COPPER WIRE AND MEN OF STEEL
CHAPTER II- THE LINEMAN
At the end of his first full day as a lineman, James had learned many
lessons. The most evident of these was that climbing poles involved a
considerable
amount of pain. Another was that the experienced linemen were still up to their
old tricks. One of the most prevalent methods of tormenting the "new
kid" was to force him into competing with the "big guys." The
boss, always in league with the tormentors, told our boy that there were to be
seven men climbing this particular day and James was expected to "ketch
every seventh pole." That didn't sound too tough for this youngster but
before he finished his work on the first pole he noticed that all six of the
other men had run by him and were already up their second stick. Only then did
he realize he was in a race. By noon break he couldn't see the rest of the crew
they were so far ahead, and he wisely decided he would fare much better with his
peers if he caught up before he knocked off for lunch. Upon working his way to
the chuck-wagon, to his amazement he saw his friends, having finished their
meal, going back to the poles. He knew there was no way he could keep up so he
elected to skip lunch and keep trying.
Unknowingly, he had passed another
unwritten test. He had given his all and failed but he was expected to fail.
This was to be the last time the crew organized to torment him and good thing as
he had paid a dear price.
He had discovered what the term "crow feet"
meant. He swore that after standing on that narrow strip of metal for five hours
his toes bent down so far they could touch his equally bent down heels.
His shiny new hooks had worn huge blisters on his calves and insteps. He was
filled with splinters from the square redwood poles having "burned" a
couple in his haste to keep up. His hands were cut and bleeding and as he
surveyed the mess he had become he realized he had reached a new depth of
despair. Why he thought, did anyone want to be a lineman?
His wise and
occasionally benevolent foreman had known that if James were to make it in this
grueling world of the lineman he had to have guts and on this morning he had
proven himself. The boss intercepted JJ, as the boys were now calling him, and
told him to eat his lunch and take the afternoon off to pull a few slivers and
mend his town clothes.
That afternoon and night he had ample time to reflect on
the term "burn a pole" as he tried to remove "half a cord of
redwood" from his chest, arms, face and other places best left to your
imagination. Redwood contains an acid that has a fiery quality all its own.
This, topped off by liberal doses of iodine, produced a "burn" that
left poor JJ little to smile about. This was especially true regarding those
"other places" mentioned above.
The next morning, just as he did every
morning, the cook woke up the camp by pounding on a old iron rim. JJ had no
trouble waking as he'd had a restless night. He couldn't decide where he hurt
most but he knew he was expected to "hit it" just as though he hadn't
been converted to hamburger the day before. With some friendly advise from his
former antagonists he was able to bandage himself and put on clothes that were
designed to protect him from further redwood invasions. As a grunt he had often
wondered why the linemen wore leather leggings, long underwear and bib-overalls
and now he knew.
He limped his way through that day and many more like it during
his career. He experienced a multitude of trials along the way such as the
building of the first transcontinental line over the Sierras and across the
deserts of Nevada.
He enjoyed telling of the hardships involved in this
noteworthy event in telephone history and of the contrasts between setting poles
in the mountains of solid granite and of the miles of line built across sand and
sometimes shallow lakes in Nevada. Perhaps the most difficult condition to
contend with was the extremes in temperature -- below zero plus howling winds in
the mountains where the snow sometimes buries the line completely, and
temperatures well above 100 degrees on the desert floor. It can't be said too
often, it took a hardy breed of men to endure and they did it with pride.
Perhaps this word pride tells it all.
MA
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