True grid

Ref and Brantley were laying out the grid where the rest of the piers will go: under the deck and the new "wing." Ref had one of those spinning-laser devices to get everything level within a micron or two. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had used OnStar for lateral position -- but he did the geometry and checked diagonals and such for that.

The little yellow plastic whirligig on the tripod, and its beeping sensor-on-a-stick, made me think of Dad, and his beautiful old brass transit, decked out in scribed wheels and studded with leveling bubbles and a giant floating compass needle. It looks a bit like a big old sextant, and it guided his voyages across America in the '30s and '40s to leave ribbons of highway in his wake. In the '50s he used it to lay out Mineral Springs. In the '60s through the '80s, it gridded ephemeral gatherings of Airstreamers. By the '90s, it had gone into retirement as a museum piece on our library shelf.

So there was the laser thing, sending out its beams to generate beeps and "bingo" noises. I could see Dad standing back in the shade, studying it, wrinkling his brow, puzzling about it, shifting his hat back on his head, putting his hands on his hips, smiling, shaking his head in amazement.