My Grandfather, Lawrence Hickey of Crinnie Hill, Castlisland, County Kerry, Ireland, held that " NO man could DIG like Martin Ford!"
If one had been presented the Medal of Honor and three honorary degrees from Columbia University, Harvard and a life membership to Total Fitness, it would mean less than nothing compared to Martin Ford, of Scartaglen, Count Kerry, and his ability to dig a 6' by 4'12" deep trench for plumbing. As if???!!!
I worked at Chicken Unlimited on 79thst & Wood Street in Chicago, Illinois, from August until October 1968 and I was fired. Gene Mahony fired me, because I could not deep fry chicken pieces in a consistent manner. I could not. No how. No way.
I went to work at Gee Lumber on 79th Street and did so there for as long a as I wanted. I cut lumber, mixed cement, threaded pipe for plumbling and bent pipe for electrical uses. I was and remain a very hard competent and hard working employee. From 1975 until I was very discourteously fired by a dull, but WOKE scold Catholic high school principal in December 2019, I worked as a very honored and respected English teacher. My heart is broken and choose not to teach again. Kids and parents are wonderful, Catholic schools seem to be run by people who could not cut it in the classroom and political play-actors. I'll have none of it.
A person must work in order to fulfill the obligation to God, who opens our eyes in the morning.
I work and will do hard labor.
I work 8-12 hours per day as a packer and shipper of vitamins in Port of Indiana, Indiana. I am very happy to do this work.
The work is tiresome, but not hard. The work is important, but not crucial.
After 8, or 12 hours of work, I go home and read The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Anabasis, Contra Catalina, or the latest issue of Jugs and Ammo.
Now, some cousins might find my tone here to be a bit sardonic. That is true and I tend to be sardonic and I tend to be a bit of a know it all. Well, dang me, dang me, they outta take a rope and hang me. Hang me from the highest tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woman would you weep for me. Do Doit Do Duh Doit Doin Do!!!!
That aside. I value hard work.
Today, we seem to honor work that was normally doing one's job.
" Oh, Thank you! Thank you, for your service!!" is chirped at every small courtesy performed by a waitress, attendant, or hanger-on.
Nurses are now Sgt. Stryker, taking that last puff on a square and that Jap bullet in the back while the six Lads raise Old Glory on Suribachi.
Clerks at Service Six on Route 12, wearing masks and palming the "losing" Hossier Lotto tickets of dowagers and dumb-asses, are deemed the sons of Audie Murphy and Sergeant York.
Let me just say that during this, our Months of Infamy & Days of Harrowing Sorrow, that I am a hero.
Yes!
I am a son of the Myrmidons! The Greave wearing Greeks! The Baddest of the Bad!
I have been making Gummy Vitamins as an Essential Worker in Port of Indiana, Indiana!
Listen up. I rise at 4:15 A.M. and that is Four Fifteen Ante Meridian, Bub! Every day. Unless some event, or upset, interrupts that condition, mind you, I get up at the first chirps of the sparrows.
I immediately S, S & S and, if you need to know the full meanings of that tripling consonant acronym, it means to shower, to shave, and to see that the internal gastronomical organs are evacuated - soundly.
Sounds like steam escaping!
My boots are drawn on with great care and attention, as I know that socks can bunch up and cause an eight hours of serious agitation and irritation. My boots are Red Wings #401 and made in Minnesota.
I drive from Michigan City on the historic Route 12 and wind the tree-lined road with great care as the route is winding and deer are incredibly stupid. Deer wait until the car gets within killing distance before they 'decide' to take the plunge across the road and blast from fender, to hood, to trunk over your car.
The drive takes 20 minutes - tops. I had been taking the lovely and winding Route 12, but several encounters with Bambi and his cousins shifted my course to the more direct Route 20 - a few miles to the south and somewhat parallel.
I arrive, punch in, and wash my hands with great care. People put our product in their mouths and every person in the plant pays careful attention to that fact. We wear hair nets, beard nets, gloves, safety glasses and of course PPI masks. The masks properly worn tend to fog up my glasses and so when social distancing allows I shift the mask under the old schnozoola.
I immediately grab a pallet jack and find a stack of undamaged pallets and deposit them at my line station. Then, I check with my line boss about the codes on the labels and the product to see how many boxes I will need to make for the shift. Generally, two to three hundred for starters.
An hour later, the person packing the plastic wrapped bundles of three bottles of Gummy Vitamins will signal me that product is coming down the line.
The line begins in the sealed-off production room where six to eight of my co-workers separate hundreds of pounds of Gummies, place caps on a conveyor, place bottles on another belted line and monitor the weights. The bottle capping machine is whirling miracle of mechanical madness. The nine bottle cap-ers look like Oscar statuettes pounding and twisting plastic caps and seals onto the bottles containing exact weights of product.
Then the hundreds of bottles waddle to the labeling station, the plastic wrapper and to the packer. The packer inspects the bottles for damage, flawed Gummies, or bad labeling and tosses any package that does not meet standards. I pack as well as stack. The packer must check for proper codes that are inked onto the bottles just before they get bright labels. My old eyes fail me at this task and when I can no longer properly check for the code, my line boss will send over younger eyes.
Four packages of three bottles go into each box and then the box is thrust into the automatic taping and sealing device and conveyed to my mighty mitts, which I use to begin stacking boxes on the pallet.
Generally the boxes weigh between five and ten pounds each, but the Large Tall Boy weigh about fifteen pounds. I get a very good work-out lifting and twisting and running and re-working the flawed bottles and product. My pallets have ten stacks of fourteen rows arranged according to product shipping manifest.
I wear a back brace and lift with my legs. The work is tiring, but easy and nothing like waitering, bar tending, walking a police beat, nursing, or carpentry - to say nothing of cement work, garbage collection, farming, or clerking.
The hardest part for me is shrink wrapping the full pallet which requires me to Limbo LOW, while wrapping plastic wrap around the pallet with ever increasing speed. " Look at that white man, Go!!!"
I get very dizzy and winded doing that onerous task.
I wait for my line boss to begin making up two pallet tags which I attach, after the Quality Control Officer inspects my pallet to ensure that the boxes are arranged according to the shipping orders. I have yet to undo one of my pallets, I am proud to say.
Once tagged, I grab a pallet jack and haul my stack to the warehouse where a fork-lift driver picks it up and takes it to a waiting trailer.
After eight to ten hours, we will have completed six to seven pallets. That's 140 boxes times six or seven. Not a bad day' s work,
I have been blessed to work all through this COVID-19 pandemic. I have an essential worker paper in my car. I was never once stopped by law enforcement during the Stay at Home months of March-April.
I enjoy the work and the lovely people with whom I sweat on a daily basis. These people humble me. Black, Mexican and white. I am the oldest person on the floor. Most are fighting to feed,clothe and house their families at a very low wage. Think National Minimum Wage and some change.
They are the heroes and they are so without that damn bug, or grifter politicians using a crisis to lord it over people.
Workers are heroes; not Sgt. Stryker, or Audie Murphy. That is plenty for me, anyway.
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