Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--An archeological dig is like a film crew on location. At the end of principal photography there is a wrap party, and then everyone goes home.

The crew chief packed the Jeep to drive to Baton Rouge. Heap and Brenda cleaned the house.

They had bought a car to drive back to Tallahassee. A used car.

Heap didn't want to own a car. Brenda didn't feel married without a car. A married person should have a car to go just get into and drive off, when she needed to go somewhere.

A car wasn't just something you got into and drove off, to Heap. And let your husband worry about if it wouldn't start.

A car was something you got screwed buying, got screwed selling, and worried about whether it would start when your wife got into it to go somewhere. Plus there was the operating expense, the upkeep, and the insurance.

You had to listen to the insurance agent explain how the policy worked, and what a good deal you were getting.

If it was such a good deal, why did the state have to require it? And why did you have to pay for uninsured motorist coverage, even though automobile insurance was required?

I think they didn't go to work that day, so the crew chief could get to Baton Rouge, and maybe make it on in to New Orleans.

There wasn't a party.

Later, when Heap and Brenda went to Tulane, they found out that the summer after they had dug at the site the crew chief got an extension on his grant to finish the job, and hired a bunch of college kids from Tulane, to help him.

Heap and Brenda dug in Port St. Joe with Chief and Dr. Dailey that summer.

The student they talked to described the experience as hellacious.

He said that the crew chief told them what Heap and Brenda had done, and they hadn't believed him. Surely, he was exaggerating. Nobody in their right mind would do that. Would work 80 hours a week for 40 hours pay. Would work every day of the week for three months straight. Would eat modest meals and economize on toilet paper.

Yes, Heap said, it was true.

Yes, Brenda said, it was true.

That was the way it was done, when they were there.

At the end they got a heartfelt thank you and a firm handshake.

Obviously, the car made it back to Tallahassee.

They reclaimed their apartment from the friend who had sublet it from them.

In January, they signed up for classes and started going to graduate seminars.

They took classes from Chief and Dr. Dailey.

They weren't Old Southeast Hands, but they had met some Old Southeast Hands, who visited the crew chief, at the site, while they were digging there, and looked their handiwork over. Looked over their workmanship.

Looked to see how straight the profiles were, how plumb the corners of the squares.

How high the morale of the crew was. Did they have esprit de corps.

It seemed a happy station. Black workers and white. And they had moved dirt.