Demolition: The Way Of Life

By Author: Stitch Rojas
Total Articles: 165
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Let's be honest, demolishing things is kind of awesome. The first time you see a fifty plus story building go down in a controlled demolition you are awestruck. You can't even help it, your jaw drops and you become amazed at the power we as humans have. It is amazing to think how, as a civilization we have accomplished amazing feats of engineering, constructing buildings taller and bigger than ever before, and then in an instant we can bring them down to nothing but pure rubble.

Even as children we loved the feeling of knocking something down. I remember when I was a kid and my brother would be in the process of building something. He would take great time to build his project, usually stacking anything he could, just to see how tall he could make it. And I would watch with nervous and excited anticipation waiting to knock it all down. Looking back now it seems kind of mean, but after the second time he knew what I was up to and we made a game of it. I would give him a certain amount of time to build something before I got to knock it down. We still kind of play the game today but with each others egos.

As we ...
... get older the felling of knocking stuff down and destruction does not go away for some. And the thing's that get knocked down get equally bigger as we get older and wiser. The men who run demolition companies get to have this fun all day everyday. In fact they get paid to do this work, and that is what it is in the end, hard work. The clean up in the end can never be to fun but everything that happens before I'm sure is a blast.

In a way demolition and construction can be a metaphor for life. When something gets destroyed it can be loud and scary and happens pretty quick, and once it starts is seldom irreversible. Then when the dust settles you realize what was once there is now gone forever and what ever takes its place can never truly be the same. Then comes the rebuilding. A fresh and clean start can commence. With this come the promise of something new and better, and oftentimes, when the process is complete it is. It certainly is different and that's a good thing. That's change, and that is the way of life. Also, Sometimes it's just fun to watch stuff blow up.

I think the demolition service men and women of this country should be commended for the work they do. They personify the adage of "out with the old and in with the new." Demolition contractors have the skills and tools needed for the changes in our physical civilization to begin. And while they usually don't do the rebuilding, they get to do the fun part (taking down) and the hard part (cleaning up) and for this, we thank you.

Adam Diego Diaz is the author of this article about demolition contractors and is an employee at a San Francisco hauling agency.