…after I graduated from high school and going off for a short unsuccessful stint at college, moving back to grandma Gray’s “home stead” with a pregnant wife and a small little baby girl on the way. My Uncle Jack got me a good job at the local plywood mill he worked at. During that time in my life I was desperately poor. The job at the plywood mill taught me a great deal about what production was all about.
The mill bosses didn’t care if you were sick, or if you had sore muscles or if you were even tired, they just wanted you to be to work on time and be ready to work hard. I remember a young, darker skinned man there that was from another country, Laos, I think. He was here in America on some kind of work visa. He worked sixteen hour shifts, seven days a week the entire time his visa was good for. He never missed a day’s work because he didn’t feel good. He took no holidays off or any vacation days either. He didn’t speak hardly any English but sometimes I would be stationed to work next to him, feeding the veneer driers. My stinted conversations with him were very limited but I did find out a bit about him over the course of a couple years. He had relatives who lived in Glendale where the mill was located. They brought him over from Laos and provided him a small camping trailer in their back yard to live in during his stay here. He survived literally off beans and rice. All the “tax free” money he made working at the mill was mailed back to his home country to support his family still living there. Over time he explained to me that he could make enough money working in the U.S. for two years, that when he traveled back home he could build a small house for his immediate family and some older relatives living with them. He would still have some start up money left to buy a small business that would help support his growing family for the rest of their lives. Apparently the money exchange rate between the two countries was enormous. He was able to make more in one week working in America then whole families made in a year in his home land. You don’t need to wonder why people around the world are flocking to this country. 
Was he miserably lonely here? Yep. Did he think his sacrifice was going to be worth his efforts? Yes he did. He left our country as suddenly as he had come. I don’t know how things turned out for him back home but after seeing all the hours he put in, I never complained about the few double shifts I pulled from time to time at the mill.
I think I got my, go to work all day long, then stay and work a few overtime hours just for spite, then come home and work into the night, from my Uncle Jack. He always worked long hours at the mill but still found time to go do some logging to earn extra money for his family and grandma Gray. A few times I would venture out to the logging job with him. I would help by setting chokers behind the cat for him, which enabled him to pull in more logs into the log landing, then if he were trying to do everything by himself.
One time I hooked a couple chokers,
bound around a couple large logs to the heavy winch line attached to the tracked Caterpillar. Uncle Jack began reeling in the turn of logs towards the rear of the cat. All I recall was seeing the steel winch cable snapping taut heading right at me. Just before the braided line cut me in half, I caught it in my gloved hands. The only thing, besides the pain afterwards, I remember was Uncle Jack grabbing me out of a pile of logging debris several feet from where I had started my flinging journey. Uncle Jack stood me up, I was still limp, and shook me, wondering if I was ok. My Uncle Jack had no emergency medical back ground at all back in those days. That’s the reason I am a paraplegic today. 
No I lived through the experience but I never forgot the lesson. That great care had to be observed at all times when working around heavy equipment of any kind. I did end up with a really cool deep blue bruise from my chest to my thigh from the force of the cable hitting me. We never did tell Grandma Gray about that one.
You never told me about about the winch line breaking under the strain either or how lucky you were to only be sore and bruised. I lost a Cousin when a cable snapped and he never got to see his son Jeff that was born shortly after you were born or watch his 2 little daughters grow up. Blaze do you remember that little boy that reach over to speared your piece of meat, when it jumped off your plate and you both were tearning to use a fork? Sometimes Mom's just don't want to hear the things that have happened in their sons life's and would rather put their hands over their ears and go "La,La,La." Mom
ReplyDelete