Milling About ( Part 2 )
Posted on September 27, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet
Keeping my distance from the sawmill
I became so proficient at the green chain that I got a promotion. From time to time businesses and government offer incentives in order to retain promising employees. How anyone can determine that a worker on the green chain has potential boggles the mind. Like the Jeffersons, I was “Movin’ on Up”. They offered me more money and the chance to work on the celebrated construction crew at the mill. The guys on the green chain didn’t have a going away party for me, although we visited The Colony for a few pints when I got the good news. More like a “good riddance” celebration.
You’re all familiar with industrial vehicles that have a beacon on the roof and make a beeping sound when they are going in reverse? They may as well have put one of these ornaments on my construction helmet that lit up with the words “rookie” flashing on it. Construction guys, I have learned, love to play games with greenhorns.
Being a very large mill, there were always construction projects on the books. The mill was installing a new piece of equipment and our job was to build a concrete pad for the apparatus to sit on. The old equipment was dismantled and carted away. The base for the new pad had to be reconstructed, which required removal of the old concrete. This required a jackhammer. You know who gets this job on a construction crew? The rookie, of course.
I had studied Shakespeare and Chaucer and I understood democracy and Pavlov’s dog from my years at university. Nowhere did I ever learn about the art of the jackhammer.
There are a few things you need to know about this tool. First, it is heavy. Back then I was a 155 pound weakling. Today I am a 180 pound weakling. The only major difference in the ensuing 41 years is that I have far less hair now.
I began the task at hand. I pressed the button to activate the device and instantaneously I felt every fibre of my being convulsing. Shards of concrete blew up towards my face (protected by goggles) and dust filled my nose and lungs. All of this happened in the first thirty seconds, and this was an eight hour shift. Ten minutes later, my arms trembled from the vibrations and I was already anticipating the first coffee break. I thought I saw a few guys on the crew grinning. I spilled the first mouthful of coffee.
When I crawled into bed after my first shift on the jackhammer, every muscle in my body ached and the bed felt like there was an earthquake percolating directly beneath it.
They say that you can get used to anything, and eventually I got the hang of it. I decided quickly that I didn’t want to become good at this job.
Once the forms were put in place, it was time to pour the cement. As the pad covered a very large surface area and the cement mixer could only get so close, the wet and heavy sludge had to be wheeled across a narrow plank to get to some of the more remote areas.
There is a real knack to transporting cement in a wheelbarrow. Unfortunately, the History of Western Civilization course that I had taken in university made no mention of this ancient skill. Once again, the experienced members of the construction crew gathered around to watch my maiden voyage across the slender bridge with a fully loaded wheelbarrow. Another form of “walking the plank”. I learned that you can’t manhandle cement. You have to use the laws of physics … but I hadn’t majored in science.
I managed to get the barrow moving forward, but in a matter of seconds its entire contents, along with me, were splayed on the ground.
Right then and there I started to contemplate a new line of work. I needed to come up with a concrete plan that didn’t involve concrete. Wet or dry.
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