| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
May Day Today is May 1. On this day in 1997, my life changed drastically. I had come back from visiting Ron and Melia in Australia a few days before, and I was back to work. It was my third night on a job that was only supposed to last one day. It was a Swing Shift; we were working 3:30 to Midnight. When I went in to work that afternoon, the Foreman had asked me if I was willing to take his place as foreman for a week, and I had accepted. Things were looking pretty favorable as far as work and earning money was concerned. I was working on a crew doing caissons. A caisson is a pillar of concrete that’s used as part of a foundation, usually in soft ground; kind of like piles. A drill rig drills a hole down through the soft material, (Peat or some other insubstantial mix) to something more solid like blue clay or hard rock, then the concrete is poured into the open hole. It’s a little more involved than that, but that’s the general idea. Anyhow, the job I was on was part of the Big Dig in Boston. We were working right in front of the main entrance of South Station at the corner of Atlantic Ave. and Summer St. and my job was pretty simple. All I had to do was stand there and watch the drill rig work. I was holding onto a shovel, but I was only using it as a prop. I guess I had to hold it to make sure it didn’t float away or somethin’. It was a job that the Business Manager of my Union usually reserved for the older members. At 47 years old, I was considered a senior citizen of my Local, and I had been the “old man” on the past few jobs that I’d worked underground. At 11:45, we started getting ready to shut down for the night. Tommy, the Drill Rig Operator stopped drilling, and started moving the rig over to where it would be parked until the next afternoon. I was gathering up the tools to put them away. I went to walk past a Jersey Barrier that was sitting there when it slid sideways and trapped my foot. The motion of the rig was causing things buried in the ground to move which pushed against the Jersey Barrier. As I struggled to free my foot, the Jersey Barrier slowly began to fall over. I was trapped and couldn’t get free and wound up on the ground with a two ton chunk of concrete sitting on top of my right ankle. Nobody had seen it happen, as I had been on the dark side of the rig, and nobody could hear my shouts over the roaring of the diesel engine of the rig. When I was discovered a few seconds after the accident, the crew put a cable on the Barrier and picked it up so I could get free. An ambulance was called and, Tommy cut my boot off with his pocket knife. My ankle hurt like hell, and I had no problem informing everybody nearby of that fact, using language that was not exactly the King’s English. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital where I was given a shot of Demerol, X-rayed and put to bed. That was how my Mining Career ended. For quite a few years, I would go into South Station every May 1st and stop in front of the main entrance for a few seconds. I pretty much stopped doing that after I moved out to Leominster, though I did go back a couple of times. Every year, I still think about going, but there’s really nothing to see. There’s an entrance to the Subway right where it happened, and there’s no place to park and traffic there is heavy. My ankle still gives me fits on a regular basis, and will until I kick the bucket. I just thought I’d share that with you all. | ||
| Pwnzor |
...and if that hadn't happened, do you suppose that you would be now preparing to embark on your odyssey? | ||
| Strokizator |
Every time I'm on I-15 just north of Las Vegas I try to look for the spot where I flew across the hood of some guys car and skidded to a stop in the median. That's where I lost my dearly departed Ulysses.  | ||
| Crusty |
...and if that hadn't happened, do you suppose that you would be now preparing to embark on your odyssey? Who knows? It might have worked out that way, or my life could have taken a totally different direction. All I know is that it took everything that's happened to me, both good and bad, to bring me to the place I'm at now. |
