Labor Day letter to the editor (Strib)

[billhammond]

On a summer morning at the scrapyard before my junior year at the University of Minnesota, I was reassigned to stir molten aluminum. My foreman, Mr. Robinson, didn't make me his "stirrer" because I had experience or skill. I had neither. My only qualification: I was the only remaining college boy hire in the yard after the previous stirrer, Leonard, had a panic attack inside the smelting furnace and was reassigned to foraging the yard for stray copper and brass shavings with a wooden pail.

No wonder. The stirrer's first task each morning was "prepping the furnace." That meant climbing into it and scraping off aluminum residue that had cooled and hardened overnight. At one point in this hellish task, the massive furnace door had to be closed with the stirrer inside in order to scrape the door's backside in near pitch-darkness. Mr. Robinson stood with me the first time and said he hoped I'd get used to it, not like the other "college kid."

After the scraping, Mr. Robinson fired up the furnace. Heating it took about an hour because it takes 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit to melt aluminum. In the meantime, the stirrer tossed in the first load of aluminum scraps from a giant heap deposited by the endless daily line of pickups and dump trucks.

At 1,221 degrees came the main event — stirring. Mr. Robinson affectionately called it "stirring the soup." The smelting crew called it stirring something else. For this the stirrer used an 8-foot-long giant-sized "stirring spoon." It looked more like a roof rake but rigged with a top-heavy 9-by-14-inch slightly curved rectangular steel piece soldered to one end. Stirrers were required to wear asbestos oven-mitt-like gloves, a comically oversized floor-length asbestos coat and a metal helmet with a face protector, the kind welders might wear.

Mr. Robinson raised the stirring spoon. "Grab on behind me. This is how you stir the soup."

I still remember: Clockwise … counterclockwise … left to right … right to left … bottom to top … top to bottom … repeat …

He handed it to me. "Now you do it. … Sweet Jesus! Not with just your arms, son! Use your whole body!"

My god, it was exhausting, painful and scary.

"How come I have to do this way?" I whined. "Can't I just …"

"How come? Because, if you stir half-ass, aluminum will probably clump like your mama's unstirred Cream of Wheat. One clump could clog the output hole and harden there, and if that happens your clogged hole will hold up the pour, which means because of you, the crew'll have to pour past their quitting time because you can't stop the pour once you start. That's how come."

On my first try, everything Mr. Robinson said could happen did happen.

And the second day.

And the third.

If looks could kill …

On day four Mr. Robinson brought me into the office trailer. I was hoping he'd hand me a wooden pail like Leonard's and I'd be happily off the hook. Instead, he said, "Son, it's time you do this job right."

I was sure that couldn't happen and said so. Up to then I'd mowed lawns, caddied, stocked women's shoes, bused tables and decorated horse stalls at the State Fair. In short, I wasn't prepared for labor like this.

"Young man, the fellas can't do their job if you can't do yours. They're depending on you."

Hard-as-nail, skilled scrapyard workers with families were depending on me? A college-kid English major?

Mr. Robinson said so.

Sometimes, in a flash, a few words can rock your world.

And on that fourth day, I stirred very well, finally. At lunchtime, Mr. Robinson tells the crew they should expect "a good pour today." I'm exhilarated. They just nod. No hip-hip-hoorays or slaps on the back.

To these men you weren't any kind of hero just because did your job right.

That night I had a dream. The short version is I'm trapped inside the furnace and no one hears my screams for help.

When my roommates roused me, I was standing on my bed bawling and pounding the curtain rods with bloodied knuckles.

The next day I describe my dream to the crew. They can tell I'm spooked. Ivan, our crew's paterfamilias, says matter-of-factly how he's been smelting aluminum since before I was born and still has dreams like mine. He says, "That's just how it is."

When the horn sounded, Ivan, Randy and Karl packed up their lunch buckets, crushed out their cigarettes almost in unison and went back to work.

I returned to my furnace and gave my aluminum soup one more hearty stir before the pour so the crew might punch out on time.

Dick Schwartz lives in Minneapolis.

[Village Idiot]

I've done a lot of odd jobs in my day, but nothing that comes close to this. And if I had, I'd never be able to explain it like this. I'd be able to give justice to a description of the job, but not to how one person's job affected the jobs, and days, of so many others. This prose could easily be a Woody Guthrie song if he was around to read it.

[RickW]

I had some hard labor jobs, but no one trusted me like that when I was young. At the end of my career, I got entrusted with taking care of a system that had been built with baling wire and scraps, that was responsible for sending work out to 100s of guys in the field in the telephone company I worked at. I decided I’d fix it up, because I didn’t really want a ton of s**t being poured on my head at 4 in the morning, when everything died. I guess I was already older and smarter.

[t-bob]

Todd's thoughts ....."I've done a lot of odd jobs in my day, but nothing that comes close to this. And if I had, I'd never be able to explain it like this. I'd be able to give justice to a description of the job, but not to how one person's job affected the jobs, and days, of so many others"

And the editor (Strib) story

I lived when I was a kid almost 21
"I've done a lot of odd jobs in my day, but nothing that comes close to this."
I worked a factory - Middletown CT (Wesleyan Univ) I was in music - Indian/Jazz

The factory was Plastic/Non-Genuine Leather - womens bags, shoes in K-mart
Workers lived in Looney Bin in huge hospital. They were in plastic in vats - the heat was 120 degrees. I went to a lot of different departments. The workers were amazing good. They find me to a different place - Metal Shop - they had these old leather belts and the one machine for the lathes, drill, devices - I think I went to about 10 jobs at this factory place and finally they gave me a new position - Delivery Man and Samples for companies.

The Owner wanted me to Director/VP and they're going to give me a Department.

I really don't know why they did that because they couldn't know about about my 1951 Cadillac Hearse and my long hair. One of the secretary's - she was a hot one - I went to her party well... it was a good party and I guess she wasn't a girlfriend but it was fun.

Now I'm thinking about the editor's storyline & Todd's thoughts

I actually enjoyed doing this job and it was "early 1800 factory"

It was tangential ;-)

[Dub]

This kid will turn out all right. That’s exactly the lesson kids need to learn. If you don’t do your job right, it affects other people, people who either have done your job or could of needed.

I’m very grateful for the difficult, painful jobs I learned to do just to prove to myself and the older guys that I was up to it. Sticking it out and earning the respect of people you could just as easily walk out on is worth the effort.

[millring]

That is gut-wrenching on so many levels. And profound.

I once heard a preacher opine that you don't praise kids for doing what's right (he then allowed as how he was exaggerating to make a larger point). If you do praise kids for doing what is right, you're not preparing them for the reality of life -- that doing what you are supposed to do is the baseline. The foundation. And it's the foundation of society. We count on each other to do what's right. Life isn't an balanced equation. Life doesn't often reward you for doing right, but it will always (if only eventually) punish you for not doing right.

The aluminum-stirring story convicts me to the core. In my life I've escaped anything so loathsome -- so much so that I believe I'm currently working hard.

I was discussing with coworkers (as I do almost daily) the post office demise we are witnessing every day. The work load feels overwhelming most days. But a small minority just shut up and shoulder the load. Another minority face it with humor (I told my coworker of a person I know whose practice it is to say "I'm not complaining, I'm just making an observation." every time he complained. Now at the office we refer to complaining as "observing"). But there has been a working crew that appears to have the "we're in this thing together" mentality encapsulated by the concept that as long as there is still anything undelivered, nobody goes home until everyone can go home. That has gotten us through. Not happily or satisfactorily, but functionally. The newest subs aren't catching on. They want to go home. They will quit soon. We can feel it.

We are slaves to survival. We only take away the straw to make bricks when we additionally become slaves to our appetites.

[RickW]

I’m reminded of something that happened when I was young, just starting to work at the telephone company. I worked in the mailroom in the loading bay, delivering packages to floors, and sorting mail. Not terribly onerous, it didn’t pay well, but it was a job, and a starting point. The company decided lay off some technicians, 292 of them, (so the whole thing came to be called the 292.) The union said, how about we just relocate those folks for now until attrition in the technician ranks provides the room to put them back. The company agreed. These folks got put in various ‘lesser’ jobs, retaining their excellent pay.

We got 4 of them. Two of these young men pitched in and worked; they did the job without complaining, cheerfully, happy to keep their pay and their jobs, with a future ahead of them still. Two were assholes, and stood around and bitterly complained about how badly they’d been treated, barely touching a piece of mail. Complaining to the rest of us, the regulars, getting paid a third of what these two were getting paid, telling us that it was demeaning to be there. I honestly don’t know if they were oblivious, or just, well, assholes. It was work, it needed to be done, it needed to be done properly, and the company had bent over backwards for them.

It was another good life lesson, about getting along, about pitching in, that stood me in good stead throughout my working career.

[PaulKay]

The upside to the entire story is that his English major education allowed him to write about it.
The most powerful stories come from real life experiences. Kind of like having to live the blues to sing the blues.

[theevan]

It's beautifully written. And warm. (Well, hot in that smelter!).

I find really hard work satisfying, even ennobling.

And yeah, exhausting.

[Rob Hanesworth]

Sept 4, 2023 19:26:36 GMT -5 theevan said:

It's beautifully written. And warm. (Well, hot in that smelter!).

I find really hard work satisfying, even ennobling.

And yeah, exhausting.

Work fascinates me. I could sit and watch it for hours.

[james]

The scrapyard put into a dark furnace, without a headlamp or torch, morbidly terrified young men who had panic attacks or would beat their hands bloody with fear in their nightmares which might carry on for years? Sounds nasty!