My wife found a mobile home for sale which she determined we could afford to buy and relocate to the ten acres we had purchased out of town. My family had a friend who moved mobile homes. He was willing to move it and said I could save money by jacking it up to be ready to move. That sounded reasonable to me.
I borrowed a house jack and some cement blocks and went to work. The jacking went surprisingly well. I raised the first corner of the building higher and higher. After a time, I noticed the edge of the cement block, with the most pressure from the weight of the building, was beginning to crumble.
“Not right,” I thought and instantly rolled out from under and away from that pillar.
CRASH!!!
The mobile home fell less than inches beside me. I had not even seconds to spare!
I was so shaken by what had happened, had almost happened, might have happened, that I got in my truck and drove away. While I was gone, my wife came by to see how I was doing. She saw the mobile home had crashed down, I was gone, so she headed home to begin calling hospitals. Just as she was leaving, I returned.
She was relieved.
Our children never knew what had almost happened.
The next day, I started over again – and did not raise one corner so much higher than any others.