Emotions mined at ground zero  February 03, 2002|By Sally
Jenkins, The Washington Post.  NEW YORK — The excavation of
endless geological grief called the World Trade Center dig has
lasted nearly five months.  Digging is the kind of job you hope
never to do in the first place. This isn't digging ditches or
digging for pipe or digging to plant bulbs that will bloom in
the spring.  The diggers lift some dirt and put it over there,
and go through it with their gloved hands, looking for human
remains. They move it a shovelful at a time, until they are
spent or until they come across the dreaded prize.  The things
they find down there, where the sky collapsed into the ground,
are determined to some extent by gravity. And then there are the
inexplicable things, the things so oddly out of place this far
underground. A yo-yo. Signed personal checks. Notes.  "Personal
notes," firefighter Jack Carlson said.  They started digging in
the heat of late summer atop an eight-story heap of wreckage
they nicknamed "The Pile."