A Taunting

I remember a really good story teller from my younger days who could make my hair stand up with her ghost stories and tall tales. She was mother to a friend of mine when we were guitar players dreaming of fame.

One night when she was walking home after visiting a nearby nieghbor, we dicided to hide in a late summer garden alongside the road, to see if we could rattle the great rattler.

As she walked by, we tossed corn cobbs into the road and made noises, which she ignored at first. After a couple more attempts to get a rise from her, she stopped, turned to face the garden, and took one step forward, pulling a 10-inch butcher knife from her purse.

"C'mon out, ye sons-o-bitches!" she scowled. "I'll cut yer guts out!"

We came out...the other side of the garden...running.

Careful who you mess with.

Sprung

Back around July of 1971, my older brother and I went to the Marion Jail to visit a friend of his who was, at that time, a guest of the County. The old jailhouse, having been built in 1901, was a bleak environment of stone and iron bars and in every respect, a bad place to be.

It was the heat of the summer that found us standing beside an open second floor window where a slight breeze might be felt coming through the bars. The window sash had been cocked to stay up because the sash wieghts no longer held the window.

At some point I leaned on the window sill which displaced four or five molecules of the window frame, just enough to send the sash crashing down in a shower of flying glass.

The Jailor and his Deputy came running up the stairs in typical SWAT team fashion, to get to the bottom of what he might have thought was a failed jail break. We explained the situation which seemed to suffice but the less than amused Jailor proclaimed that our visit was officially over.

That's right.

We were kicked out of jail.

The Beast

This was as far as I was going to go. I knew this moment would come, and that the outcome was inevitable, so it would be here, that I would be forced to make a stand.
From the deepest part of the woods, it had come. Every other creature that roams the night had fallen silent, even the dogs were strangely quiet, perhaps knowing that this was way out of their league.
It gave a low, rumbling growl, the kind you felt as well as heard. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I felt a numbing cold and became acutely aware of every other small noise in the house. A great breathe exhaled outside as the weight of something large pressed heavily on the wall and the door.
My eyes were drawn to the top of the door where the panels were beginning to bulge and crack. The sound of enormous claws raked the woodwork as it quickly became enraged. I knew that the old door would not stop it and I braced.
Suddenly the door panels gave way as I reached for my last line of defense, holding it out in front of me, my thumb quickly pressed down. For a moment the room went dark and then…
“And now, your Local on the 8s. The temperature for your area is 62 degrees under partly cloudy skies…”

Just a Pair of Pliers

Manufacturing today is all about “team” with sometimes little regard to what is practical, logical or simply the right thing to do.

Over the years, I have made several trips to a particular out of state factory to assist with mechanical problems of one kind or another. On one such occasion, having finished with the designated business at hand, I mingled around the production work areas exchanging ideas and discussing procedures.
It was then that I noticed the operators were using the same pliers as was used in our processes, but with one small difference. I had modified our pliers to make them spring return after closing, a convenient feature not available in this particular type of pliers at that time.
I mentioned this to one of the operators, who thought this might be helpful and less fatiguing in the long run. She produced an extra pair which I carried to the maintenance shop and proceeded to install the spring feature.
The maintenance people I had been working with, had retired to their perches in the shop, leaned back with feet up on the work bench, awaiting the next reactive call. Blatant, I thought, but still, none of my business.
Anyway, it was a simple task. I drilled a small hole through one handle near the hinge and halfway through the other. I inserted a small compression spring through the hole and drove a spring pin in behind it. In ten minutes I was done.
The operator liked the pliers and two other operators requested the modification. I added the spring to these and later, at the hotel, drew up instructions for the maintenance guys to follow-up with pliers on the other shifts.
Months later, on a return visit for a different mechanical problem, the operators informed me that the maintenance people had opted out of making the pliers modification. Fine, I thought, however, I was completely perplexed when they told me of their reasoning.
It seems they had formed a team of people to evaluate the conversion. They had produced parts estimates, man-hour estimates, with full color displays on charts and graphs, all meticulously prepared to convince themselves that this modification was a total waste of time and resources, unlike, of course, the time spent fabricating the detailed report itself.
Furthermore, they believed they could purchase the pliers, with this feature, cheaper than they could make the change.
Remember, this is just a pair of pliers, but of the type that wasn’t going to be found on the market with spring return, and they knew that. We had already looked and I had told them. But the issue, as far as they were concerned, was closed.
The team had spoken.
Unbound by this impediment, I reworked several more pairs of pliers before I headed for home, knowing that this team directed workforce was destined to litigate itself to a standstill.
The factory later closed for unrelated reasons.

Adventure in E.R.

Yesterday, while working on some kind of crap from the production area in the maintenance shop, I ran into a little problem. I had just put a purely professional weld on something and was moving around the end of the table when my hand snagged on something.
You know all those little weld wires that tend to accumulate on the table from every body's little "habitual pre-test" before welding? Looks like a porcupine from hell, right?
Well, I found one. At first I figured that I just had another cut. Cuts help form calluses. My hands look like feet. So big deal, another cut.
Not this time. Sticking out of my right hand little finger was about 1/8 inch of MIG wire. "Hmmn," I thought. "This is different".
I walked back to my wood carry-around box in the production area and fished out my needle nose pliers to perform an extraction. Wouldn't budge. Then I noticed that there was a little protrusion on the opposite side of the finger, almost through the skin. Entry was just below the second knuckle on the palm side and would have come out between first and second knuckle had it passed through. I felt like ignoring this would be inconvenient at times as it would snag on most everything and generate an instant and appropriate audio response.
So, it was 1pm and I decided to take the afternoon off and visit the local hospital. After some expected show-and-tell amongst my constituents, the plant manager took me to the E.R.
I got checked in and placed in a small room with more than enough provisions to explore body cavities, deliver babies, and put eyes back in their sockets. I hoped they would stick to this one little finger.
They sent me to get a few 8 X 10 black and white glossy pictures on their gamma burst machine, interesting, but really couldn't see the pictures very well from across the hall where it looked like a railroad spike through a stick of bologna on their screen.
Went back to the little room with all of its torture devices and the babies screaming down the hall, where they told me that there was no barb on the wire and that it had not hit any bone.
The nurse came in and washed my hand and commented, "Is this as clean as you hands get?" My lips were fighting to contain a colorful metaphor, but I wanted a sucker, so I kept quiet. I’m a mechanic, I thought, not a pastry chef.
The Nurse Practocator came back in and presented me with the options. We could take the feeling out of it, (which really wasn't an issue as long as they left it the hell alone) by injecting it full of Don't-know-don't-care, which upon entry would feel like having your digit ripped off by hungry piranha... or she could just take her pliers and jerk it out. I had tried that but I figured that this was a "maybe" on the pain scale where the other was sure to peg the needle.
"Well, just pull it out," I said, "And I apologize now for what I may say in the next few minutes."
She left the room to get her toys...and back-up.
These two ladies took my hand and laid it out on the delivery table, latched on a small pair of hemostats to the wire just under the small weld stubble and before she could say...or think...
She popped out an inch long piece of straight weld wire.
"I want that", I said. "That's my souvenir". They thought this was funny but I had not thought to get a picture on some one's cell phone, so this, I thought was the best I could do. The Proctocator then offered the small hemostats along with 2 more pliers, a nice pair of tweezers, and a small specimen bottle with my wire sample inside.
I took 'em.
They said that's it and I prepared to leave. I asked for a telephone to call the plant to come back and get me...
That's where I goofed up.
"Oh wait, we have one more test for you". Again I struggle to keep the automated response system from kicking in.
I had not studied for the urine test but felt I had a good chance of passing it. They don't tell you your score, it's simply a pass or fail thing.
When they finally let me go, I made the phone call and sat outside in the much warmer 45 degree breeze and waited for deliverance. It was nearly 5 pm.
I have worked 38 years without a lost time accident. Oh well...
And you know, this was the second accident I'd had that day.
Oh yeah, I'll be back...

Moonlighting on the 23b

I am off work now from my regular day job till after Christmas, so my friends think I will be kicked back taking it easy. The semi-truth of it is that I will be on call Christmas Eve and the early part of Christmas day. I know several fellows around the area who do the same, working for a certain manufacturing company, specializing in seasonal overnight deliveries. This is “off the record” work, so most of the other guys try keeping it hush-hush.
While I am a small subcontractor for the company, filling a few overflow orders in my workshop, my main function for the 24th and 25th will be any late night service calls for the primary delivery system.
Kris, owner of the company and its principle driver, is for the most part, pretty self-sufficient. However, there have been a few times in the past when the equipment just breaks down and that’s when we get called.
I’ve been getting my tools ready and a few spare parts loaded up in the 23b service vehicle, mostly team harnesses and replacement runners.
We use the second and third string reindeer for the service sleighs, and this year I again drew Rude and Nasty for the 23b. Distant relatives to a few on the main delivery team, these two, unfortunately, live up to their names. Among other little tricks, they like to step on my toes while I adjust their harnesses. That little huffing sound that reindeer make is their way of not laughing out loud. Lucky for me, I need only two of these jokers for the service sleigh.
I got a call last year, not far from Adsmore when Kris snagged some power lines and hit a small TV dish, badly bending one of his sleigh runners. The runner was a quick fix but it took me some time to straighten the dish. The boss insisted that I leave no trace of damage, work in the dark and make absolutely no noise. This was not easy with Rude trying to push me off the roof and Nasty dropping my tools down the chimney.
“Now, look here, Kringle…” I started to say, but was interrupted by a half dozen picketing members of the E.L.F Union Local #1 who were still unhappy about me making toys in my shop, as the 23b began to slip off the roof right above somebody’s new car.
I quickly pulled Rude and Nasty back from the edge just as the boss cleared the treetops with his usual “HO-HO-HO!” He always has a positive outlook while doing an impossible job.
Well, I’d had enough reindeer games for one night so I picked up a grape soda at the Ideal Store, with a couple of moon pies for Rude and Nasty, circled the courthouse once and headed for home. Aside from a near miss with a flight of geese over Cadiz Street and running over my mailbox, spilling my soda, it was an otherwise ordinary night.
Anyway, I am in hopes that this year is a little better as I hear some of the B team reindeer have undergone behavioral therapy, the E.L.F. members were satisfied after reviewing a particular Claus in their contract and I now have a cup holder on the 23b.
By the way, if anyone should find a 10-inch adjustable wrench in their fireplace, it’s mine.

For the kid in all of us,
Merry Christmas!

A Lesson From Iris

My earliest recollections of Iris find her making her way down the row of school desks to find her place in the classroom. She was tall and thin in those early years of elementary school, with white-blonde poker straight hair that just touched her shoulders. I thought it odd the way she held her pencil to write, as if it has been driven through her clinched fist, as she labored to scribe her work.
Iris seemed an otherwise shy girl, speaking aloud only when schoolwork required it and never more than a few hard fought words. Her speech impediment revealed the struggles of a person fighting for the very control of every movement. With legs bracketed in hinged metal and brown leather straps, her walk was stiff, making small but noticeable balance corrections with every step.
Iris was shackled by polio.
For Iris, life on the playground was that of watching rather than playing with the others. On those rare occasions when she could participate, she gave it her best, but more often than not, found herself getting up off of the ground, brushing the grit from her bare knees. She was pretty tough in those early years, but then I guess she really had to be, because, unfortunately, kids can be cruel even when it‘s not intended.
She was in and out of school throughout the years, mostly out though, to parts unknown, only to return a year or more later.
At the end of our senior year there were three formal graduation events, one of which would pair the graduates in order of height. I was the third tallest guy in the male line-up and I could see that Iris had been situated at the other end of the girls line, having over the years been surpassed in height by nearly everyone.
At some point, it was realized that there were more girls than boys and the two lines randomly converged in a conscious attempt at a more favorable pairing.
When the shuffle had just barely settled, there, at the other end, standing alone with tears streaming down her face was Iris. It must have seemed like a cruel climax to a life long struggle to break free of her bonds and to realize the dream of being accepted by her classmates.
A hush fell over the group as the gravity of the moment quickly began to sink in, which probably seemed like a very long time for Iris, and it had been. Since the very beginning she just wanted to fit in, to be picked in kickball without being the last, to walk without being expected to run, to speak and know someone was listening because they wanted to.
At that moment, an average looking senior named Jack stepped up to her and said simply, “I’ll walk with you, Iris.”
If I learned nothing else in high school, it was that I am not the center of the Universe, that other people matter and that winning at anything is not nearly as important as simply being a part of it.
I have seen neither Iris nor Jack since school. I know Jack came out of school in good shape, as he demonstrated his firm grasp on being an adult with those few kind words.
I think often of Iris, and I’d like to think that there is a calling for everyone, and that no matter what their obstacles might be in life, there is a place of comfort and belonging for each of us.
And I hope that when it mattered the most, Iris was picked first.