Outside My Window is a Tree
Outside my window at work we have been watching men dig an immense hole. These men have begun preparing the building site of a 1000 space parking lot for my office building. Those of use who make our living crafting computer programs out of ether often find ourselves envying these guys who, despite the challenging weather conditions are able to, at the end of the day, point to something physical and say – I did that!. I’ve always said that a man with a shovel and a hole to dig was a happy man – having a job to do and the means to accomplish it. This job should take some time, so I will keep you folks posted.
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February 27, 2010 at 1:12 AM
Anyone recall A HOLE IS TO DIG with illustrations by Maurice Sendak?
February 27, 2010 at 9:06 AM
Excellent combination of audio with panorama! This takes panography into new territory. However, regarding the hole, if, after your hard labor, the accomplishment you are able to point to is a hole (empty space), where does that leave us?
The relevant part of the following comes at at 3:21: 4,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire:
February 27, 2010 at 4:29 PM
When I was young I worked as a masonary helper for Brown and Root building the Dupont Plant in Richmond. Each morning at six 1500 men and 30 women all wearing color coded hardhats, Buddy Holly safety glasses and steel toed boots marched into the job site like an army, and were searched for prohibited items (glass juice bottles etc.) and turned in our metal tag at the guard gate. Ten hours later we marched out and retrieved our tag so they could tell if anyone was missing. We worked “four tens” known as the “Cadillac of work weeks” Off every Fri. Sat and Sunday. I liked the signboard outside the jobsite with changeable numbers that read, ” 14 days without a fatal accident” (I almost caused one by tipping over a barrow full of block three stories down)
The money was good at the time for me, over 11 bucks an hour, the Union guys made much more and thought nothing of van pooling each day from as far away as Winchester. Once inside the gated job site, removing your hat, glasses or boots was an offense that would cause your dismissal. You could identify each person’s line of work by the color of their hard hat. Masonary was gray, Carpenter brown, electrical yellow,
steel workers blue etc. The safety inspectors wore gold hard hats and everyone checked their gear when we heard the word passed down the line, “Gold Hat a’coming!
The only female hardhats were electricians and one look at this posse was all it took to disabuse you of any notion of asking them on a date. The blue hats were a different breed of cat. Working slowly but methodically these wirey guys walked the high steel and had an air about them seemed to say” I don’t care who you are, don’t tread on me!” My own job was mixing mud (mortar) for the guys laying cinder block and throwing block. You grabbed a cinder block from the pallet and in one motion threw it to the next guy up the scaffolds who caught it and threw it to the next guy up. You had to be ready for that next block since it was already in the air.
Calculating the weight of each pallet I determined that I was lifting over eight tons personally on any given day. Often these guys would take one look at me and say, as some sort of insult, “You went to College didn’t you?”
The old bricklayers were a stalwart bunch who would yell at me that I was sending up soup (too thin mortar) and would sometimes and say things like, “This is how they built the Great Pyramids! A bunch of dumb fuckers!” or “See, ya gotta handle this block and mortar like you do a pussy, not too hard and not too gentle!”
I learned a lot by watching these guys and I’m a half assed stone mason myself. Quite an experience.