Anyway, after I did the house to our left, I kind of got carried away and thought I'd get rid of the house on the other side too. It wasn't burnt to the ground, but it was done for also. I was doing them a favor, right? Plus, if they ever show up, they can have it back. It's a large garden now.
So, I cleaned it all up, laid down some topsoil that I also ahh... borrowed. Then, I planted grass and some trees. After I finished all that, I went back to the mountains to get my family and tried to start my life.
A year later, a man showed up out of the blue and asked to talk to me. He told me he was from the Richmond City Council, which I didn't know existed anymore, and asked if I would attend a meeting. Well, at first, I thought someone had complained about me tearing down a few houses, but that seemed somewhat crazy.
But you only tore down two?
Well,... not quite. At first, I only tore down two, the ones right next to my house. But after we'd been back a few months, my wife told me we needed more land for the farm animals and that no one is coming back to live in the other houses near us. I argued that I couldn't just tear down more houses, but a few months later, a roof collapsed in a nearby house. It was enough for me. So I tore down three more houses. (Coughs.) Then another twelve.
Look, you know how it was back then. Most people who lived in Williamsburg died or didn't survive the war. We lived in the suburbs, a nice neighborhood, but it was like a ghost town, and those homes were becoming dangerous. Yeah, I tore them down because we had to feed ourselves, and no, I don't feel bad about it. I'd taken in three of my nephews and a little girl whose father died. He was a buddy of mine, and she became part of my family. Food was scarce back then, so I did what I could to survive, and screw anyone who says different.
He opens the drawer to his metal desk, pulls out a bottle and two glasses. He fills them, passes me one, and takes a drink from the other.
Sorry about that, bud, but those were tough times, you know? We didn't think we would make it at all. Food was scarce. Everything close had been scavenged already and I had a lot of mouths to feed. We weren't farmers. We were trying to grow things we needed to survive and have places for animals to grow as well. On top of that, you still had more soldiers getting released who we tried to help when we could. A meal here or there, a place to sleep, a handshake telling them it's going to be okay.
It's one thing to know everyone you know is dead or missing when you 're in an army surrounded by thousands of your brothers and there's an enemy that needs dealing with. But when the army disbanded, and you're alone again, realizing everything you knew is gone, well... it' s not easy. I know more than a few guys who just ended it. (Takes a drink.)
So, back to the city council. I go to their meeting, a little nervous, but willing to let them have it. Instead, they asked me if I could tear down a few blocks in Richmond as I had done in my neighborhood. I was shocked. I started laughing; I couldn't help it. I was wired up that morning, and them asking that was the last thing I expected. In hindsight, it seems stupid that they would care about the torn-down houses. They explained more of their idea, and I told them I could do it, but I couldn't leave my family again. I spent four years fighting, seeing my wife and kids when I could, and wasn't going to leave them again.
They told me it was in downtown Richmond, but that might as well have been on the other side of the moon for me. Gas still wasn't flowing yet, at least to commercial markets, and getting there by horse would take hours, but they offered me a motorcycle and all the gas I needed, along with my pick of supplies and real silver as payment.
I talked with my wife and she agreed. I think she just wanted the silver, as it was becoming the new currency. So, I tore down Richmond. (Smiles.) At first, we did only a few blocks, which was what they wanted. The blocks were old government housing, ugly even in their heyday. We did it rough and tough, no OSHA weenies on our butts. We blew them up, cut them down, and dug them up.
Turns out, as long as you don't care about the fallout and government regulations, you can gut a city block in a week. Cleaning it up took a lot longer, but I had hundreds of people, all veterans, working for me by that point, and they made good silver doing it. They deserved that and so much more.
We had groups collecting steel, others copper, and others who collected the bricks. We even had some collecting glass, taking whole panes out of windows. Everything was being recycled and reused, nothing going to waste. That stuff wasn't my concern though. We finally got the blocks cleaned, and the city seeded it and put in fruit trees, making it a park that produced food, right in the middle of Richmond. Good idea, really.
The next week, we started our next project across the city, this time twenty-five blocks that were scheduled to become an even larger park and garden. That took
