‘Survivor’ in the backyard

I LEARNED what was funny about the world mostly by watching television with my father, who roared at Archie Bunker and Hawkeye Pierce, Ted Baxter and the Smothers Brothers. Dad seemed particularly amused by blowhards like Baxter. Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were other favorites, victims of their own crazy dreams.

Were he still around, I’m sure Dad would be entertained by my do-it-myself backyard makeover, which is in its second year and shows no sign of ever ending. It is now, according to experts, the biggest American engineering project since Joan Rivers’ last neck tuck.

“What’s he building, Las Vegas?” the boy asked one day.

“It’s sure taken longer,” said his mother.

Hey, Rome wasn’t built in 14 months. This project has required 200 linear feet of pipe, 30 bags of concrete mix and 4,000 cubic feet of I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing. The other day, I went by Home Depot for a little help, and 200 day laborers fled back to Mexico. No mas! No mas!

Still, I plow on, with the assistance of the little guy, who accompanies me with his toy wheelbarrow. As I work, the 4-year-old sits nearby, digging for worms as if sifting for gold. He accidentally pounds my toe with my good hammer. Without him, I don’t know where I’d be.

“You know, you’re my No. 1 man,” I told him one day.

“I am?”

“You’re definitely my No. 1 man,” I said.

Basically, that makes him foreman of himself. His big brother, a strapping lad, helps now and then, but life is just too short and his girlfriend’s legs are just too long.

The little red-haired girl? She pitched in a little, helping me drag branches out of the ravine that borders our backyard like a moat.

“You know, you’re my No. 1 man,” I told her one day.

“I thought he was your No. 1 man,” she said, gesturing toward her baby brother.

“You’re both my No. 1 man,” I said.

Haven’t seen her since.

And early on, I had high hopes for the lovely and patient older daughter, who was on a workout kick that coincided with my backyard project. As any gardener knows, there are few better workouts than bending, scooping and shoveling. The psychic rewards can be epic as well. The sun on your shoulders, the dirt on your skin. A thousand gnats landing on your tongue and up your nostrils.

“Most people,” I told her, “go weeks without direct contact with the earth.”

“So?” she asked.

“So I never thought of you as ‘most people,’ ” I said.

“Sorry, I have a nail appointment,” she said, then scooted away in her Civic.

As a result, it usually just comes down to me and the little guy, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, putting in sprinklers, laying drain pipe, running landscape wiring through the flower beds and out beneath the olive trees. Where some men see piles of dirt and rock, we see a place to eventually chuck a football or hang a hammock.

“Whatcha doing now, Dad?” he asks.

“Installing a low-voltage transformer,” I say.

“WHAT?!” he asks, and smacks his knee, roaring like a leprechaun.

I explain to him about low-voltage transformers and any other thing that catches his eye. We discuss vapor trails in the sky. Or why worms never marry.

One day, at lunch, I taught him how to get a sure laugh while eating a ham sandwich: First, you take a bite, then you pretend to use the sandwich as a bar of soap in a shower.

“It’s a cheap laugh,” I told him. “I use it every day.”

“You funny, Daddy.”

“Comedy is anarchy,” I explain.

Our best laugh yet came the day we flushed out the new sprinkler system, turned it on for the first time without sprinkler nozzles so the water would shoot from the pipe and flush out any dirt. When I turned the valves, birds burst out of the bushes, afraid for their lives. I’m pretty sure the sun inched back a bit, just to be safe.

Ever seen the fountains at the Bellagio, synchronized to the sounds of opera? They’re a squirt gun compared to our sprinkler test. We soaked the entire house in seconds. It looked like the gushing, flushing equivalent of a gigantic car wash.

“Oh my God!” screamed the little guy, who rushed inside to warn his mother, then laughed gleefully as the sprinklers attacked the windows.

When I turned the sprinklers off, my wife stepped out onto the back porch, the little guy in her arms, the whole world dripping. She looked around. She paused like Jack Benny. She looked around.

“Hey Noah,” she asked me. “Did you mean to hose the entire house?”

“Yes!” screamed the little guy.

“He is soooooo you,” she said of the kid.

By that, I’m sure she meant handsome, charming, snide -- all the good stuff.

“Thank you,” I said.

“One of you is going to boarding school,” she announced.

Me, I hope.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.