98 Year Old Man Gets His Birthday Wish to be a Construction Worker for a Day

picture courtesy of Diggerland XL

I thought this would be a great story to get the week started off on a positive note.  While there are stories upon stories of shortages of construction workers all throughout the country, one 98-year-old man got to fulfill a lifelong dream of his and become a construction worker for a day.

Bill Grun, who lives at a senior retirement living community in Pennsylvania, wanted to celebrate 98 years in this earth in one of the best ways possible: doing some demolition. Through the retirement community’s program called WEL Wishes, which encourages residents to fulfill their “bucket list” aspirations, Bill, along with his friend who also lives at the community and is also named Bill, travelled to Diggerland XL in New Jersey to cross this one off the list.

Bill chose his buddy to join him, because he was one of the few people in the community that actually worked construction in his life. While at Diggerland, which is an amusement park focused on construction equipment for both adults and children, the pair of Bills got to tear apart an old bus using an excavator. 

It’s a cool story and just shows that there are still people out there that think what construction workers do on a daily basis is cool.  I’m glad Bill got to experience the thrill.

CBS Philly was there to capture some video of Bill’s big day, which you can watch below:

Full story: 98-Year-Old Man Spends His Birthday Becoming A Construction Worker | CBS Philly

Finally, There’s a Construction Amusement Park for Adults

Chances are, you played with some type of construction toy when you were growing up, whether it was a plastic set of hammers and wrenches, or a classic Tonka truck.  After you graduate from toy dump trucks and backhoes, heavy construction equipment gets a little too expensive and dangerous for just anyone to play around in them…or does it?  Diggerland XL doesn’t think so.

Diggerland XL is a new addition to Diggerland USA, which is a kid’s construction theme park in West Berlin, NJ.  The original kid’s park has rides and attractions all centered around construction equipment, like navigating a skid steer through a course, or bowling with a mini-excavator (that sounds super fun).  Other rides and events include a spinning ride that seats you in the bucket of an excavator, an excavator merry-go-round, a mini-excavator treasure hunt, the world’s fastest backhoe and a heavy equipment stunt show!  Here’s a video showing many of the attractions of the original park.

So what’s in store for the adults at the new Diggerland XL? Full sized construction equipment and an open playground to do some damage.  After you choose between a wheel loader, an excavator, and a bulldozer, you’ll be given 30 minutes of instruction and up to 2.5 hours of “Adult Play Time.”  So now, you don’t have to bug your buddies at work that get to drive all the cool toys and risk everybody’s life on the job site.  Prices of the XL package range from $199 to $349, but it also includes access to the Diggerland USA attractions.  Heck, you can even plan your next milestone birthday party there (Who’s turning 40 in the near future?  You know who you are.)  Here’s a cool video of the adult theme park:

Even if you’re not interested in the XL package, it still seems like a super fun place to bring the kids.