Bull Gang to Dog Gang
When I was in college my Dad worked in management at a cement plant. In the summer they employed college kids as general laborers. The plant was outside of the Quad Cities about 10 minutes south east along the Mississippi river. on the way to Muscatine. The quarry that produced the limestone was directly across the highway from the plant. My Dad was in charge of plant maintenance - his crew kept things running. At the time that I was there a wet process was used to make cement. The limestone was dynamited and moved over to big water filled slurry tanks on the other side of the road. The muddy slurry was piped over to the kilns where it was heated and dried and from there it went to the cooler room where huge containers shook the hot pieces of dried sludge back and forth. Then it went to the mill room where clinker balls rolled through it to mix it into powder. The general labor crew was called the bull gang. They were the bottom of the employee pool. There were welders, chemists, silo and scale operators, machinists, heavy equipment operators, dynamite specialists for the quarry, control room operators, rail yard operators, scale technicians, bag machine operators, and the people that drove the dust collectors. The college kids, we were on the bull gang crew and we wore the green hard hats. Managers were white hats, welders yellow - I can't remember who got blue and red....
I rode to work with my dad. One summer, I was 18, my first summer working at the plant, my dad, my brother and I all rode together to and from work. Scott and I were both in college and both working at the plant. We would leave by 6am. I would often set my clothes out the night before and wake up as late as possible. I would slip into them like a fire fighter getting dressed for a fire, but without the urgency. I had steel toed boots from my dad. He got several pairs a year so Scott and I always had a good pair of broken in Red Wings. Without waking up I would crawl into our small powder blue Pinto, straight stick. I remember my Dad always had a mug of coffee, one of those big plastic gas station mugs, but filled with coffee from home, and he would open a pack of Kool's having a smoke on the way into the plant. I can still hear the flick of the bic lighter and the ignition of the butane. Whoever was in the front seat would shift for my Dad as he sipped his coffee and inhaled his cigarette. Whoever was in the back seat could snooze a bit. I have fond memories of the smell of coffee and cigarettes from the ride into the plant. There were landmarks on the way into the plant, old buildings and river boats and an old barn that was collapsing on itself. Each day we would watch the corn and soy beans grow. You could tell how much of the summer had gone by by the height of the corn. Things were green until you drove into the plant and then the world took on a surreal black and white and gray view. It was an old plant that was always running - squeaking and moving and hot and dusty.
The women's crew had a bathroom in the basement of the main building in chemistry lab. Women were still a new concept to the labor crew but we were there. There was one single bathroom stall and no showers. The guys had a big bathroom - mulitple stalls and showers. We had some very funny times at the plant and some very hot days and a couple of dangerous days. The women were always trying to lose weight so we never ate more than a piece of fruit in front of each other. One day, just for fun I weighed myself in the morning and again when I got home - I had lost six pounds. We would sweat a lot. When you work general labor you pretty much go where the clean up is needed. The plant was very old and so there was a lot of leaking equipment hence a lot of clean up that needed to be done. I still have a scar from burning cinders that fell on me from the cooler room machinery - we were only allowed to work there for 4 hours a day due to the conditions. It was loud and very hot and the coolers had leaks so as they would shake back and forth, the hot material inside would drop down on top of you. We had to wear long sleeved shirts, a towel to cover your neck, a dust mask and ear plugs. Cinders would drop into your shirt and burn your skin before you could shake them out. You couldn't hear or talk so I would make up games to play in my head to get through the day. We shoveled piles from one location out to an open area where a bobcat could come in and pick it up. Literally, four hours of moving about 10 feet back and forth with shovels full of dust. That song 100 bottles of beer on the wall really only takes about 5 minutes to get all the way through - don't ask me how I know. One of my favorite places to work was on top of the silos. The silos were about 14 stories tall. The view was incredible, you could see all the way to Illinois-LOL! We would carry jackhammers, shovels and sunscreen up to the top of the silos. The cement when being transferred from one silo to another would seep out of the pipe where the gaskets were old and it would get wet and then get hard - like concrete. Our job was to jackhammer it loose and throw it off the top of the silos to the ground. Sometimes we would play games - wheelbarrow races down the middle of the silos or try to hit targets as we threw debris off to the ground. A whistle would sound whenever there was a blast going off at the quarry and we would watch from the edge of the silos as it exploded and blew up the limestone. One day we had to move a bulldozer across the highway from the quarry to the plant. The bulldozer had big metal grates on its track that were hard on the highway so our job was to put tires down on the road. under the tracking as the bulldozer went across. OMG we laughed as we raced from the back to the front with a tire while the bulldozer stopped traffic.
Some days I really miss this kind of work. The kind of work that you could punch out from at the end of the day. The kind of work that rarely comes home with you. A job where I was tired and hungry and felt strong at the end of the day. I don't have that kind of job today. I have to work to let go of my work now. I bring my laptop home, log in or check my blackberry. I am never done. Gromit and Chewie have no time for that laptop. When I get home and they wag their tails and bark at me, I put down my bags and grab some of that happiness. They bring me into a moment. Chewie has never shoveled but he knows about moving dirt - I can almost fit in the hole he dug in our back yard. When we load up and get into the car and head to the dog park my shoulders relax I know that all I have to worry about is how far I can throw a ball, keeping Gromit in check and picking up dog shit. I don't even have to talk to anyone. I can look up at Gromit way far away as he sniffs a great spot in the grass and I can whistle at him and he looks up at me, I hold my arms apart and he comes racing at me - just happy to run to me. I don't have to do anything but just be there with them and they are happy. We walk around lazily enjoying the view. Like the cement plant I am part of a crew and we have fun and sometimes we get dirty and sometimes we get tired and on occasion we play some games. Every once in a while I have a cup of coffee in my hand as I drive to the dog park. I half expect Gromit to shift for me - but then I remember, I don't smoke and more importantly I have an automatic car and don't need any extra hands. I am at one with the Dog Gang!
I rode to work with my dad. One summer, I was 18, my first summer working at the plant, my dad, my brother and I all rode together to and from work. Scott and I were both in college and both working at the plant. We would leave by 6am. I would often set my clothes out the night before and wake up as late as possible. I would slip into them like a fire fighter getting dressed for a fire, but without the urgency. I had steel toed boots from my dad. He got several pairs a year so Scott and I always had a good pair of broken in Red Wings. Without waking up I would crawl into our small powder blue Pinto, straight stick. I remember my Dad always had a mug of coffee, one of those big plastic gas station mugs, but filled with coffee from home, and he would open a pack of Kool's having a smoke on the way into the plant. I can still hear the flick of the bic lighter and the ignition of the butane. Whoever was in the front seat would shift for my Dad as he sipped his coffee and inhaled his cigarette. Whoever was in the back seat could snooze a bit. I have fond memories of the smell of coffee and cigarettes from the ride into the plant. There were landmarks on the way into the plant, old buildings and river boats and an old barn that was collapsing on itself. Each day we would watch the corn and soy beans grow. You could tell how much of the summer had gone by by the height of the corn. Things were green until you drove into the plant and then the world took on a surreal black and white and gray view. It was an old plant that was always running - squeaking and moving and hot and dusty.
The women's crew had a bathroom in the basement of the main building in chemistry lab. Women were still a new concept to the labor crew but we were there. There was one single bathroom stall and no showers. The guys had a big bathroom - mulitple stalls and showers. We had some very funny times at the plant and some very hot days and a couple of dangerous days. The women were always trying to lose weight so we never ate more than a piece of fruit in front of each other. One day, just for fun I weighed myself in the morning and again when I got home - I had lost six pounds. We would sweat a lot. When you work general labor you pretty much go where the clean up is needed. The plant was very old and so there was a lot of leaking equipment hence a lot of clean up that needed to be done. I still have a scar from burning cinders that fell on me from the cooler room machinery - we were only allowed to work there for 4 hours a day due to the conditions. It was loud and very hot and the coolers had leaks so as they would shake back and forth, the hot material inside would drop down on top of you. We had to wear long sleeved shirts, a towel to cover your neck, a dust mask and ear plugs. Cinders would drop into your shirt and burn your skin before you could shake them out. You couldn't hear or talk so I would make up games to play in my head to get through the day. We shoveled piles from one location out to an open area where a bobcat could come in and pick it up. Literally, four hours of moving about 10 feet back and forth with shovels full of dust. That song 100 bottles of beer on the wall really only takes about 5 minutes to get all the way through - don't ask me how I know. One of my favorite places to work was on top of the silos. The silos were about 14 stories tall. The view was incredible, you could see all the way to Illinois-LOL! We would carry jackhammers, shovels and sunscreen up to the top of the silos. The cement when being transferred from one silo to another would seep out of the pipe where the gaskets were old and it would get wet and then get hard - like concrete. Our job was to jackhammer it loose and throw it off the top of the silos to the ground. Sometimes we would play games - wheelbarrow races down the middle of the silos or try to hit targets as we threw debris off to the ground. A whistle would sound whenever there was a blast going off at the quarry and we would watch from the edge of the silos as it exploded and blew up the limestone. One day we had to move a bulldozer across the highway from the quarry to the plant. The bulldozer had big metal grates on its track that were hard on the highway so our job was to put tires down on the road. under the tracking as the bulldozer went across. OMG we laughed as we raced from the back to the front with a tire while the bulldozer stopped traffic.
Some days I really miss this kind of work. The kind of work that you could punch out from at the end of the day. The kind of work that rarely comes home with you. A job where I was tired and hungry and felt strong at the end of the day. I don't have that kind of job today. I have to work to let go of my work now. I bring my laptop home, log in or check my blackberry. I am never done. Gromit and Chewie have no time for that laptop. When I get home and they wag their tails and bark at me, I put down my bags and grab some of that happiness. They bring me into a moment. Chewie has never shoveled but he knows about moving dirt - I can almost fit in the hole he dug in our back yard. When we load up and get into the car and head to the dog park my shoulders relax I know that all I have to worry about is how far I can throw a ball, keeping Gromit in check and picking up dog shit. I don't even have to talk to anyone. I can look up at Gromit way far away as he sniffs a great spot in the grass and I can whistle at him and he looks up at me, I hold my arms apart and he comes racing at me - just happy to run to me. I don't have to do anything but just be there with them and they are happy. We walk around lazily enjoying the view. Like the cement plant I am part of a crew and we have fun and sometimes we get dirty and sometimes we get tired and on occasion we play some games. Every once in a while I have a cup of coffee in my hand as I drive to the dog park. I half expect Gromit to shift for me - but then I remember, I don't smoke and more importantly I have an automatic car and don't need any extra hands. I am at one with the Dog Gang!
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