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Dirty Half Dozen
Morning work
Lead by Curtis DeVetter, the Dirty Half Dozen (more or less) on this day includes Phil Cooke, Ryan O’Donnell, Ben Vermie, Shannon Conrad, Jay “Big Country” Warren and Joe Bonfoey.
“We’re a small crew and we get down and dirty,” Joe explains the group’s name.
Phil chanted the group’s motto: “Today you have to work like a dog in order to live like a dog.”
No one is allowed to slack off or say things like “I don’t do basements,” he added.
It’s the third day of mucking at the southwest Cedar Rapids house. They worked on the basement, and then tore out walls, kitchen cabinets and bathroom fixtures.
This Monday morning the crew is doing gutting work and hauling debris to the curb. It is the sixth house the Dirty Half Dozen have mucked in less than a week. “Before that, I don’t remember,” Curtis sai
The crew doesn’t talk much, but after a few minutes Ryan leads the group in a few minutes of the Steve Miller Band classic “The Joker.” Nobody seems to mind that their singing is muffled by the respirators worn as they sweat and work in the heat and the humidity.
The heat is THE topic of the day among muckers. The Dirty Half Dozen often break twice as long as they work in an effort to avoid heat exhaustion.
“On hot and muggy days like this we know that we have to take a break every half hour or so,” Curtis said, adding that if the house is particularly dirty they break more often
Outside, Ben takes off his respirator, grabs a bottle of lukewarm water and wipes the sweat from his face.
“You’d think this was Louisiana, the way we’re sweating and the way the windows were all sweating when we got here – and it’s not even 9 o’clock,” Ben said.
A Cedar Rapids resident, Ben often thinks of the people who lived in the homes he now mucks. Hauling someone else’s possessions to the curb has made him reevaluate the sentiment that he instills in things. He spends a lot of time talking to his friends about the flooded neighborhoods he spends his summer days in, so that they don’t forget the flood. Cedar Rapids so spread out it’s easy for some people to avoid being affected by the flooding.
“A lot of people still don’t get it,” he said.
He’d like someone to plan a day of work in Cedar Rapids during which most businesses shut down and the entire city gets together to work in flood-affected neighborhoods.
“Something’s going to have to be done, drastically and very shortly,” he said
