jan 6 Your Busy Day

Well, certainly, it was a busy day. After exploring the What Is Jesus Q now you are on the hunt for more and future divinity:

Who is Jesus Really?
There is a lot said about the most influential man in history. He stirred up the most powerful nation in the world, shook the foundation of the most prominent religious institution in that day, and has changed the face of the world forever.
But who was he, really? Was he just an influential, charismatic speaker, not much different than a Martin Luther King, Jr. or an Adolf Hitler? Or was he just a celebrated person of great compassion, like Mother Theresa or Ghandi? Or was does he rank at the top of the list of great deceivers, like Harry Houdini, David Blaine, or even the fabled Merlin?
Join us as we look at what Jesus said about himself as we look deep into the stories and the historical facts to see if they back up or debunk who Jesus really is.

Now, this dear ole 2008, we've moved on:

Jesus, the Returning King...
As we finished up our series "Who is Jesus, Really?," the Lord really placed it on the hearts of the staff to look deeper into Jesus, the returning King. We began a series looking at this aspect of Christ, and we are excited to look into the word and find out what He says about His return.
Join us as we explore this incredible fact of our faith and find more and more what God's heart for his people is.
See you Sunday!

That means the faithful have answered that question.

and then, finally, the movement to the marriage...Shine with her exercise class, her Big Air, whatever that means, and in addition:
Marriage Conference at the End of January!!...
Friday the 25th and Saturday the 26th we will be hosting our first Marriage Conference! No matter where you are at in your marriage, this is a MUST ATTEND! If you have a great marriage or if you know you need some work, you will undoubtedly walk away from this conference with a better future and outlook for your marriage.
Please call the office for more details, 760.510.1160.

Just like Christmas of last year, where it was baubles and bells, Pastor J is seeking answers for that one lost last time when there was another family.

What did they call the babe who has kids by two men? Yes, a multi-dad.


Back then, 30 years removed, I was just starting my scrambling mode: The Red Raven didn't kick nor did the college. Let's return to the scene of the crime, Local 184, Union Ironwork.

I had, early a.m., a flash of clarity: I just had to write it down. I'd sent the piece to the NY Times, meanwhile, all during the Christmas Holidays, looking to see the essay published. Bu Friday, a dude fell 47 stories and survived. And then I sent my essay that has yet to be published.

My early a.m. flash of clarity:
loaded like a carcass in the meat wagon and headin' for the hospital is the first part of the journey.

Now, this is a new computer so I've got to see if I can pull Ch. 14 out:


Union Pacific Center Project: March Madness
Two Checks
March 10th Journeyman IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Bob would sometimes grumble, looking away, and say, "Today I’m gonna get two checks." It seems like he looks down and through the 19 floors of the UP Building, almost as if Foreman Paul Lueke at that very moment had decided to relieve Mustang Bob of his services. Me, as first year apprentice electrician, didn't think so. I'd worked with Bob now for more than four months--he's handy and he works hard. I was the one who should have realized he'd be the one drawing the short straw. I didn't think much of the fact that I was sometimes pulled away from Bob to do mundane clean up tasks. Instead of running wire, bending conduit, installing devices, I found myself with, on at least two occasions, a broom in my hands to sweep out the shack where 20 electricians gathered in the morning to find out what project they'd have to do that day.
I watched with a bit of chagrin as they exited the shop door. Well, I thought, I'm a first-year apprentice. I'll do what I'm told to do. However, two young men, who were not in the union, but on board to clean up and pick up, run tools and supplies, more and more were running wire. I felt like they walked out the shack door with wide smiles, eyes filled with derision.
I pushed the shop broom so hard I almost felt like it was breaking.
March 12th Today, the UP Center bathtub seeming to spill over in places. Like a ship, it seemed to be taking in water only when you realized the iron that was it’s structure, it’s core muscle. But still it was a busy crazy day. Paul inputs to me after I input to him that there’d be some fire-caulking that need to be done. See, the past few weeks, pulled away from Bob, if I wasn't picking up I was assigned fire-caulking duties. Wherever a conduit had to be punched through drywall to drop down to devices like fire alarm, card swipe, door opening, a gap remained that had to be filled with fire-proof caulking; hence, I was put in charge of fire caulking each of the three stairwells of the 19 floors of building.
No, I wanted to get through it pretty fast to get back with Bob. The electrician classes I took Tuesday and Thursday night at the IBEW training center bore little relation to fire caulking; they bore absolutely no relation to clean-up, sweep-up.
But still, I know found myself always looking at 1/2 inch conduit stuck through drywall. Was there a gap? Did some fire-caulking need be done? For some reason, after I thought I'd finished, it seemed like there were more ½ inch conduits shoved through drywall on the stairwells, more gaps to cover. Always, on the way up, I can’t help but notice the small key-hole-saw-generated fissures eight or so feet above the wide openings that will be a thick double door. Always looking up, as I challenge myself to walk all the way up the stairs to the Penthouse, the building's top floor, from ground to 19th. I did this instead of waiting in line for God knows how long with a group of hard-hat wearing men, waiting for a buckhoist, a temp elevator outside the building, to come down to take us up.
No, early morning I always chose the stairs; like soon I’d be able to race up a flight of stairs in a mythical climb to the top of Empire State Building. IBEW Journeyman Tony, too, also an exercise advocate who, said, and which I was really starting to believe, “You and I are too old to gain any muscle. All we can do is tone up” also chose the stairs.
And really, I had to admit Tony was right. Not only could I barely make it to 13th Floor before I'm ready to almost collapse, always having to stop and catch my breath, but my heart feels like it's beating wildly in my chest and wants to jump out. My trips to the gym—while nearly as frequent as before—I'm now but a caricature of myself from, it seems, but a few months before. I was amazed how I could lift but only a tiny bit of weight without my right clavicle feeling like it was ready to fall off.
Moreover, wife Kath and I wonder why I'm looking, suddenly, so old; crow's feet--and that's what Kath called 'em--are all over. Lines and wrinkles are sprouting everywhere. I splash my face with cold water to get rid of the crow’s feet, to somehow vanquish them, turn back the lines of time.
Man, we thought, reviewing the day over our morning coffee, construction sure is aging me fast.
Little did I know that I was but a few days away when a sudden heart attack, sneaking up like a silent killer, would send me to ER.
At any rate, Paul said, Fine, nodding his head. We’ll go do that. Leaning over rows of blueprints spread out on a huge table, like he was getting a battalion of Sparky’s together for the final thrust, he also said to keep bringing material down.
Then Tad laced me aside and said I had to help him get down to 1 with the ladder and his tools. Because he was going down to work where Tom from K.C. was working. Tom. smiling, affable, had headed off to Pig Palace. Material had arrived to reconfigure a large empty room into a storage area. Pork demand was up; assembly line increase meant more hogs per day. However, the cooler was too small to keep the pork cool enough to get past inspection. the existing storage facility couldn't keep the slaughtered hogs cool enough to get past pass inspection.
Fire-caulking, then, was put on hold. Yesterday, I thought how I had to get up and get stuff for John and Vic, hauling ½ inch conduit from the ground floor--not too far from the shack--all the way up to the Penthouse where they were working. Like most of Hiller contingent, they were working on the upper floors, running fire-alarm conduit through small openings, almost as numerous as the air-exchanges, popping up everywhere, it seemed, every time you turned around.
Anything else.
Yeah, you wouldn’t mind finding us an 8-foot step ladder would ya? This 6 footer doesn’t seem to wanna do the trick.
Sure, no problem. What difference did it make? Really, the only thing I really had to do was fire caulk and haul down tools to the shack, now filling with tools, dark gray Hiller workcarts, and other miscellaneous.
No, I was pretty much expendable. What did Paul Lueke say when he was queried by the EEOC people? Yes, he admitted that yes, he was having me do clean up and pick up; he didn't really know how much he could get a journeyman to work with me, many of them reporting some problems. He let me down a tad easier than the Thompson gang who said, almost in unison, that they told me how to do something repeatedly, that, finally, when I couldn’t, they had to take over. They couldn't find a journeyman that could work with me. That I didn’t comprehend, that I just wasn’t getting it.
Well, did I at least have proper demeanor? This is what ole Dr. Larry Heck would hang me on when I was trying to surmount the giant OPS obstacle, the U’s for unsatisfactory in the teaching profession scattered about the evaluation like landmines. Something like I had to display a hidden confidence that was readily apparent for all who, especially the wild and woolly Behavior Disordered youth, would deign look upon as my being woefully deficient in.
I thought, as I climbed down the west stairwell, I don’t know why they just don’t send third year apprentice Vic and get down and get it; but, I guess in the scheme of things, it's more economically feasible to get me do it. Meanwhile, there’s ole Jeremy spiriting away with 4th year apprentice Steve Oliver on the lift, running wire. And I don’t know how to do a thing about it: I don't know how to change this nor do I know how to run the dull red wire to the pull station. I think, it somehow must grate young chain-smoking Jeremy, him with the light pull over sweatshirt and the light filter cigarette that he’s not in the union. It grates me that I am but he’s doing my work.
So I’m big and bad enough to the bones to find out that Steve Oliver had already taken some pipe up there. Yeah, maybe that’s what I had get up to John and Vic—some 2-inch conduit, along with the 1/2 inch. Meanwhile I get all my caulking stuff together. Oh, I think, do we ever have an operation, do we ever. It just requires a caulk gun and some fillers and a rag and a puddy knife and a ladder. And the holes we cut through the drywall to put our ½ inch conduit through for the smokes, the door, the fire has to be caulked. At day’s end, I just put it all in a bucket; I hide my 8-foot step ladder I use to move around to get on both sides of the stairwell, and then move onto the other two stairwells per each floor and then, when I finish a floor, move the ladder up the stairs, my little five-gallon bucket carrying all the materials I need.
Then it’s a call to get more the pipe up there and in the pouring drizzle I pull out the mud 2” conduit: do go south buck hoist. Yes I do. It’d been unceremoniously dropped off there maybe months ago, largely forgotten. A pile of conduit outside the UP building’s south face. With the softening earth, frost rising up from same, much of ten or so bottom portion was buried in the mud. So I’m big and BAD ENOUGH TO THE BONES to forget about these small slights, these small slings and marshal my respective mental and physical forces to not only get it all up there, expeditiously, you know, but have it cleaned up. Right to where it needed to go.
I’M RUNNIN SHORT AS I HAVE TO STUDY AND I BROUGHT THIS NOTEBOOK HOME WHICH I WAS ABLE TO PROFFER SOME NOTES. I'm don't think I can get past this section. So I better study while I have a lunch break or coffee break on the job. And boy, was it ever handy. I've parked my truck and there, on the ground, a notebook. I pick it up. Could it be one of the guys'? I'll turn it right over.
Well, no, it's pretty beat up looking, like it's been run over a few times. Well, should I throw it away? But I'm always playing Mr. Inspector, Mr. Detective. I open it up. Inside the cover, that has a caricuature of a young skateboarder and blue background is the name, in capital letters, KARLOZ. On the first page there is such things as con Gran Gozo placer. The next lines says Con gran gozo y placer. Then Nos volbenos hoy a ver. I don't read any further. Well, it may have fallen from a jacket. Further inspection, on the back, that is blue hard cardboard is the white stamp in the lower corner. At the bottom of the white stamp it says MADE IN CHINA. Then, above that it has what I guess is the bin stamp is "Marketed by Wal -Mart Stores, Inc. Bentonville, AR 72716. Below that it says "Shop at Walmart.com."
Of course, I never shot a Wally World. It's anti-union to the max. But ole Karlos, now, him and his crew, why they regular Bentonville folks. Well, there's further need and urge to throw it away. But then the age old urge to save. To put to good use.
And so it does become my notebook.
Test Prep
March 18th I'm so far behind. I sit next to Ryan. He had to take a day off the retake a test. He's pretty quiet and doesn't talk much. He won't say boo about his older brother who's a newspaper man in Sioux Falls, SD. But he has a quick intelligence. He likes to head on back to Woodbine and close out the night playin' darts with his buddies. "Boy,"
he said, "I tied one on last night." A slight smile steels across his face. He's pleasant and unassuming. Sometimes I'll turn to him for answers. But, of course, I like to figure things out myself. But we'll definitely put our heads together when it comes to study for the test.
Yeah, I think he had to take a day off and retake the test that he failed. I think, quite frankly, towards the end, I would've had to retake a couple tests. But the early signs were, to Instructor Clyde, that I was out the door anyway, so what was the use?
Let's get on back to March Madness. I have "Review" on the top. Beneath that are the notes, "Need symbols for
Fixed R
tapped
Adjustable
Variable
These are the different resistors. That is where the heat comes in: the resistance to the voltage. The amount does go through, that escapes, that's the amps. At any rate, there was hardly a way I could remember the difference or distinction. More notes talks about the sum of voltages in a series. The formulas to find equal resistance. I wrote it all down and really, I'll be darned if I could always remember it.
Making my own small motor the previous month? Oh please, don't even go there. All you had to do was buy some wire and a battery. And like the giant turbine at Powerhouse, the resistance moves the turbine. Or something like that. Because, I wrote down, pg. 314, #14 and pg. 315 #16 "trouble" with a little asterisk * I like to make. At any rate, I had to have help. I managed to drill through the dinner table Kath got from her grandmother. I'm in the middle room. I'm running behind, as usual. Hastily, I assemble the piece of board--actually, it's plywood from some other garage experiment I had behind the old structure, that I , as former carpenter for nearly six months, imagine I easily saw in straight lines and right angles. This done, I have to set up the base for the "motor," a small cylinder object that was supposed to spin when you put the negative charge and the positive charge together.
So I thought I'll secure the anchors. This is where I managed, to my horror, in my haste, in my hurry to have something ready for one of the classes during the week to present, to drill the screw through the plywood and into the table. I'm mortified. I know Kath has, like I've had to resort to in these last few months, a pair of reading glasses and has trouble reading things up close. I quickly cussed myself and headed for the garage, calling myself stupid and idiot the entire way, my chest threatening to go on permanent strike.
I was fortunate to be able to go over the Kaleb's house and, with a lot of help on his part, coax, after some weedling to get the cylinder to turn, if but slightly, like I trying to pull a small bear out of hibernation. However, when I took it to class, it refused to budge. Some of my fellow brothers had their's spinning like a mad windmill. I think, finally, at one point, a couple sparks flew and it turned, almost like it was in its grave. Mine, of course, was the last one that had to be given the ok by Clyde. I watched as Kaleb and others pried and cajoled, urging it to move.
My heart, meanwhile, beat like a drum. I resumed my favorite posture as I watched them work over it--with my hands in orange ironworker sweatshirt--trying to get it to move. Finally, as before, the drum turned like a small ghost; I think Clyde, my senior by but a few years, gave it the thumbs up more out of compassion than success.
No, it was obvious that I couldn't build a small motor; my course work, where I had to memorize formulas for current as well as various sections of the Code book, struggled along.
What my point is, is that, fire-caulking and lugging conduit around and unloading trucks and cleaning up 1 inch conduit and, of course, sweeping out shack one time, sprinkling some red powder down so that dust one time and then another time, thinking I'd be ahead of the game, sprinkling it on before hand but then stopped and told no by crossword puzzle chief Tim bore no resemblance at all to the class. At least, bending conduit, I felt that, because this procedure was addressed and practiced in a classroom at the union hall, that I got to watch bending--although, I was more of an observer than a participant, those maybe 20 years my junior immediately jumping in and making a stand--and then got to repeat same on the job.
Carpenter Battle Royale
March 11 It was a tussle with the electricians. We had to have a hole through into the next floor. Like before, when I first worked with Bob, I had to run the jackhammer that would make a small hole through the concrete--Bob would stand stand guard below just in case the gun went through, just in case it would have to fall on another worker.
I was, as before, the trigger man. As before, it didn't take that long before it punched through the concrete making an indentation through the roof onto which a device could be fastened.
Trepidation, however, insured. We needed the carpenters to stop what they were doing,; their Skyjack was in the way where we had to work. In fact, Bob had to drive it out the way so I could drill through.
I recognized one of them as a carpenter, a true Allied brother, who often said, "Allied's losing money on this job," as if he had an idea the workings of the construction trade.
This carpenter, whose name was Randy, thin and balding, and with whom I'd ridden to and fro Sol's, was incensed over the delay. He began pacing up and down, hands on his hips. His tool belt was on, girded about his midsection, his hammer dropping out of his pouch, almost on the floor, seemingly, his pouches filled with screws.
Bob drove the Skyjack away from the section where we had to drill. Randy, in the small room, came out.
Hey, where you goin' with that?
By that time, I'd already positioned myself over the jackhammer, on the verge of pulling the trigger, waiting for Bob to drop to the floor below me to make sure it didn't fall through.
Hey, I got to get this done.
Well calm down.
Calm down! What am I ‘sposed to do, stick my hands in my ass?
Yeah, I said.
--yeah
--Randy walked away
3/3/04Existential Ironworker
March 3 I was nearing the end of completing my assignment of getting the pipe in the building.
“Bet you miss the carpenters.” It’s Roger, with just a half finger on one index finger of his right hand has been runnin’ the job for Davis Erection. Puttin’ up the structure. Ellis and Darrell and Charley are there for another subcontractor. And Roger has been there since at least since July when I was initially there and was told by him “our BA said there’s gonna be 200 IW for the powerhouse in March.."
Well, it’s March and the newsletter from the electricians say “the powerhouse won’t save us.” Which means it’s being pushed back to July is the latest thing I heard from Dallas who snarled at me when I swept things on him. Later I dumped water on him and his partner. I said sorry, “I’m just clumsy. “ my middle finger of my left hand hurt for a couple weeks, at least.
”well, I’m missin’ aspects of it but the labor,” I said.
“Don’t get so beat up.”
I grew excited. “that’s it exactly, I found myself almost exclaiming.”
“beat up like an old ironworker.”
“no, you’re lookin’ great.
--electrician talking…another case where the guy that designed the system werent’ here.”
Bathroom scrawls”
Greg’s the greatest.
Just ask me.
I’m the greatest cocksucher there ever was!!!
Dave O.
Hey Rob Shelly, why are you always wearing girls’ jeans? He likes queers to look at his chick pants.
3/6/2004 5:50 AM
WE CONTINUE THE MARCHMADNESS AS I WAS ABLE TO AS I ALWAYS DO (like the cut through the bank drive-in through on the way to work—it’s a walk, very unlike Joyce’s tour of Dublin on Bloomsday: always, I say, as I park the pickup then cut behind Sol’s pawn shop where I bought youngest son Brendan a bright yellow bike and over the alleyway where now I can smell the morning air is mingled with the smell of rich pastry and there is usually a square delivery truck in the alleyway which I skirt and dodge between the wall and the truck not too far from the overpass from which traffic is heard but not seen; always, as I walk, I tell myself to remember the names of the streets and quiz myself each and every morning yet fail-- and now I take the other side of the street like a cow following the path up the hill) when I walk to work how I always point at the electrician’s door with my left hand, my gloved left hand this winter months (I remember today how I left my leather-type gloves that the Holder folks wear in the bucket upon 18th floor where we’ve had our staging area these past 6 weeks or so, having moved up from 16th floor and they were going to have me caulk. But then the order came to get the 2 inch conduit pipe ready for the floors from 11 to 19. and this required me to go out and pull it out of the South side of the building .
THIS WAS TUESDAY AND IT WAS A RAINY WEEK, THIS LAST ONE WAS. TUFTS OF snow spitting from the skies.
But at any rate, back to moving the now cleaned like with the ragman on the Bowery who would try to come up to your car window at the red light and, with a dirty rag, begin to wipe your windshield, a beard and wild eyes, and look at you with their hand out. and so it was with a similar rag I wiped the conduit down, as best I could and then loaded them on the cart.
And thus it was completed and all loaded on. Yet, I couldn’t decide where to push my cart to. There was maybe 14 or so sticks on there. And this would be through the mud and uneven gravel and concrete and so there was harder than heck to move through. So before I decided to go south I checked it out. Yet, as I said above, there as an 18-wheeler parked there. I thought of pushing it downhill on the other side of the 18-wheeler but realized there was not a forklift that could wing it up on the dock. The forklift was up on the other side.
The other ploy, of course, was to unload all the pieces and set them on the dock then pull the cart up the stairway. But the dock was wet and this would go against my having to get them more clean.
And I’d seen them how muddy there were and let them fall and slam against the red metal scaffold leg that was prone on the edge of road that the 18 wheeler was backed up against.
It was crudded with mud and gravel mixture and I pulled it vertical and let it fall horizontal with a bang (and now I’m thinking all the tin tracks that clang and bang so much like tin upon tin and because they’re so thin they fall into a discordant pile like they’re easily twisted and so straight and level they are twisted only a step or two above aluminum foil). It was the only way to do it. Just hand it up to the temporary ledge that circled about the platform where the hardhatted men and a few women sat ready to get on the one of two buckhoists and go to their respective floors, a good share of the work now taking placer on the high floors. In fact, the left buck hoist was, by this time, for material purposes only. Such that one might have to wait for a good halfhour before he or she could wait for the buck hoist to come down, discharge its passengers, some of them pushing work carts or sometimes even, a JLG driven onto one and taken to another floor. And I was able to now qualify, after I managed to pull the cart up the stairway and then simply load the conduit which I had unloaded on the ground. It was really and inordinate amount of work, more than a few man hours for simply spiriting the conduit to the respective floors yet really, because I wasn’t running wire, wasn’t setting and bending conduits in the control room, was the Last of the Mohicans, as it were, I just resigned myself to the task ahead of me.
Chris Sullivan listened to me talk about how you get in the electrician’s union. He was looking up to the JLG that was stood upon by a sticker-plasted hardhat that was atop an Allied worker whom I didn’t’ recognize
I told Chris how he had to take the test and “you ouuta do that” “I thought about doing it, about getting into that union” Chris said. He said this to me almost four months ago when he first came on the job and I was just finishing up my electrical prep—I mean the last few days of the two-week notice. And Rod Legrand was still there.
FIGHT
Did I talk about how pissed I was when greg called me “fucking screwball or fuckin’ clown or something like that. I envisioned the next couple days how I’d walk up to him and say “you know, you got a big fucking mouth” and then maybe he’d say something like “what, what are you talking about” and I’d have my fists clenched and smack him in the mouth.=--a grandpa hitting him with a hard sharp left. And then legrand would turn fury and start fighting back and we’d grapple and fall in the mud and he’d realized I wouldn’t give up that I was probly just as strong if not stronger than he.
And then we’d be broken up by a few of the electricians and I’d have welts in my face and Greg would have a black eye. I replayed this a couple times but said hullo to him this week late and so it was all okay because he has a lot more to lose in that his life is near shambles a day or two away from insanity and so even though it would be more psych damaging than physicl how would he ever live it down so I’m glad
Vertigo
Proviso
Assignation
I didn’t punch him in the face and hurt him. I mean, I can take a shot and it really doesn’t hurt that much unless you’re a big man with a big fist. But I know I hit hard with my left so, better be careful
THEN THERE WAS THE IRONWORKER WHO stepped on my ego at the Cargill plant maybe 10 years ago. He’s still with the long hair and the forest ranger hardhat but is now (and because I was moving material and lookin’ for same—two ladders in the basement, a 12 foot one on the 2nd floor where I IRONWORKER CHARLEY WHO SAID ‘HELLO Mr. Hartnett” and I’m surprised not only he knew my last name but that he would greet me as such. I don’t know how he knew my last name. He was the Charley Ironworker who could walk the high iron with aplomb. My first job back ever, on the fourth floor, standing on the corner of the iron, waiting for the crane to lift a basket into which he could step into and head down, I was truly amazed. And then, in other jobs, I’d seen him do this more than once.
“I gotta piece in today’s paper.”
“oh really,” he kept doing what he was doing, bolding up a section on the stairwell, his eyes on the work before him and not at me, “I’ll have to read it.”
And then I bumped into Ellis comin’ up the stairs after I’d run into Bryan with whom I’d talked to coming up that west stairwell I so many months ago had traversed the first time that seemed a lifetime away. With high expectations, not realized, a little on the doggone it side in that I’d lose overtime and thus a dent in the pocket book.
BUT IT WAS DOWNTOWN AND I didn’t much know where to park but after awhile began my trek from Sol’s where they have the bikes out at 6:30 in the morning
AND HOW JOE JUST WAVED ME AWAY WHEN I SAID I DIDN’T WANT TO RUN FOR OFFICE BECAUSE I HAD TO WRITE (I don’t know what Joe. Was it apprentice office? Carpenter office?) , he was pushing through the door of the break room and more or less waved me away and so NOW BECAUSE I WAS PUBLISHED March 6 I HAVE ALITTLE MORE SUBSTANCE A LITTLEMORE REVIEW. But it spurs me to keep writing….
But that’s where I CAME ACROSS IW BRIAN. “hey brian,” I was going down, he was coming up. “how’re ya doin’?”
“good” I explained myself. “yeah I worked iron for awhile then I got into the electricians.” This is a v. big step. This is an important step. While on face it doesn’t look like any big deal, from when I was working iron, to get in the electricians was a nearly impossible task.
“how long you been with the electricians?” “oh, I just started in October.”
Then Ellis joined us. “you know this guy?” “yeah, we did a bridge deck together. We left at 2:30 everyday. We went to the bar in Schyler and had beers.”
Ellis looked at me and stuck his thumb out at me, “did he go with you?”
I said, “oh yeah,”
“Yeah,” brian said.
Ellis said, “we worked down at the Powerhouse in NebraskaCity. Wasn’t that the best job you ever had?”
I was suddenly kinda in the throws. Of a dilemma.”
“yep.”
No, his best job was the bridge decks.” The inspectors said it was good and we left everyday at 2:30. we didn’t have to do anything twice.” Brian recounted this history. I do remember him how he said that to me, almost a refrain. In fact, it was a refrain. I do remember there was apiece that we had to redo and brian cussed voluminously but it wasn’t my fault or my call so we just cut some of the wires off and were happy doing same.
Instead I said, “yeah, he said to use a saddle instead of a figure 8.” “yep, because then it won’t walk on ya.
“yeah, he had an article in today’s paper” said Ellis. I don’t know how he found out. Maybe Charley whom I’d seen earlier in the day passed it on. But I certainly didn’t tell Ellis. Or maybe I did.
A couple people read it and then when I came across Ron Hartman, he read it in its’ entirety. Then I traveled to the penthouse area and Jeff, who dad I heard from Bob Jensen is pretty much caught up strong in the militia, also read it in it’s entirety.
“what’s it ‘sposed to mean?”
“you know, tradition.”
Then Mike, Jeff’s partner, came over. “he wrote this, ”and he put his hand where my name was pointing.
I tried to stand there and wait for it but could tell he was going to ready the whole thing and thought of Jeremy and vic down below tryin’ to get things ready to go for the move to the proceeds down to the bottom floor.
So I just left it with them and thought what the hell turn it over the electricians, that’s the union I’m in.
THEN JOHN Barry who misses nary a trick came across me and made sure I had my monthly card signed and then had me signa petition and I told him about my publication and he said “they were lookin’ for a writer of the newsletter three months ago but nobody wanted to do it.”
I’ll call ‘em.”
So I dutifully called the hall after looking up the number. I tried to explain to the lady who answered the phone. Despite my name dropping, it really didn’t elicit much of a response. “Okay,” she said, sounding matter-of-fact-and-why-are-you-bothering-me-with-such-trivial-nonsense, “I’ll tell the guys and they’ll get back to ya.”
From the sound of her tone, it didn’t sound like anyone would get back to me. and no one ever did.
I thought of the seeming The subservience of the secretary with the elec. Ole Barb with carp has more power, more of a jolt. Which means if she would’ve taken the message, someone would’ve gotten back to me.
And they make a lot less money. Not so hard to get into.
3/6/2004 10:11 AM
3/6/2004 3:27 PM
AND THEN SPEAKIN’ of the ole tuff guy IW I see the dude who called me “little asshole.” He also pulled over and threatened me “hey watch wur your goin’” now he’d be another one to challenge but Friday I saw him walking around with his mounty hard hat and was protruding a wee bit was the ole belly button and I think it’s more incentive to keep me workin’ out.
NO, I WOULDN’T WANT TO embarrass him either. I could take a shot or two but I wouldn’t want to get hit by one of mine. He was carrying a crock pot and perhaps he brought some chilly his ole lady brought.
BROTHER FUCKER is what Tad is because he spaced out on my monthly report. “Yeah, I’ll get to it, bring it to me later.” He waits until the v. last minute then he begins to engage. He does put me aside; I’m the last guy on the list. Of course, he’s tryin’ to be nice. Any of the categories, 20 different checks on various t hings delaing with wiring, electrician’s work, I fit in nary a one of them. No, there’s no category for caulking.
But, levity levity. How Doug, Tony’s partner when they spirit down from Fremont because the material been delayed for the vacant room of the plant that was going to be a cooler to alleviate the pressure from the present crowded freezer, responding, in part, to America’s higher demand for pork, and thus were speeding up the line, responding to demand, they couldn’t get the pork cold, frozen. So a new freezer was in order.
But Doug was there, ready to go about his business. Like Hank, he looked over at me and said, “I heard you were pretty good with the caulk.”
“Caulking,” I said, correcting him somewhat obvious and fairly droll reference.
And then the kidding went from first floor shack to top floor penthouse. ALL DAY WEDNESDAY Capital Electric’s MIKE was givin’ me a hard time how I had to wear underwear with flowers. Presuming I was to perform some sexual acts but my usual retort and refrain is “You’ve got to show me how; I need a demonstration.”
It seems to work and they pretty much quit egging me on.
BUT THEN THERE WAS THOSE WHO LEFT US:
Crystal—she got into it with a floor woman or someone from Holder. There’d been a screaming match from sometime before and she was gone. Maybe another one, yes, I think there was, another one had occurred fairly recently. For this she was dismissed.
And the cute little perky gal, Diane, an apprentice electrician, who was working on the lower floors when I was with the carpenters, was dismissed for constantly showing up late. she was petite and cute. It seemed there was some quite revealing pictures she had about the shack of her in a bathing suit. She smoked long white filtered cigarettes and looked quite demur in a hard hat, long black hair in pigtails cascading below her shoulders. I’d catch her on one of the floors, like me, holding up a step ladder while her partner Steve’s blond hair would push out from the back of his hardhat and he’d attach the device. She’d also started working nights in a bar to cover the drop in pay from when Avaya folded and she jumped into the trades. I’d see her, along with Tim Bauer, working on the crossword puzzle and her, on a couple occasions, going over to Tim, kneeling before him, examing her response to some of the ones she did not get and soliciting his advise. But the constant late for work didn’t carry the day and suddenly, just after Christmas, when it was fun to come in the mornig and see a slim and petite form march about the room, was no more. Young single-mom bathing suit cute Dianne was fired.
The tart is a lonely hunter.
WHICH IS WHY I SAW THE OTHER female operator who’d been runnin the west buck hoist on board that day. I can’t remember her name but she was there almost everyday during the summer.
But THEY SAY THIS SOUTH BUCKHOIST WILL COME DOWN.
3/25/2004 7:34:12 AM
“YOU’RE REAL MAN.” 3/24/2006 8:13:51 AM this is what Bob said to me when he called the house. Was I just coming out of treatment from the hospital? I know it wasn’t too much removed from that. The reason I got to write today, almost distancing self to an extent from the wafting snow falling away from the hills, me as a young soldier, pining for those days when the snow would begin to slowly but surely depart from the hills when the sun would come out clear and strong and small streams of melting snow would pick up into eddies and form small pools that expanded as the day grew stronger and the wind picked up a notch or two.
“well, what are you gonna do about your classes?”
I don’t know. I’ll probly try to go to class tomorrow night.”
“no,” bob said “fuck that. You got your daughters to take care of.”
He forgot my sons. Lyndsie, who I saw at the gym, that was the first question she asked: how are your girl’s doing in track?
“Oh, real good. My freshman was fourth in the state last year in class A.”
“Oh, she was?”
No, I’m not there anymore.” Lyndsie had all the apples and best teacher cards favorite teacher letter pasted on the walls of the classroom she was often stationed at. She was doomed to have the Ichabod Crane look and so was pummled unnecessarily by the bouncer at the Ice House. And so her shoulder was torn and thrown and it hurt her to the extent that she was till suffering pain even though she’d seen a chiropracter and dr. visits and ways to get it worked out of her system. This is nice because it does tie back to chp. 1 at Uta Halee.
I WAS CALLED BY THE carpenters: I was down to the end, low man on the totem pole but called to the training center, given a slip of paper and sent to the hall. I was going to be working down at the convenstion center. So I had to go over to council bluffs and check in at a scaffold place, Patent Scaffold.
3/25/2004 8:46:58 AM
“you don’t have to call again, you’re off the list.”
Ok, thanks.
Bye.
IT’S WHAT CONCLUDED THE CARPENTERS.
LET ME LOOK you up.
I was responding to a voice mail in that I was 6 months in arrears. Then I’d be out of the union, or put on suspension. The LEGRANDS, THEY HAVE NO ATTENTION OF PAYIN’ EVER.
OH GREG, I WAS IMAGININ’HOW I’D KICK his ass. Well really, when he scoffed and called me a goof ball or clown or something, I was close to confronting that. That’s really the only thing that CAN PISS ME OFF. WHEN I GET EMBARRASED. THEN I WANTO COME UNGLUED. LIKE WHEN DAN hertzl, God Bless his wonderful soul, at Russ and Beht/s house I shot out “don’t be an asshole.” Or something like that. It just flared out of nowhere.
I hate bein’ ridiculed.
BUT THEN I TOOK CARE OF THE FIRST CALL FROM diane MOORE SO I COULD KEEP SUBBING.
“I took you off the list.” Is what Dianne Moore said to me. I had called last night. I was told that there were “no jobs available.”
We concluded that I would swing by there tomorrow. “what are you doing today?” “I don’t have trans today?” this was a lie. Actually Kath said I could not drive, that I had to wait a day.
THIS IS ALL IN RESPONSE TO HOW LAST Wednesday, St. Pat’s day. It was slushy when I climbed the steps out of the building and skipped past where the plumbers have their restroom which I sequester myself to in the morning and usually had a pang in my chest.
PANGS IN MY CHEST REALLY reached the fore one morning and finally I admitted to Tony at one point that I had had pains in my chest and went to doctor and couldn’t find nothin’ but
3/26/2004 4:57:08 PM
THE PHONE RANG A COUPLE TIMES AND I’M IN THE ATTICK. I FINALLY MAKE it down second time but it has stopped ringing and I don’t know the #, think it’s maybe the daughters.
So I’m walkin’ around and I see a man with a white shirt steadily walking to the back of the house. I don’t know who it is and feel slightly annoyed that Megan has another visitor and I notice he flicks a white cigarette on the ground. Like an invasion of privacy.
So I go to the front door and step outside, thinking it’s a salesman or someone who wants to ask a question or something AND I SEE IT’S PAUL LUEKe.
“hey, I tried to get a hold of ya but then I thought I’d just drive by.”
“hey, how are ya doin’?
“I wanted to bring this by. This is a card from the guys. They had up at Hormell then they brought it down to us.
I looked at a card he had in his hand.
It was open and it was white. It was also thick.
“Hey, thank you I said.
“Open it,” Paul said. “we thought it’d be kinda a tough for you and your family so we took up a little collection, first at Hormell then at UP. I think there’s about $400 there.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. 3/27/2004 7:21:20 AM THEY’D pulled together almost $400. I was just about speechless. Parted of me wanted to hug Paul. But I feel I didn’t give thanks enough.
SO LET’S REWIND IT BACK.
*
I HAVE trouble making it up the stairs.
*
I mention it Tuesday to Tony that I had an apt. with cardioloigist.
*
March 18th, the day after St. Pat’s, I’m tired and quite sleepy I can’t wait to get home and take a shower and go to bed.
*
Why did you come to the hospital? I don’t remember, but Kath said that was the question everyone was asking
*
So, it was Thursday cardio apt., March 18th, I get there so early. I’m ahead of a guy that doesn’t show up. So they injected me with a drug and there was some elevation, I was to find out later.
*
March 11th is the day I think I just went ahead and went to the doctor. “I just got to see someone,” I said. “I don’t have an appt.” then a physician’s asst. looked me over. I had blood drawn, I had a chest x-ray, I had an ekg. They found nothing only kath saw that there was an appt. to see a cardio.
*
When can I see the cardio,’ I said. “can I see them on Saturday or Sunday? I have to work.” No, they told me. The cardiologist testing is only M-F 8 ‘til 4.
*
So Kath said I’d better take care of it. So it was set up for March 18th.
*
The pain: I woke up one night three times. I’d have to sit up. I’d wait a little while then I got a chance to lay back down..
*
Kath said maybe mid March madness after I woke up feelin’ terrible how she’d take me to emergency. I laid back down and felt better after awhile. SHE SAID I LOOKED GRAY…
*
I KEPT THINKIN’, wearin’ my IBEW stocking cap, that I looked old and tired. There were wrinkles on my face and sometimes I’d splash my face with cold water, hoping to chase them away. EVEN KATH SAID I WAS LOOKIN’ like I was goin’ down hill fast.
3/27/2004 10:15:12 AM
4/3/2004 8:11:28 AM
4/3/2004 8:40:50 AM
k’s getting’ ready for track, allie of the new spikes is still sleepig
ben delay was by, with a full ride to Kansas State. I hope he’s mature enough to handle all the pressure but Kath says he’s been invited internationally, been invited to NYC, and therefore takes off on a great career
BACK TO CLASS
As usual I’m a week behind shy, a couple bricks shy of a full load. That means that I don’t have the lesson we’re working on, lesson 59, a quite important one in that there’s some difficult times making the loads equal, equivalent resistance.
And then I saw Clyde’s procedure, moving chalk quickly about the blackbord, for parceling out the loads. But for me it takes time and it’s hard to match up where they go. I have trouble paying attention, wondering where I’ll be sent when I go back to work, dreading the thought of returning to Pig Palace, despite a curious affinity I’d attained with the greasy dull basement walls, the slow gurling of the hog remains as it descended in a dull yellow swirl into the gutter such that, when the day’s kill was done, the smell of burnt carcass in the air, that, as I mentioned before, you do grow used to, but once you were away, it was a dull purgatory you cared not to belong to, or very much cared to return to.
12/28/2006 6:22:05 AM I also notice I got a note from a teacher—please cover:
2nd hr. 315 please cover.This is stapled on og, 402 of 453 page manual that is broken down from Section 1 to Section 11.
Millard North
March 24th
This is in yellow sticky notes that’s pasted on pg. 402 of the NJATC (National Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee) 2nd hr. 315 please cover.
Now I’m thinkin’ what school this could be? Well, I think it’s just a study hall in the upper floor of Millard North Mustangs. Here’s what I wrote:
I missed you this morning Sue in large black thing that was almost a folder
Well, now I see the name is Sue. She’s the head secretary at Millard West. I always think she’s phony. Full of pretense and, like the blonds of Millard Area, filled with pretense like a stuffed balloon. Like half athletic, very blond, half good looking such that they’ve been looked at over the years. And so have learned to vote repelican and evoke a phony smile.
So it was Millard West I was at that day:
The drama in the classroom. She didn’t know I was watching her watching them. And then finally asked for a prom date like what she should say
No anything better than going stag
“I mean I’m gonna be an attendant.”
So they grabbed a pass from library three of them rushed to do their bidding: and then he came in the door.
Wow, now I remember. It was at a high school. The girl, fairly attractive, if slightly edging more towards homely, was so perplexed. Here was prom coming up and she didn’t have a date. And, to top things off, she was an attendant. So, stewed and worried she had to have a date. I mean, come on.
So now I see that it maybe wasn’t secretary Sue. Sue Secretary. Well, maybe it was. And these were two different comminques between adults and teeny boppers.
What is all the way neat and striking is that this on page 402, ilke I said, of the NJACTC . these are, for me, complicated questions. This book was set up by Jim Paladino. Clyde, our fearless instructor who will say, from time to time “You guys are electrical geniuses.” Half mocking, half jest but I for sure know that there are a couple of the folks really getting it. They might’ve had a little background in electricity. Let’s look at the first question on the page, below the title above p. 402 NJATC First Year Inside Apprenticeship
Let’s go then, you and I, to question one. Of course, through this time, I’m thinking how many folks said I was close to expiration date. And, like always, if perhaps now a bit more pronounced, a little bit of a look at mortality. Which, indeed, I’d pretty much forgotten about. So blissfull am I in my selfsame consideration of my toil with the weights with the climbing, at work, the stairways at the UP building. Well, let’s stop at 13, shall we? And then I’d carry on, higher and higher to the lightening building, to the lightening day. So, while I didn’t want to admit it, and had to restrain myself, I was getting older. What did Deshler Ironworker say, “Too slow for his dough.”
Okay, question #2. of course, when I look at my notes, I see that they are everywhere. I always had a little crib sheet that I’d stick in my pocket and go over. I remember when the shack for the IBEW was on the 3rd floor, Tim, who’d I’d inevitably sit next to, one time said, “so are you studying your notes?” I informed him that, since I started six weeks behind the other apprentices, there were three tests I had to make up. as well as keep up with the regular course work. Well, clyde said that Jim Paladino, at the national conference, commanded a lot of respect. The manuals and texts, Clyde said, some of the other locals never had any of it. Such that electricians out of other halls could not do some of the necessary work. Whereas ours was form a larger spectrum.
2. In the diagram below, show the direction of electron flow through the load and give the polarity markings for the load.
SO I’M PRETTY WEAK IN THAT
TELL US A STORY, I’M ORDERED. It’s my day back in class. I look over in the middle section of the room and see female apprentice Brooke. She always gets high marks in the test but I heard she had to go before the committee as her production was low. (At the time, sitting next to Ryan, I merely shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t until a few weeks I came back after back that I had to see the committee.) I cleared my throat. I know she’s had some college, seemed literate enough, so it was my careful explantion I more or less was addressing to her.
SO I tell about my Sunday when things were going untoward and went to emergency and kept me overnight then operated the next day. The brothers and sisters’ faces, chapped from a cold March day, looked at me patiently. A mild degree of interest, like an electric light, flickering over their counteance. 12/28/2006 12:13 PM
There was not much concern, not much comment but then I told how Paul Leuke came down and there was this huge donation from the electrician’s in Fremont, the electrician’s downtown. And the carpenters and the ironworkers. I can’t believe all the cards I got, a gift certificate to Barnes N Noble, a family meal at Applebe’s, Mary coming by and dropping off some balloons, hopping I’ll soon get better.
I hastily scribbled and scrambled notes, tryin’ to remember how it all should be applied.
I was just glad to make it through class though I still am remiss in how to do the work and am not helped in the least because I don’t have the answers to apply to the lesson and thus am even further behind and down.. of course, I was making an excuse why I was late on my assignments. Why I couldn’t carry the load with the class, this their failing circuit, this their weakest link.
Clyde said “you should’ve been here Thursday because that’s the day they really went over it with a fine-toothed comb. I thought of Bullet Bob’s advice that I should stay with my daughters.
BUT, FOR ALL IN ALL, I’M GLAD we made it through March madness:
And I JUMP BACK INTO SUB LAND.
4/3/2004 9:04:14 AM
4/13/2004 6:39:32 AM
AND NOW WE’RE IN THE SUB LAND AGAIN.
It’s really the best job—I can work on my notes and study for my class and print out a couple pages of my book.
EPIPHANY doesn’t have the same thrust as it did last year: I guess because I was published in the w-h.
I KEPT THINKIN’ HOW I NEEDED to call JAMES JEREMY BUT FORGOT to get the number from mom: it’s a great an fabulous celebration, the resurrection. I guess I just wanted him to know that dear old dad dodged another bullet.
And I THINK OF THE QUIP I SHOULD’VE inserted when they were all saying grace and Mom gave the final attachment, “and happy Ronnie is here with us.” Following our family trek to church. I thought a little bit later it would’ve been a great in join by saying “he has risen.”
I DIDN’T WALK THRU Hubbard confines but saw their was a John “Jack” Heeney park. Ever since the folks donated their money to the Parish Center and had dedication to Grandpa Cahill/Grandma Cahill…Grandpa Hartnett/Grandma Hartnett there’s been a flurry of dedications. Well, actually, there’s one—to Joe McKivergan that’s on Calvary Cemetary.
REHAB HAS started with all it’s respective bells and whistles. I was intro to Paul but after a couple exchanges Friday, he and I didn’t exchange any yesterday because he’s pretty caught up in his situation—some other surgery he has to undergo in a short time. But he’s not liking to talk much to anyone there’s mostly a lot of old people around.
IT FELT GOOD MONDAY to see Paul Saunders, Mwest track coach and talk a little bit about Allie’s running.
I said how she was prob’ly the fastest 800 runner in the state. This I said to the folks and the others and they were glad and happy for Alie, for the family.
“she has such raw talent” is what Dad said at the kitchen table. “Mollies had about 200 games I don’t know what that coach didn’t know what she was doing but kept running the same plays.”
It was the Central gal’s first time coaching. She didn’t know what was up.
DOCTOR WON’T LET ME GO BACK TO WORK. I SAID, WELL, THAT MEANS I HAVE TO KEEP WRITING.
4/25/2004 10:25:04 AM
well, not really. Now my chief concern was that I was almost summoned from the grave. That is the small device that is a small shunt was almost blocked and so nurse Mary said I was darn close.
And then A TRIP TO HARRAH’S SHOWS ME THAT THERE WERE THREE HILLER VANS THERE.
AFFIXES DID SHE WITH A SERIOUS DEMENOUR: THAT IS get your monthly report in. I’m shy am I not, of a few hours to get my first raise. It’ll be interesting to see September who is in the new class. And if they’ll surpass me in the number of hours.
YOU GOT YOUR ANGELS WORKING OT.
WITHOUT PAY WITHOUT BENEFITS.
It was my saints up there, the two Mikes, Grandparents, Jack Heeney who pulled me through.
5/29/2004 9:32:11 AM
this is such an update.
“Hold him by the hand” is what I think Matt was saying. He was addressing Hunter. Who had expressed a tad bit of reservations about the young dude who just got past his 5 years of apprenticeship and then took a trip to Chicago to participate in his fiance’s up and coming graduation from Med School. He said he didn’t’pass the test. He took it again in march in Norfolk. “I worked for four hours and didn’t think I made it, just walked away and said ‘whatever.’ But then I found out I gotta 92.
So he’s on the verge of being sworn into the union.
It was his last day, this first day in May 3. Yes, I think the next day would be my last day, too. I see Rick got taken off the Harrah’s job and then, that next Friday, I could stand it no longer. I think Rick, the very first journeyman I’d worked with, way back back in October, at Gold’s Gym, was sent to Pig Palace.
BENEFITS AND PICNICS AND SOFTBALL GAMES, 30 years revisited: this is the benefit softball game they had for me. And yes, this was all documented and recorded. That issue of the South Sioux City Star, it was a post game pix of the comely wife and me.
So I sped up to Fremont. You are first in notice of the smell.
“yeah, they’ll be in later. You’re too early. I see the place where I park caution taped off. So I parked in a slightly different place. First it was Jeff Elsasser. He quickly turned on the lights. Here I was just standing in the light that was above where Tony has his desk. It’s not really a desk, but just an area where he figures and calculates stuff.
Like a dummy, I didn’t now how to turn the switch on. Overhead, you could year the low rumbling of pig’s heads coming down the shoot.
EVENTUALLY, THEY ALL STARTED SHOWING UP. And I saw Rick, formerly displaced from Harrah, as I was the day later after last Monday, May 4, 2004. which means it was Tuesday and Dan Cox said ‘we couldn’t find a home for ya.” And then he presented me with two checks. And, of course, I received the ceremonial ride back to my pickup truck—with two other electricians whom I think were from Lincoln—crowded in the material-crowded section of the industrial van, leaning, I was, on a roll of wire.
ANDNOW WE HAVE IT ALL—THE two checks from the ironworkers, the two checks 30 years later from the electricians…and a ride to my vehicle after the benefit softball game, the pig roast on the other.
On the day no pigs would die.
3/24/2006 8:12:20 AM