A memoir by Steve Shoemaker:

We had four tools:  a mattock (pick)

a shovel, spade, an air hammer

hosed to a trailing compressor.

The nasty foreman used orange paint

to spray a shape just like a grave

on the busy downtown street.

We broke through asphalt, concrete,

then threw the chunks and clods above

our heads as we dug out the hole.

The leaking gas pipe was below,

(ominously about six feet).

Our tee shirts sweat in summer heat.

The hated foreman never came

down in the hole because he knew

someone would drop a heavy tool…

After mechanics fixed the leak,

we filled the empty grave.  Quite near

there always was a bar for beer.

The foreman would stay in his truck.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 8, 2013