The house next door was an unassuming cottage clad with weathered shingles, and for most of its years, surrounded by an abundant garden. We knew many of the owners and watched gardens cultivated, sometimes jealous of their yield. The current owner raised two boys who were passionate about basketball and hockey. To that extent, and despite zoning regulations, all the trees were removed to pave the back yard so that the boys could shoot hoops and slap shots into an undefended net. Out of the aging house emerged a professional hockey player. As is the fate of many older houses, the day came when the monster arrived to eat it alive, crunching and pulverizing the wooden structure into disposable parts. The house crumbled in a matter of hours, and a convoy of dump trucks hauled away the rubble. What remained was a pile of scrap metal and chunks of concrete, remnants that were eventually scooped up by the excavation equipment preparing a hole in the ground where a new foundation would be poured.