Down By The Seaside

Well,OK then, I'm gone to Florida for a while on a short holiday. Part of me just wants to stay home and putter around but I need to get out and do something different. Seeing the ocean and getting in the water always helps what ails you. I read once that salt water will cure anything, whether it is in the form of the sea, tears or sweat. Maybe that's true; I've tried the other two so let's see how this goes. Hope everyone out there has a great weekend. The flower is a morning glory raised from the seeds the O'Melay's sent. By the way karl, the tomatoes are wonderful too. Very tasty and I'm saving seeds.

Train Kept A-Rollin' Part 3

I really appreciate all the comments from the last posts and hope it brought up some interesting thoughts. This series of posts are just something I've been wanting to write about for something different and for that "ooh, that's kinda weird" factor. I realize some of the subject matter in the last post was pretty serious but was not meaning it to be a downer; just some things to think about. I also appreciate the fact that everyone believe in things differently and love to hear other people thoughts and experiences. You can learn a lot that way, you know. I was also curious if anyone else had ever experienced anything similar regarding repetition of events and such? As I promised, that post was just part of the whole story and maybe I can finish it tonight. The photo is obviously an old one but needed another one with a train in it!
Most of you know Allen (in a literary sense I guess) the guy I used to live with. He is a great friend still and I have known him for some time. Years ago, before I became the mighty construction worker I am now, I worked for a man that repaired pipe organs. Weird job I know. A prominent church(1) in Birmingham caught fire and we were hired to repair this organ. Very large, beautiful instrument valued at over a million dollars. A construction company was hired to restore the sanctuary where the organ resided. Enter Allen. He was the superintendent for that job. We became friends (he was married then) and he helped me get a job with the company because mine with the organ guy was a dead end. Anyway, shortly thereafter I met the guy I married and subsequently lost touch with Allen for several years. I later learned just as I was sent out of state to work, Allen also worked far and wide. After I divorced, I moved back near Birmingham and was working on another, you guessed it, church(2) for the same company. There was another, smaller church(3) across the way that I learned we were also doing some work on. Guess who was the superintendent on that job. Yep, Allen came over one day to use our dumpster and so we met once again, years later, on the steps of a church. Three churches, three cemeteries. The difference this time however, is that is was a positive experience. Allen has helped me more than I can say and I am forever grateful to him for this. Hopefully, we will start building his house soon.
Now, the most recent events and why I keep using the train imagery. Most of you know one of my recent jobs was the train house. OK, locomotive service facility! Quite a job for many reasons and we all still talk about it. When that job ended I was sent south of town to a food distribution center; lots of trucks but no trains right? My first day on the job I was walking across the site, through some semi tall grass, when I tripped over something fairly large. Yes, I do that a lot! Expecting to see some structural steel or bundles of rebar, I was shocked to see that it was a 10 foot section of railroad track! Now, most of you can imagine that stuff is heavy. You don't just drop a little rail here or there but here was this section of track, out in the middle of nowhere, that would have to be moved with a piece of heavy equipment. As I puzzled over how this could be, no railroad was visible after all, a train whistle rang out loudly in the morning air. Somewhere very close a locomotive was trudging down the tracks, blowing it's warning to any who might be near. I have been on that job since April, with the exception of 2 weeks recently, and everyday the train announces it's presence with it's long, insistent call. I am not the only one who has noticed it. The guys that worked at the railroad with me all smile and wink whenever we hear the train whistle especially loud. Oh, one other thing about this job. When it came time for me to leave the railroad job, the boss was having trouble placing me on another. We did not have much work in town at the time. "What do you want me to do?", he asked me one day. "Try David in Tennessee" , I replied. David is a super I have worked with several times in the past and has always been good to make room for me. My boss seemed surprised though. "You want to go out of town?" Well, I said no but if there was not anything else available, what choice did I have? Truth be told, I almost wanted to go out of state and forget about these damn trains and that handsome man that rode on the front and smiled down at me when he went by. "OK, I'll call David right now" and with that my boss turned and walked towards his office. Just as he reached the door his phone rang. It was our office, they had found a place for me on a Birmingham area job. I had the chance to visit with David, the boss in Tennessee, just this weekend and we were discussing the jobs and work going on. I told him about that incident. He replied that I would really have enjoyed working on his project, as it is a university, and he would have most assuredly taken me on his crew.
So, three trains now. But what for? Did it mean anything? I pondered all of this as I drove home after my last day of work at the auto plant, the site of the third train. The route was a break from the city traffic since I could go down country roads for most of the way. It is a nice drive, I was lost in my thoughts and as I just started to crest a slight hill, which I realized then was actually a bridge, a train whistle rang out loudly. I looked down and over just in time to see the now familiar, black locomotives emerge from below, snaking their way on north.

Train Kept A-Rollin' Part 2

I have been wanting to write about some unusual things that have occurred lately and in my distant past to see if anyone can relate to such things. I believe these events are really bizarre and wonder have other people experienced such things. So, bear with me as I will write a short series of posts relating these things to you. I know I tend to see significance in everything; I don't believe in coincidence, but some people see only facts. I would like to hear both opinions.


A few posts back I wrote about the sudden thunderstorms that came up one day while I was working at the auto plant job. The photo above is what I saw as I was leaving the site that day. I had noticed the tracks the first day on the job but the significance of the whole thing did not really hit me until this day, my next to last. The road out of the site runs along parallel to the tracks for a piece and as I drove along, my mind was gradually drawn into the distant past just as I watched the rails slowly vanish into the point on the horizon. I found myself thinking back to the short period of time, over a decade ago, when I was officially somebody's wife.
In my late 20's I had married a man I had met through my work. Despite having several things in common, we were ill suited for each other and it was a very unpleasant experience. At the time I met him I was still reeling from the sudden death of my oldest brother. As the youngest of four children, I had always looked up to my brother as an example of success, both academically and professionally. When he suddenly wanted to move back to Birmingham and share an apartment with me I gladly said yes, we would get to spend some time together which I missed from our childhood. Unknown to all of us though, he had gotten himself into an enormous amount of trouble, financially and professionally and was only using the convenience of my home as a resting point until he made his decision. Several months later, when some things were beginning to look suspect to us, he decided it was time and took his own life. I was the last one to speak to him.
So, from there I went down hill for a time. You know how you meet some people in life that just seem to live here and there, not seeming to have any thought of tomorrow? Old construction workers say those types, "don't care which way the wind blows" and I didn't. I didn't care what happened to me, so when I met this man, he seemed like a good diversion. And he was. We got married rather quickly, and as I found out later, it was because he couldn't hold out being nice much longer. He was not physically abusive but was in every other way. A cold, manipulative human but I had willingly married him and tried to make the best of it for 3 years. I told a good friend of mine years later that it may have actually been a good thing that he was that way because he pissed me off. I was in the throes of a horrible depression myself and it was going to take something severe to shake me from it. With a kind man I might have laid there forever but with this guy constantly kicking me while I was down, so to speak, a rage built up in me to the point that I didn't care (in a good way this time) what occurred, I was going to be free and happy once again. Now, some people might see that as me just trying to justify such a horrible mistake, and maybe it is, but it makes sense to me. So, one day I packed my bags and like that old blues song says, "I left there running 'cause walking was much too slow." One of the worst parts of that time was the fact that we worked together, so there was rarely a break from his oppression. Day in and day out for 3 years. I often thought to myself that if I did not get away from him, some part of me would die; my soul, my spirit, something.
Now, the point of me sharing all of this with you is this: every job I worked with him on, as husband and wife, there was a cemetery connected to the job. I mean, literally within the bounds of the site. In fact, on one job where we were surveying in the boundaries of the site, through a heavily overgrown, wooded area, I actually stumbled over the headstones. After the third job like this I took notice. At no time since then have I been on another job where there were graves. Was someone trying to tell me something or was all the bad energy from our union manifesting in these events? Or just a weird coincidence?
To be continued......

Roadhouse Blues

I showed ya'll a photo of myself all dressed up but this is what I look like most of the time. I was a little dirtier than usual because we got to play rodbuster all day at work and that is a very grimy job. The rebar is covered with some kind of black gunk that gets all over you. I was trying to show how dirty my arms were but I don't think it shows much. No wonder I'm single! No man in his right mind would get near that. This was taken Thursday, the last day of a very hard week. Ten hours a day in the heat is very hard and I had a small spat with one of the foremen at the end of the day also so that just completed one tiring week. I try to always be cheerful and get along with everyone at work but he just pushed my buttons and we were all dog tired too, so I kinda had a small "come apart" as one of my buddies would say. I have been eagerly accepted by most all the men that I work with and they treat me great but this one has never liked me being there and takes every opportunity to criticize me. He will never give me credit for anything. So, yesterday he accuses me of always getting the easy work and avoiding the hard stuff. Anybody that has ever worked with me knows that I will do the crap jobs willingly and always try to pull my own weight. In fact, I was going to leave a gravy job for him and his crew and move over to the next panel to start one of the harder processes. So when he starts running his mouth he pissed me off. I was very proud that I did not cuss him but I did tell him, (kinda loudly, oops) and in no uncertain terms what I thought about his attitude and his role as foreman. All the other men got real quite. I guess I shouldn't have gotten so mad. Oh yeah, we now have to wear those stupid, neon yellow shirts because somebody thought that would keep us from getting ran over on the job sites. As a matter of fact, I spoke to my Mom this past week and she was telling me about a young man getting crushed by piece of heavy equipment just the other day on a job in her area. She always tells me about anything like this she sees. I just try not to say too much about the jobs I work on. She would freak if she saw some of the stuff we do.
The title of this post just refers to my frustration at having gotten so little done on my house these past 2 months. I have not been able to get anywhere as far as building goes. This place just seems like a stop in the road where I come to bath and sleep for a little while. I don't even eat here much. Anyway, I was really looking forward to my new 3-day weekends; get a lot done, ya know. Then Wednesday I get this call. I did the restoration on the structure you see in the photo above about 5 years ago. The committee that oversees it calls me in a panic; it has been damaged by lightning; huge chunks blown out of it and they've got people wanting to get married up here in less than 2 months. Can I please come look at it and give them an estimate on repair? So, there goes my 3-day weekends for the next while.
I've got lots of stuff coming in from the garden now and would like to preserve some of it and need to beat back the weeds and brambles too. Last weekend I helped Allen mow around Fred's place etc. and had to tend to my land and garden some, so that cut house time short. Maybe I should just relax some on the house until the end of August. That's not good though because then I have no house news to blog about and I know ya'll get tired of my work posts. I do have some bizarre events that I have been wanting to write about, perhaps I could fill in with some of that. I'm all confounded about exterior stain colors too. Thanks for all the suggestions by the way. They were all appreciated and have given me some ideas.
So, as I sit here and write I have been listening to the Doors. If they can't get you in a cool groove nobody can and Roadhouse Blues has always been a favorite.

*The Doors

One Way Or Another

Well, I don't know... I don't think I like it. What do you think? I thought maybe the rafter tails and soffit etc. should all be the sage green. But the rafter tails are such a nice shape that I kind of like them to stand out a little. Looking at it today I thought maybe it's not bad. Hmmm. I hate trying to decide something like this. I'm not making a lot of progress still on the house. I have moved back to the Birmingham job that I was on and they have gone to four 10 hours days so there is not time for much of anything when I get home. I will have 3 weekend days to work here at the house for a while though, so maybe I will pick up the pace some. The 10 hour days in the heat are quite exhausting and I just flop out when I come home. This is one of those times in my life that I think, "what the hell am I doing this kind of work for, am I nuts?"
I get up about 3:30 in the morning, have some coffee, and pack my lunch etc. i eat a little breakfast on the way to work. It is customary for us to get to work at least 20 minutes early. Some bosses consider you late if you are not there 10-15 minutes before start time. You are supposed to have your hands on your tools at 6:00 a.m. We work non-stop until 9:00, when we get a 15 minute break. Then work on until 12:00. 30 minute lunch. We also get a short break at 3:00 since we are on 10's and then get tools up about 10 minutes before time to go. We started pouring the tilt-up panels today. I'll show some of that because it is very cool. Well, I know ya'll probably think, "yeah, right"! By the time I get home it is time to eat a little, shower and go to bed. I guess it's a good thing right now that I don't have a spouse or family. They would not see me much. I try to at least walk through my garden for a few minutes at sundown.
Well, gotta go to bed.

*Blondie

With A Little Help From My Friends

I hate to use such an old photo from another job but I was not able to get any new ones during my short tour of duty at the The Hole. That is what we pretty much called the place due to the fact that the footings and foundations were so big that they basically dug a hole about 30 feet deep and just started forming and pouring at the bottom, working their way up. Of course, on sites now all holes over 5 feet deep must be stepped or sloped to certain degrees so it was not just straight down, therefore, you basically end up with something that looks like a crater. Taking photos on jobs is becoming a challenge now also. The days of just showing up on a site with your tools and going to work are about over. Often times, a whole day of prep work is required in order to be able to work a certain site; orientations, drug test, safety training and background/security checks are the name of the game. I have such a collection of ID badges now I have to double check when I go to a new job and make sure the correct one is attached to my hardhat. Security cameras watch us constantly while we work and any picture taking by us lowly field personnel is highly frowned upon. Not by the company I work for necessarily but by the people we build for. God forbid, some rival company see what their footings look like.

It was a very interesting project though and I almost wish I could have stayed to see what we were forming finally be poured. It will probably take them another week or so to finish the formwork. I'm used to your kind of standard 8" thick walls and stick forming everything. This work was so large they used prefabbed steel forms that had to be set with a crane. The walls are 2' thick and 18' tall. I did get to build a block out though and do some other formwork. A block out is a form that you set inside the main form to "block out" an area where the concrete will not go. When the form is wrecked out you are left with a void of a certain size (hopefully) in which you place doors or windows etc. and so they are about the size of a standard door or window. Some are very small for sump pits etc. This block out was over 18' long, 7' tall and 4' thick and so had to be set in place with a crane. It was the neatest thing.

The photo above is also evidence of one of the nicest jobs I have worked on. We got spoiled on that one. What I mean is, no mud (the railroad likes gravel), shade at lunch time and long, straight walls. The Hole was a little different. It was dry when I went out there but this past week we got some rain. Now, we need it and so no one wanted to complain but it makes for rough conditions sometimes. I was working in one of the Smaller Holes, only 5' deep, forming pile caps 16'x7'x4' deep on Thursday when we noticed the dark clouds forming to the south and west. The occasional flash of light amongst the clouds made us hurry a little and keep one eye on the approaching storm. The only thing nice about a thunderstorm at work is gentle gusts of cool air that precede the rain and they felt like heaven on this day. We were all soaked to our knees from the heat and humidity and down in the holes, it was suffocating. The flashes of light were getting closer and the accompanying thunder claps were now clearly audible above all the rumblings of the machinery and generators. Suddenly, an enormous lightning bolt plummeted straight down with such force, it rattled the windows in the crane sitting scarcely 15 feet from me, it's boom fully extended skyward. After I regained my composure somewhat, I peeped out of my hole and realized we were all surrounded by nothing but lightning rods; the crane, the endless rows of vertical rebar all pointing to the sky. All the guys in the Smaller Holes or above ground were bailing out, running for the tool sheds as the smattering of rain started. One crew that had started to pour concrete continued on though. They were at least away from most of the steel, next to the main building. As we gathered in the tool sheds, the boss informed us that the storm would pass over shortly; the piers they had started on must be poured out so that a heavier downpour would not deposit layers of mud inside the forms and under the rebar. True to the boss's words, the storm passed over in a matter of minutes and we all went back to work, now slogging around in Smaller, Muddy Holes. There is nothing quite like Alabama red clay. It is almost like it has a life of it's own, clinging to everything it touches in a determined effort to draw anything living down to it's level. Many a man has had his boots stripped off his feet in the struggle to free himself from this slimy adversary. Scarcely an hour had passed however, when the next storm hit, this time with very little lightning but a lot of rain. As luck would have it, the concrete crew poured out right as the rain started and managed to get everything covered as well. Something about having been in this business for so long told us this one was going to last though, so shutting everything down and gathering our tools, we headed for the sheds again, hoping for an official rain out. You know that you've got a good crew when you can cram 15 guys in each shed, all soaked to the bone and covered in mud, trying to get tools put up and still laughing and cutting up with each other, proud that they got the job done despite the conditions. We did not let the fact that it was almost quitting time anyway deflate our good mood when the boss said we could all go home.

The next day was my last one as promised. My other boss had called the day before to confirm that I would be coming back to his job this Monday, so there were lots of 'good-bye for now' hugs and collective 'we love yous'. Don't tell anybody though 'cause it would ruin the guys reputations as big, tough construction workers for people to know what gooshy marshmallows they are! There's a lot of days though, when it's 100 degrees or 25 and we crawl up out of some mud hole, tired and sore, if it wasn't for each other, we'd say the hell with this...let somebody else build these things. I only hope I encourage and help the guys as much as they do me.

*The Beatles or Joe Cocker

Little Wing

I found this fellow on the fence around my garden the other day. I have no idea what species or anything so don't look to me for any kind of ID. I would call him furry moth because he really had hair or something on his back that looked just like rabbit's fur in it's coloration etc. I really wanted to pet him because he looked so soft but knew he wasn't going to like that so I left him alone.

Work on my house has just about come to a standstill lately due to the heat and humidity here. The brief afternoon coolness we were enjoying a week or two ago has vanished and been replaced by sweltering heat so heavy, it literally seems to weigh on your body like a damp, clammy blanket. Of course, work at the job goes on regardless and despite warnings from the weather stations to stay inside during the hottest part of the day but you can bet by the time I get home I don't feel like doing a whole lot outside. We are accumulating a large crew at this new job and several of the carpenters have been on inside jobs for some time. We are not given any chance to acclimate to a new job in situations like this so some of them are having a bit of a rough time this week. I will try to get some photos of the job just because the formwork is so big and I have actually never worked on one like this before. There are so many carpenters on this job that is amounting to a reunion of sorts for me. They are all a great bunch of guys and some that I have not worked with in years, so that part is fun and, of course, lots and lots of stories and catching up to do! Stay cool if you can!

*Jimi Hendrix