An Odd Gift: The Foster Brick

The Foster Brick:  Quite literally a
building block in Boise's history.

There’s an old home situated along my mail route that just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.  It is smaller in stature compared to the other homes around it, and looks as though a room or two was added on as the family grew.  (Indeed, this seems to actually be the case!)  Apparently this house was one of the first few buildings in the neighborhood.

An old man by the last name of Foster lives there.  When I first got this route (about 15 years ago), Mr. Foster was probably in his 70’s.  Everyday that I’d come by he’d either be outside in his coveralls working on an old truck of his, working in the yard or tending to the house.  Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t off doing maintenance work somewhere else.

His wife died about seven years ago and it seems that age started catching up with him after that dramatic change in his life.  I rarely see him now; his sleep schedule is mixed up and, on the rare occasion that he is outside when I come by, he looks like he’s going to lose his balance and crumble into a heap on the sidewalk.  But last summer both he and his daughter were outside when I came by.

“Rich!  Dad has a gift for you!” she said as I got out of the mail vehicle, walking toward the two of them to hand over their mail.  “He spent all morning out here looking for the best one, and he wants you to have it!”  I tried to keep a happy smile and hide my confusion.  What in the world was I about to have unloaded on me that came from around this old house?  And then he reached into the plastic shopping bag and pulled out… a brick. 

He was beaming like he was presenting me with a gold nugget the size of my fist.  A brick???  (Mental note to self:  keep smiling, act happy; think of something intelligent to say.)  “There must be a story behind this brick?” I asked. 

“Yes,” the daughter replied.  “It’s a Foster brick.”  (That was helpful.)  But then between the two of them the story unfolded.

Apparently around the beginning of the twentieth century his grandfather found a clay deposit in the area that was this neighborhood.  The clay was perfect for brick making.  And so began the enterprise that would become Foster and Son – a major supplier of bricks for the Boise area, and most likely all of southern Idaho.  The business would grow over the years; brick manufacturing would evolve from hand molds to machine made brick.

The brick pictured here was one of the original Foster bricks made by hand; this brick was created in (or very close to) 1904.  To buy this brick in that day a customer would have to part with three cents.  I found a cost of living calculator on the Internet (that only went back to the year 1913); three cents then is equal to seventy-nine cents now.  You can find comparable bricks at stores such as Lowe’s for just over fifty cents, but the quality seems to be much lower.

The Foster bricks were used in construction in turn-of-the-century Boise, and many of the homes and commercial buildings of the day were built with Foster bricks.  Some of these [now historic] buildings are still standing today.

The business flourished until the depression hit the United States, and then declined until the assets were sold to take care of mounting debts.  All that remains today are a few bricks in Mr. Foster’s yard and the one brick with a proud spot on one of my curio shelves.  The neighborhood around Mr. Foster’s home that I’ve been delivering mail in for all these years is known as Foster Heights.  I now understand why.

In a section of the September 19, 1916 edition of The Brick and Clay Record called “In The Wake of the News”, small personal snippets and events “of a Host of Interesting Happenings in the Varied Fields of Clayworking” were printed.  States were listed alphabetically, and under Idahowas the following entry:

“With a daily capacity of 30,000 brick and operated by a force of twenty-six men, the Foster and Son’s brick manufacturing plant at Boise, Idaho, is now one of the largest in the state, altho only a few months old.  On the same site thirty years ago the elder member of the firm, Frank Foster, Sr., started the manufacture of hand-mold brick, raking the clay from the surface of the land.  This he abandoned in 1911.  Long before this time, however, in sinking a well, Mr. Foster noticed a heavy blue substance suspended in the water flushed to the surface, revealing the presence of blue clay underneath.  In investigating his theory of the hidden deposit, founded years before at the time the well was drilled, a shaft was sunk this spring that proved the presence of the clay, which was found in a vein twelve feet in thickness and lying twenty-eight feet below the surface.  Immediately the plant was rebuilt, modern machinery installed and the manufacture of brick undertaken on a large scale.  A ready demand exists for the product of Foster and Son and a prosperous business has already been built up by the firm.”

I’ve received many little trinkets over the years from customers who have a special place in my heart, but who would have ever guessed that a brick would become my favorite?

Please Try Fact-Checking Before Hitting “Forward”!

Most times this is the only key you'll ever need.

Does anybody believe in telling the truth anymore?  Or, should I say, writing the truth?  Seriously… every time I download e-mail I’m assaulted with an article that some well-meaning person has forwarded along to enlighten me with.  I’m to the point where I usually hit “delete” after reading the subject line – because you know that the rest is going to contain some form of spin, contamination or alteration of the truth.

Case in point:  an article I received a couple of weeks ago.  “An Interesting Take on Trump” by William J. Bennett.  Does the name sound familiar?  Of course it does.  He was the former Secretary of Education and is now the host of “Bill Bennett’s Morning in America” radio show.  And his name was blatantly tacked onto the op-ed piece to give it credibility.  Let’s be honest; if I were to write this article and e-mail it around, it would probably die instantly.  But if a big name wrote the same piece of pap, then everyone would immediately accept it as true, or at least worthy of consideration.

So I looked this article over.  Some of the points sounded credible.  This was an op-ed piece, so rather than being based solely upon truth it is based on someone’s opinion.  It could be some conspiracy theorist sitting in his basement by the computer, or it could be someone with keen insight into the political world.  It was probably written by the former, and tagged with a recognizable name (like the latter).  And that’s when the article, no matter how good it might have been on its own merit, became a lie.

You’ve seen countless examples of this yourself over the Internet years.  Robin Williams used to get falsely attributed to many articles, some funny and some not.  So did George Carlin.  See a trend?  People who made us laugh obviously are worth listening to no matter what the subject.  Right?  Not when they didn’t say it!  Allowing some clown to filter his opinion around the world simply by tagging a celebrity’s name to the piece isn’t acceptable!

It’s not just opinion pieces.  There are scams, and possible examples of practical jokers pulling one over on the world.  Remember e-mails that touted how AOL, Microsoft, Disney (and others) were testing a beta program and would pay you money over the next two weeks if you forwarded the e-mail?  Total bull.  Made up… no truth whatsoever.  And yet inboxes were flooded with this crap.

“But what if it’s true and I don’t forward it?  I’ll be missing out on a great deal!”  Yeah, yeah, yeah… and what if you’re standing in your back yard at night doing a little stargazing and an alien craft comes by and abducts you for a little anal probing?  Both have equal chances of happening.

So what are you going to do?  If you’re not sure about an e-mail you receive, either delete it or go to a fact checking website and see if it’s real.  If it is, cut and paste the web link from the verification page and then send it on.  If it’s false, you might want to point it out to the sender by sending them the link to the page that debunks the story.  You might also want to suggest that they fact check these things before passing them along. 

Yes, this pisses some people off.  There are those who believe that you’re being overly critical of them whenever you point out that something they’ve forwarded is false.  Too bad, you big babies.  When you forward something that is clearly a lie, or a piece that has been tagged with a well-known name to give it more credibility, you have become a liar yourself.  And I, for one, am tired of it.  Take the time to fact check your garbage before you hit the “forward” button!

What’s worse than people who, in their ignorance, forward pieces on (believing they’re performing a public service)?  People who know a piece is a lie, but forward it on anyway.

A classic example:  “In God We Trust” has been removed from the new dollar coin.    E-mails circulated telling people that “God was being forced out of America” by the omission of the phrase on the new coins.  Don’t accept these coins!   Boycott!  And so on.  I received one of these e-mails, and responded to the sender that this was not true.  The truth was that the phrase no longer appeared on the obverse or reverse of the coin, but on the edge of the coin.  (Also appearing on the edge was “E Pluribus Unim”, the mintmark and date.

The response I got for pointing this out was, “that’s not the point!”  Which is interesting.  If being honest isn’t the point, then what is?

Here’s the point.  People who would normally wrap themselves in the flag and cradle the Bible in their arms while spewing platitudes about “honesty is the best policy” will also turn the other cheek and lie out of the side of their mouth if it advances their cause.  “The end justifies the means” does not mean always being honest, and folks… it’s that time again when this is going to come home full-force.  Be on your guard for blatant bullshit slinging:  political season in America is in full swing!

Received an e-mail you’re not sure about?  (Which should be every e-mail these days!)  Try looking it up on these sites before sending it on:

www.snopes.com

www.truthorfiction.com

Alti

Not all the dogs on my route are extraordinary; some are just plain ol’ loveable mutts of average ability.  So it is with “Alti”, a dog of no fixed breed and (as far as I can tell) possessing little to no ambition.  I say this because unlike so many dogs that might start barking, or come running when they see you – you’ll never know Alti is even out in the yard until you walk around a corner and nearly trip over her.

Alti is a medium sized dog, although her size is accentuated by her girth (she’s been hitting the kibble a little too hard) and a long, thick coat of fur that would serve her well if she lived in the Yukon.  Her name is a derivative from a cross street just one house up from where she lives: Alturas.  Why didn’t the folks just name her after the street they live on?  Well… they lived on a numbered street, and even a dog wants to be known by a name, not a number!

Alti is so passive that if she’s soaking up a little sunshine on the sidewalk and there is a parcel I have to lug up to the porch, I have to be careful to either walk around the dog or step over her.  She willmove, but only to roll over on her back so I will be suckered into rubbing her tummy.

Occasionally she will bark.  It’s rare, but it has happened a couple of times.  Sometimes if she’s in the house and hears me putting a parcel on the porch she’ll let out a “woof” or two.  This is more or less a “warning” telling me that she’s lumbering toward the doggie door at the rear of the house and will come meet me out front just as soon as she gets a little momentum going.  When she gets there I’m usually greeted with a wagging tail and then a quick roll onto her back for the traditional tummy rub.

The height of “pathetic” was attained the other day as I was taking a parcel up to the porch (yes, they seem to get a lot of goodies through the mail).  The dog wasn’t in her doggie-bed by the front door, nor did I hear her inside the house.  As I turned to head back to the truck Alti started barking at me… from underneath a bush beside the porch.  As soon as I said, “I hear you,” she hushed up.  But would she come out from her napping spot?  No… that would require more effort than she wished to expend.  But it was obvious she still wanted some attention.  She rolled over on her back and gave her tail a few good wags.

It was up to me to get down on all fours (woof, woof) and reach into the bush to give a quick tummy rub.  I’m sure that to Alti this was just “normal behavior”.  But if any of the neighbors were watching the mailman crawling around their neighbor’s front yard and reaching into a bush… well, who cares what they think!  Judging from the wagging tail as I rubbed the tummy inside the shrubbery, I was doing “OK”!  That’s Alti’s opinion, and she’s sticking to it!