In years past, many years past, not many families had their own private freezer.  As a consequence there were businesses built around renting your meat locker in a large building filled with meat lockers.  We referred to them as a locker plant.  You could rent a freezer locker for your meat.  They were very handy in hunting communities.

Today a personal home freezer is so common the rental meat locker, as a business venture, is no longer viable.  One such building was being knocked down by bull-dozer to make room for new construction.  After knocking down the building, the bull-dozer pushed all the debris and detritus (chunks of concrete, wood, nails, etc.) into the lot area and buried and leveled it.

A grocery store was put up on that location.  A large electrified sign was put up across what was to be the parking lot.  We had to ditch out to the sign location and place conduit and wire in the ditch to carry electricity to the sign.

While I was running the conduit in the ditch, I got cuts on my hand from sharp pieces of concrete.  After a short time I noticed a red streak going up my arm, so I got in my pick up and went to our family doctor.  When the girl at the desk saw the red streak she sent me right into the doctor.  No waiting!

He took one look at me and asked; “What happened?”

I explained it all to him.  He asked me if it hurt there, indicating my arm pit.  I put my hand under my arm pit and said; “No, it doesn’t hurt there.”

He replied; “That’s good.  If it did it would be too late!”

Thanks Doc!

He gave me an anti-biotic which took care of it quickly.

I’m still alive.

It seems I was always working in some dirty, messy place.

I guess I was too anxious to work.

I was given the oversight of wiring a building that was to be used as a freight warehouse.  The building was not yet completed, so the window and door openings were open.  When we arrived we also found that the floor was unfinished.  We would be working on uneven, bare dirt.

Since much of the work was overhead we had a rolling scaffold to work off of.  Of course with the uneven ground, it made rolling the scaffold difficult.  We would take turns being on the scaffold or on the ground pushing it around on the frozen dirt.

On one side of the building we were treated to the aromatic issuance of an animal rendering plant.  On the other side of the building there was a commercial bakery.

I was the first one up on the scaffold.  As I was working the wind shifted and I was gifted with the wafting odor from the rendering plant.  It nearly gagged me.  I did as much work as I could but I finally had to come down to get some fresh air.

The other fellow got up on the scaffold and I heard him exclaim; “Mmm, that smells good.”  I laughed and laughed at his sense of humor.  He stayed up there quite awhile before trading places with me.  Finally I took my turn up on the scaffold again.

What had happened was the breeze had changed and the aroma from the bread baking plant was now coming through the open windows.  This might sound pretty good, but there is something else to consider.  If you were working up on the scaffold while the aroma from the bakery was coming at you, it could make you pretty hungry.  Then the scaffold would be moved and you would get the odor of the rendering plant.  Talk about cognitive disconnect!

Since that time the building we were wiring has been used for a number of different businesses.  The bakery is gone as is the rendering plant.

There was another rendering plant that I worked at down by the Spokane River, just below a community college.  I did some work for them and the smell was really bad.  The business end of the rendering plant made one serious mistake.  When I finished the job there, I waited for two months for them to pay me.

When they called me to do some more work I turned them down.  I told them I didn’t work for free.  Besides, I thought a man should get double pay to work in that facility.  Eventually they did pay me.

I believe the plant has since been moved because of the odor pollution that emanated from the plant.  At least, I don’t smell them in the wind when I drive by that location anymore.

One of the jobs I did on the WSU campus in Pullman was wiring and installing street lighting.  The job entailed working in the tunnels under the sidewalk area along the main drive on campus.  The tunnels were about 6 feet high and 4 feet wide, with access points every block or so.

That year the outside temperature was at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  You would think that in the tunnel it would be a cool working environment in the summer.

Wrong!!

There were also steam pipes installed in those tunnels.  Much of the outside insulation for the steam pipes was no longer in existence.  Our job was to drill holes in the concrete walls to feed wire to the light standards.  Every so often we would have to go outside to get some fresh air.  Even though it was 100 degrees outside the tunnel, when you first came out you would shiver.

It was one job where it was advantageous to be small in stature.  When I drilled the holes in the concrete, I could rest the roto-hammer on my shoulder.  When the taller guys did the drilling, they were required to hold the roto-hammer out in front of them.  That was much more difficult.

One day I got sick and could not go in to work.  Another man was sent down in the tunnel in my place.  At the end of the day he said; “No wonder Adrian got sick.  I think I’m going to be sick tomorrow.”

We both held out until the job was done.

The hardest part of the job was setting the light poles.  The poles were manufactured out of concrete and iron rods.  Concrete alone would easily break if the pole were to droop or bend a little.  The rods would be stressed during the concrete pour, thus strengthening the concrete to withstand some droop and bend.

When the pole was lifted into place, it was necessary to use a crane.  The crane would lift the poles using a flat strap wrapped around the pole twice as a choker, holding the pole in the middle of the smooth concrete.  A choker hold uses a friction hold on smooth objects.  Since the pole is constructed in a configuration that goes from large at the base to smaller at the top, there is always the danger that the choker might slip at the wrong time.

Sometime later someone drove into one of the poles and broke it off.  There was just me and the crane operator on the job that time.  It took a full eight hour day to replace that pole.