The Wilkes Burro winter came fast the jobs came slow and we lost our room in the Holiday Inn. When we returned after going home for the weekend, all the crews were in an all out war with the cops that were trying to evict us. On the north end the crews wearing motorcycle helmets, wielding chains, picks, and shovels. There was ground rods lined up on the wall to use as spears. On the south, the cops and the manager of the Holiday Inn stood in awe as the cherry bombs and m-80 popped around them. Finally after a couple of hour standoff our boss Joe Miscavage talked us out of it and surrender was made, with a promise to find us a place to stay. We moved to a huge trailer park in Pittston now left vacant except for a few crews that decided to stick it out. The people that were homeless after the flood once lived in the trailers that spread out as far as you could see. It was Gostie, Tom William, and Machine Gun Mike’s crew, and of course our crew, witch grew in numbers Roy, Sam, Barry, Stanley and I. We were surviving on chicken soup and noodles while we waited for a job to come in. Bob Burloo assured us the Godfather had a couple had a couple of irons in the fire; it would be any day now. We were the last crew to leave when a knock came at the door.  I opened it to find a dude standing there wearing two six shooters in holsters (cowboy style.) He wanted to know when we were going to pay rent that now added up to about a grand. If we didn’t pay we would have leave. I went to the office to call Bob, because we thought they were taking care of the rent. “No weir not paying the rent. How much is it?” Bob inquired. “I think about a thousand dollars.” I replied. “Ok well come and get it we need you for a job that came in today.” When I returned to the trailer Sam, Roy, and Barry had Sam’s sixty four Chevy loaded with all our belongings. I sat in a small space in the back seat and Barry handed me the TV to hold in my lap and as we drove off I turned to see the dude writing our license plate down. “Yo Sam, he just took your license down!” “It ain’t my plate it’s my Uncle Buzzes from the Plymouth we toasted the motor in last month.” He said laughing. “Well ok then” I said.                                                                            When we arrived back at the office still located in the Holiday Inn, Bob was waiting and still drinking his J&B and puffing on a Chesterfield.  “Hey Bob, good to see you.” “Yea good to see you to boys what can I do you for” He coughed out he words. “About a grand I suppose.” Said Sam. “A what?  A thousand dollars, we don’t have it, we thought you were talking about a hundred or two. I hope you got your stuff out before you left. Rent is the hardest things to prove, just never go back, and don’t worry about it.” He said. “But were can we stay” “Right here. You can watch the phone.” He said. “Tomorrow you can get a room at the Grand Hotel.”                                                                              The Grand was a rough old place located downtown. We booked two rooms there for a week. My receipt read Healy and Bailer, our name were Helig and Degler. They were first class I thought, when he rang the bell for the porter. We looked to our left and a very old man approached dragging his leg and had a crooked neck. We called him Egore, He picked up our stuff and haled it to the elevator. Egor said; “Get in boys the fifth floors a long up by the stairs.” He pulled the handle on the elevator and it made a couple of jerks and stopped. “Well looks like we take the steps anyway.” We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw our rooms. Green sinks and brass beds that also turned funny colors from age. Barry and Sam drove home that night, Roy and I stayed since we already for the rooms. We amused ourselves by throwing toilet paper rolls out the window like streamers. In the middle of the night we were awakened by crying and moaning. When we came out of our rooms there was a guy laying with beer and pizza spilled all over the steps. What a nightmare.                                                                                                                      Bob had two jobs available, creek cleaning and demolition of a house down town. We put in a couple of days at the demo job, getting out of there just in time. Bad luck hit when a brick wall fell and buried a guy under a couple tons of rubble. A day later a dump truck was backed onto the first floor, and soon found its way into the basement. The dump truck made the front page of the newspaper. Creek cleaning involved removing trees and debris with chainsaws, axes, and clippers. There we met some guys from Detroit, named Acid a Viking looking dude, Rocco Rossi a big Italian dude, and Shaky Joe well he was just shaky. They hired a guy to crawl into a hole in the middle of the bridge were the creek ran under. This was packed by the flood with anything you could think of. His job was to tunnel his way through it. At the end of the day they lowered a rope in to pull him out. The next day, looking as dirty as the day before they lowered him in.                                                                                                                                                       The day before Christmas we got paid, and decided to call it quits. Goodbye to Wilkes Barrow. It was snowing like hell that day, and it looked like winter had arrived. We stopped at a state store and bought ourselves a bottle of 151 Rum and a case of beer for the ride home. We didn’t forget Bob Berloo, we got him a bottle of, and you guessed it J&B and a fresh carton of Chesterfield. We said our goodbyes and left Bob with a sentimental tear in his eyes.                                                                                                                     On the way home we mixed Rum with our beer, and it didn’t take long to get wasted. It was snowing hard and driving was hazardous. Then we saw a black guy pushing his car south on rt. 81, so we stopped to help. He said he ran out of gas, so we offered to pull him to the next exit that had a gas station. We hooked him up and we were off. We soon totally forgot about him behind us. We laughing and having a good time when knap got sick. Sam said; “If you’re going to puke do it out the window.”  So he did, and then we remembered. I looked back to see a ball of puke that looked like a swarm of bees blasting into this guy’s windshield. He flashed his lights and we pulled over. I went back; “Hey man, sorry my friend got sick from drinking to much rum and beer.” “Is that what hit me?” “Yea man it won’t be long now, I think the station at the next exit is open.” We finally got him to a gas station and I know he was relived. I know Roy was too. We pushed him to the pumps and the poor guy didn’t have any money so we chipped in and filled his tank. That’s all I remember, and all I know is I’m here to talk about it.