It was 1961, and I just spent most of the previous two years working as a framing carpenter for Sharon’s uncle Larry Fawcett. We were building homes in South Ogden, Utah.

Larry was the project foreman, and myself and another guy about my age, Carlos Taylor, were two of the framers. The other one on the crew was 55-year-old, cranky Pete Paoletti. He was a good worker and usually nice guy. He did love a good practical joke — as long as it wasn’t being played on him.

One lunch hour, I pulled a sandwich out of the waxed paper and bit down. It seemed a bit woody, in fact, I couldn’t bite through it. I raised the one slice of the bread, and what I was biting into was a square of thin wood. Pete was cracking up.

Later that day, I found Pete’s empty lunch bucket, put the bucket on the floor, an

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