away; but in watch | ing them delving into the earth, I soon discovered that there was great art in the way the job was handled in order to always have a way for the wagons to drive out. I can appreciate the saying of an old friend of mine, a railroad con- 1 tractor, who said, "The moving of dirt is the prettiest business in the world. But long before the basement was conn plete team after team was dumping be- heath my window loads of pebbles, the kind I used to find in the branch back of my home in Eufaula when we boys after school chose sides and went down for rock battle. Very few were ever hit, for we were "artful dodgers but as I look back upon the risk 1 feel myself shudder. I have always been sorry for the Birmingham boys because they have only the rough stones for throwing. and do not know the feel of smooth, thin. round, clear water pebble.
 After they had piled up a small noun tain of them, the sand by wagon loads part of sea beach had been scat tered at my feet. I do not know why, but sand is never falling source of pleasure for children, and I am sorry for the kiddies without sand pile in which to play. It almost makes me a ;nfr oF or, the Chattahoochie or along the banks of the Crewalla creek. But for boy to get real joy out of sprawling on sand bars he must be barefoot, or. better still, naked, and just out of the swimming hole, covering his body over with the fine powdery particles.
 ness for the laying of the cement, and I had a chance to watch the operations of the cement workers. I could write story about the revolution the use of ce- ment has wrought in building, for it has made possible many things in the con- struction line which awhile back were not attempted because of the prohibitive cost or the difficulties which had to be overcome in the use of material badly fitted for certain types of structures.
 
 We all know the scepticism which greeted the announcements that cement was to be used in the erection of large was reason for fearing that they would prove untrustworthy unless strengthened by the use of steel, and after some mishaps to a few noteworthy attempts. reinforced concrete became the order of the day among the builders. The archi- tects and builders have learned many things in the past twenty years in the use of cement.
 I used to stand at my window and watch with interest the way in which the workers took the steel rods< and shaped them for use in the building. They laid out perfect networks of them before the pouring of the cement began. I used to think that cement construction meant the entire elimination of lumber. but from observation learned that 1t took a whole lot of it for forms. I thought was putting one over when I asked a friend of mine in the lumber business if he had secured a contract for any material to be used in the Rainbow via duct. But what was my surprise when he answered that his lumber bill ran up into the hundreds of thousands of feet.
 I have been about cement workers great deal for l used to watch them at work in the Mountain Terrace district putting down curb, gutters and side walks, and then when I built my home was on the job every day, and when it beat the record for pergolas, stone walls and walks. For weeks I worked with man in putting down concaved cement walks in my gardens, and in building hot bed and cold frame. I got on to the way the cement, sand and stone were of fun to work with such materials.
 
 Then the brick began to roll in. If you have never watched the manufacture of brick, you have missed something W orth seeing. I am not now talking about an up-to-the-minute plant, but just the old fashioned kind where scores of sweat in getting out the clay or handling the bricks as they came out in the forms to be carried to the yards to be put