Hangzhou and the Tiananmen Square Massacure.

Some 7000 years ago rice was first cultivated in an area close to Hang Zhou. About 5000 years ago, the area was inhabited by people who developed jade carving. Hangzhou was founded 2,200 years ago and the city wall was constructed in 591 AD. It sits at the southern end of the Grand Canal which was completed in 609 AD and extends to Beijing. It is listed as one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China. And Hangzhou sits at the entrance of the massive Yangtze River Delta.

Today, the metropolitan area is home to about 4 million inhabitants. The principle scenic attraction is West Lake. It strikes me that this is a pretty mundane name for people that are prone to have their bodies of water adorned with exotic names rising out of ancient mythologies. The lake was formed because silt built up blocked the Yangtze from depositing itself into the ocean. In 1089 AD the emperor had 200,000 workers build a 1.7 mile causeway across the lake so he could enjoy sitting along the shores and enjoy the aura surrounding early spring mornings. The causeway was built from mud dredged from the lake.

The Sunday Sunny Resort, our conference hotel is reached via this causeway and is nestled into the hilly terrain on the shore opposite the city. It is a 4 star hotel in the Chinese rating system. But is not, by any means, foreigner friendly.

The desk speaks little English and communicating to them on the phone is a lost cause. Having ice in your drink or a beer served cold is not going to happen. There are no English channels on TV. No WiFi in the room or lobby, but thankfully, there is a desktop, cable connected access to the World Wide Web. Breakfast, is buffet as usual and at least you can look and decide. Attempts were made to translate some food into English but when I came to something labeled arterial sclerosis, I quickly passed by without examination.

On the other hand, a Chinese hotel always offers a water heating pot that can be used for making tea or instant coffee. Being a big fan of General Foods International Coffee, I always bring an unopened tin with me and enjoy my favorite cup anytime. Such small comforts can help a new day begin with style.

After participating in these workshops in China several times, there are certain things we can rely upon to happen. We will always enjoy a banquet of food every evening with our hosts. The food will be presented with unique garnishes and creative carvings enticing the observer to at least sample and taste.

All the above were delicious.

Whatever local sights are worthy of visiting, our hosts will see to it that a young English speaking guide will coordinate the transportation and drivers necessary to reach our destination. And they pay for all entrance fees. And they will be there to meet us at the airport, take our luggage, and make sure we are safety ensconced in our rooms. Other than providing a magic carpet, I can’t image how we could be better taken care of.

Typically, a workshop begins with introductions followed by an official group picture. The most important people are always center bottom row

The man in the white sweater is Professor Zeng, a high official in China’s CDC, with Professor Wood on the left and Judith on the right.

Whatever local sights are worthy of visiting, our hosts will see to it that a young English speaking guide will coordinate the transportation and drivers necessary to reach our destination. And they pay for all entrance fees. And they will be there to meet us at the airport, take our luggage, and make sure we are safety ensconced in our rooms. Other than providing a magic carpet, I can’t image how we could be better taken care of.

Typically, a workshop begins with introductions followed by an official group picture. The most important people are always center bottom row

We are guided to a walk around the lake and find many local people enjoying the serenity of the calm waters.

Later that night we are treated to boat ride on the lake.

One afternoon we are taken to the Xixi National Wetlands park which is the only one of its kind in China. We climb into boats and our oarsmen paddle our way through the maze of canals.

This is photo of the couple with us on our boat. Jeri is a professor at UIC and was one of the presenters and Ken is writer with several movie and TV scripts to his credit. They have a long distant relationship between Chicago and Brooklyn
We also visit a silk museum, a porcelain museum (they don’t call dishes China without reason) and an ancient bridge over the aforementioned canal. Apparently this bridge is where the emperor used to disembark from the journey from Beijing.

Here is a photo of our sight seeing crew.

We leave Hangzhou after 4 days and take a 4 ½ hour ride to Shanghai, with passengers in a van and luggage following in a car. While we were in China, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square occurred. Naturally, there was no news about this in the English written China Daily. During this time China shut down, Twitter, Flickr, and Hotmail. Strangely, Facebook and Yahoo were not, so I freely posted about the censorship going on. Blogspot.com is permanently blocked.


For the flag raising ceremony in Beijing on June 4th, date of the anniversary, tourists were stopped and hassled, and all TV media and other reporters were turned away. In Hong Kong, however, 82,000 gathered in Victoria Park to hear people speak for freedom while holding a candle light vigil.


Twenty years ago, the People’s China open fired on a crowd demonstrating in Tiananmen and the Avenue of Eternal Peace was streaked with blood. Time after time assault rifles were raised and fired directly into the crowd leaving dead and wounded. When an ambulance tried to collect the injured, the troops fired on them. According to eye witnesses, rickshaw drivers slowly pedaled out to collect the bodies of the dead and injured. When I heard about this I was deeply moved by the courage and defiance these old, peasant rickshaw drivers took in support of freedom. When you educate citizens and create a middle class, political participation is nurtured. There will be a time in the future when this political oppression will be overturned. As I wait, I will remember those rickshaw drivers and stay inspired by them.


For all the kindness and hospitality given to us by the Chinese people, I want to see them some day have the same freedoms I enjoy. I hope I live to see it.

It Is Summer Out and I Am Cold

Just before I graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1954, I was awarded a scholarship for one year of tuition at Iowa State College. Four years later it was rightly re-named Iowa State University. Iowa State was on a 3 quarter system and not a 2 semester system. Tuition for each quarter was $50, so the total scholarship was worth a total of $150.

My parents were divorced and my mother could only help out financially occasionally. So basically, I had to make money to pay my way through. I was very lucky to get a summer job working for the Union Pacific Railroad icing rail cars containing fresh vegetable and fruits being shipped through a major railroad hub called Council Bluffs. It paid well.

Union Pacific Railroad headquarters was located at 15^th Street and Dodge in view of the Missouri River and later I would work there also. Omaha usually gets the credit for where the eastern end of the Union Pacific Railroad started, but it was really Council Bluffs where it started and there is a big statue of a Golden Spike to commemorate the event. Natives of Council Bluffs would always remind anyone who dared say the words “Union Pacific” where the Golden Spike Monument was located and what it commemorated. It was unveiled April 28, 1939 to coincide with the release of the movie, “Union Pacific”.

From the Columbia Encyclopedia--Council Bluffs, city (1990 pop. 54,315), seat of Pottawattamie co., SW Iowa, on and below bluffs overlooking the Missouri River, opposite Omaha, Nebr.; inc. 1853. It was first settled by whites when the Mormons came in 1846 and dubbed the site Kanesville; when they left in 1852, the settlement was renamed Council Bluffs. An important supply point during the gold rush (1849–50), Council Bluffs was made the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific RR in 1863.

Abraham Lincoln came to Council Bluffs during his presidency and predicted the city would be a great railroad center. The town put up another monument to dedicate Lincoln’s visit and of course named my high school in his honor.

So, you see, Council Bluffs and the Union Pacific were married. Working for the UP gave me a little more status, which is what older teenage boys are looking for as they approach adulthood.

I worked the 10 Pm to 6:30 AM shift. Almost every night, our shift would be sent to the ice house, where 300 lb cakes of ice were produced and stored. Usually, we spent two hours in the ice mow dragging these big blocks of ice onto a conveyor which took them up to the docks. The crew on the docks pulled them off and stored them to both sides of the conveyor that ran down the center of the dock. Once there was enough ice stored on the dock, we moved from the mow to the dock.

The mow was not a desirable place to work. After walking on ice for 2 hours, my feet got cold even with heavy rubber boots on my feet. I wore a coat and heavy gloves, to keep my hands warm against the cold metal tongs.

Whether working in the mow or docks, it was necessary to have a partner. In the mow, my partner and I each held one side of the tongs as we dragged the ice block to the conveyor. We would change hands once in a while in order to work both sides of our bodies. There would be about 10 teams and usually the teams stayed together unless one was absent.

As you visualize this scene, I will mention a hardship you might not think of. If someone would pass gas, the smell would just stay there. There was no moving air in the mow. Very gradually the odor would dissipate There is one broccoli fart that brought work to a standstill. Eyes watered, men coughed up phlegm, and I had to repulse a gag reflex. Usually the culprit would not feel shame, but a sense of pride. That’s men for ya. The worst night was Sunday night after a weekend.

At the end of two hours in the mow, everyone welcomed the relief of moving to the docks outside into the summer night’s warmth. The docks were built just above the train cars. There were gates held up or down by chains which, when released, filled the gap between the train car and the dock. When a train pulled in everyone went to work filling the ice compartments at each end of the refrigerated cars. The compartments would hold about 3000 lbs of ice at each end. That’s 10, 300 lb blocks of ice. Sometime the compartment would be empty but rarely. In the middle of the car were perishables being shipped either east or west.

One man worked with a pike which had a 135 degree sharp hook on one side and a tapered spike on the other side. An upright block of ice would come down the conveyor and the hook was used to pull the block off the conveyor and lay it on its side. The block was divided into four pieces with the spike. A piece would be moved to a ramp that reached from the dock to the car’s hatch opening. Then it was pushed out to the hatch opening using the pointed end of the spike and in it went.

One man stood on top of the car just to the side of the hatch and chopped the ice chunk into small pieces so the compartment held few air pockets. He used a 2 prong pitch fork looking tool with a handle at the top. It weighed about 15-20 lbs and was made out of sturdy steel.

The dock would accommodate one train on each side, so as soon as one train was serviced, we would move to the other side to work the other train. If there was no train, we got to sit down and rest, taking care to avoid any melting ice water.

The first thing that happened, before working a train, was for all the hatches to be opened for the inspector. He looked in the hole and estimated the amount of ice it was going to take to fill it up. There were two men assigned to him to open the hatches. These 3 walked the length of the train on top of the cars. The guy with the fork hit the locking device on the side to allow the hatch to be open. The guy with the pike hooked the handle and pulled it open. These 3 then got to sit down, fall asleep, or read a novel while the rest of the crew worked the train.

When I got off the docks I would read gas meters for half a day, so I saw that having this job would allow me more rest and an occasional cat nap. So we started to cozy up to the foreman and let him now we would be glad to have this job. Soon we had our opportunity and from then on, till the end of summer the job was ours.

Every Friday morning at the end of the shift the boss would hand out our checks, but you had to tell him your social security number before he gave you your check. Ever since then I can whip off mine in about 3 seconds. When I am on my death bed sometime far, far away and someone were to ask me my social security number, I know I will have no trouble getting it out before I exhale my last breathe.

The Night I Was Run Out of Town.

About 12 miles south-east of Council Bluffs, Iowa is the small village of Treynor. Its existence is sustained by local farmers who can purchase farm tools, feed, and seed without having to travel into the big city. It had an American Legion Hall with a bar in front of an assembly hall where local young farm couples got married. So it’s a place to drink, like that bar in Boston called Cheers; a neighborhood bar. Only the neighborhood was a radius of 5 miles of rolling hill farm land.

The bar held nary an iota of sophistication. Beer and shots were the swill of choice. Order a Gimlet and you would see the bartender flinch then move hesitantly towards the seldom used, dusty liquor bottles that sat in front the mottled mirror. And you would almost see his mind’s gears whirling to recall the exotic ingredients and portions. The other patrons nearby the fancy-drink-ordering customer would sneak a startled furtive glance at who was disturbing the peace, then stare down at their drinks in order to hide a slight smirk. People do try to be polite in Iowa.

The reason I was privy to these observations can be found by examining the interests of teen age boys when looking for something to do on a Saturday night. Having access to beer was usually a prime mover, and the wedding parties which took place in the assembly hall behind the narrow bar room attracted single women looking to dance.

Because Treynor was so small, there never was a need to get an invitation to attend the festivities in the back room. We would try to buy a beer at the crowded bar, hoping the bartender would be so harried in trying to serve the wedding party that he would not notice or not care enough to take notice of our fuzzy cheeks. We had some, but limited success using this tactic. A better tactic was to give one of the bar bums $1 to buy you a 75 cent beer.

It was fun to watch the wedding party dance and in general whoop it up to a live band whose repertoire included a generous number of polkas. The bride and bridesmaids typically wore 50’s styled ruffled dresses that came down about 4 inches below the knee, pooched out with starchy layers of petticoats, nothing too elegant or pretentious.

The groom with his farmer’s tan now in full view, presented an impression of awkwardness that is difficult to describe. A farmer’s face above the eyebrows is white enough to make any fair skinned maiden envious, and a sharp contrast to the ruddiness below. Add a powder blue tuxedo to the mix and the red, white, and blue is on full display.

To get away from the noise and gaiety, I would occasionally go outside and enjoy the cool night air. One time, I saw someone was fighting with my friend Ray. Ray was a skinny and mouthy teen who frequently found ways to get in trouble in school. Still the guy having the upper hand with him was a stranger. Without a lot of thought I jumped on the guy’s back to pull him away.

Bam! Bam! Bam! I was being hit with something other than a fist. I soon discovered it was a blackjack. Turns out the stranger was a deputy sheriff wearing faded jeans and a plaid shirt. He pointed to his chest. “You see this,” he said. I looked and sure enough it was a badge. I quickly explained, “No, I didn’t. All I saw was your back while you were beating up my friend.”

That seems to placate him enough so as to not throw me in jail. But, he then puffed himself up, reminiscent of Don Knotts, playing Barney Fife, and ordered Ray and myself out of town.

Luckily, Ray had a car. I got in and we headed out, westward bound. “Wow”, I thought, “I’ve just been run out of town. How many people could say that?” I couldn’t help feel some pride and I ignored the persisting sting of the blackjack.

My First Job with the Feds

During my high school junior and senior years my best friend Phil and I worked nights at the Post Office Mail Terminal for two weeks during the Xmas rush. All the mail was brought in via Union Pacific railroad to the major train terminal in town. Post office employees were right there to start sorting the mail as soon as it left the train cars. I was lucky that Phil had access to a car because after we worked through the night we were able to get to class on time the next morning thanks to his transportation. We then had a full day of school. When we got out of school we were able to get a few hours sleep before leaving for work. By the end of the two weeks we were walking zombies from lack of sleep.

First the mail was sorted by state. The loose letters came in a large bin. I would grab a hand full of letters and start to pigeonhole them by state. As soon as a pigeonhole was filled, the letters were bundled up with brown fiber cord and placed in other bins labeled by state. Then these state bins were moved to separate pigeonhole racks labeled for each state. All the major cities in that state had its own pigeonhole, with a big slot at the lower right of the rack to catch every other place in the state.
First the mail was sorted by state. The loose letters came in a large bin. I would grab a hand full of letters and start to pigeonhole them by state. As soon as a pigeonhole was filled, the letters were bundled up with brown fiber cord and placed in other bins labeled by state. Then these state bins were moved to separate pigeonhole racks labeled for each state. All the major cities in that state had its own pigeonhole, with a big slot at the lower right of the rack to catch every other place in the state.

When I begin to sort mail for any rack I was assigned to, the sorting started slowly. I would have to search and find the proper hole to put a letter. But gradually, I would remember the proper slot location on the rack. And after a while, I could place a letter properly without having to look at the rack with some of the cities.

Once in a while they needed someone to help sort packages and I did 2-3 nights. Most of the older permanent employees sorted packages so this was probably a sign that it was a better job. Anyway, I thought it was. I got to toss, throw, and underhand packages, big and small into various large mail sacks. The packages would come down a conveyor belt cold because they hadn’t time to warm up from outside. The job involved a little walking which was much better than standing all night in front of a pigeonhole rack.

When I worked a rack, I saved all the brown fiber string from the opened bundles. I would make a mat with them for standing on, providing a cushion against the cold, hard cement floor. The further along the shift, the more I had built up the cushioning providing more and more comfort to my feet. Standing all night was tiring.

In the early 50’s, people sent a lot of Christmas cards. Adults sent cards to all there sisters and brothers, parents, grandparents, people at work, neighbors, what have you. All that mail was sorted by hand. The cost of a first class stamp was 3 cents. Postcards were a penny. It was way before the post office issued special Xmas issues; there were no zip codes, no return address stickers, and no letter sorting machines. A mailmen would deliver big bunches of mail to each house. Their big brown leather bags worn over a shoulder were crammed with various colored envelopes. Once opened, the cards frequently became part of the Xmas décor with the best of the lot displayed most prominently.

The night of the 23rd of December was my last day to work. Then I stayed awake all the next day. When Xmas Eve came I was able to snuggle myself into bed for a good nights sleep with visions of, well, a good night’s sleep.

GAS METER MAN!

My career with the Council Bluffs Natural Gas Company was not over after my summer on the pipe laying crew. The next summer the gas company needed a meter reader and after talking to Norman, the Assistant Collections Manager, I signed on.

I read meters for the next fours years during the summer and on most Saturdays during my high school days. When I was home for the summer during college, I worked at night and read meters for ½ day during the day. No wonder my social skills were underdeveloped. I got really good at meter reading and made efficiency my middle name.

I was fast, really, really fast at scurrying through my route for the day. And I guarantee you that no one could do the job today in the time I managed to do it. If there were extensive records kept for accuracy and speed, my records today would surely have an asterisk along side of my name, just like they do in baseball. Why? In the early 50’s people lived differently. Let me expand.

Council Bluffs was a town of around 45,000 people then with two high schools of about 2200 students each. It was a railroad town, mail terminal and a commercial center for farmers to buy their weekly rations. There were not many poor people and not many rich people. The vast majority were middle working class families. Doctors still made house calls. Dentists were getting used to x-ray equipment, but without the warnings of too much radiation exposure. Street cars had been just recently phased out in favor of buses. Automatic washing machines were being purchased in abundance and the wringer washers were being scrapped, except for the motors that were saved in case one thought of a good reason to use one.

Television was new then and those who could afford a TV set had an eight inch round tube black and white set that stood 4 feet tall with rabbit ear antennae that picked up 3 stations from Omaha. If you owned a car, it had a stick shift manual transmission, bench seats, a radio, and a heater. White-wall tires were extra.

I would guess that 90 % of the gas meters in Council Bluffs were in the basement. So it was required to enter houses from the side or rear door to gain access to the basement. Some houses still had basement access through outside cellar doors. Most basements were unfinished then and people used them to store extra things that would eventually become junk after being unused for several years. They were seldom kept clean and cob webs were not uncommon by any means. Some basements still had dirt floors and many times they housed only the furnace, an abandoned coal bin, and a gas meter.

But getting back to the asterisk—in the 1950’s, the woman of the house stayed home and people didn’t lock their doors at night so they were still unlocked during the daytime providing someone was home. So when I came to a house, I would loudly pound on the door, open it a bit and yell, “Gas meter man”. Usually I would wait for someone to yell back, “Go ahead”. If I heard no answer, I would yell again, then, I would proceed to the basement to find the meter. I usually didn’t wait for the door to be answered and very, very seldom did this present a problem. It was accepted behavior.

So I was able to quickly get in and get out of the basements. I cut across lawns (also mostly acceptable) and jumped fences up to 4 feet high in order to maintain a bee line to the next door.

My tools were my meter book, a couple of pencils, and a heavy duty flash light. I also carried a bunch of post cards that I left stuck in the door when no one was home and the door was locked. These cards had duplications of the meter dials and a home owner could draw in where the dial was positioned between the numbers and mail it in.

When I first started reading meters, I would turn my Ever-Ready on when I entered the basement, walk to the front of the house to find the meter, read the dials, and then, write down the numbers into the meter book. When writing, I had to wedge the flashlight into my left arm pit as I held the book in my left hand and wrote with my right hand as I stood before the meter. Then secure my pencil and take the flashlight out of my arm pit with my right hand and hurriedly move to the door, using the flashlight as necessary to make my way.

But I was able to speed things up by reading the meter, remembering the four numbers, moving to the outside, then writing down the numbers where the light was good. It removed the flashlight arm pit maneuver and by eliminating this maneuver 250 times a day, I probably saved 10-15 minutes a day. I rarely forgot my numbers and I would say the numbers aloud as I read them and it helped me remember them for a short time. Once I wrote the numbers down, the numbers were erased from my memory.

Technically, I was given 8 hours of work, but once I read my 250 meters, my work was done for the day. I would usually buy some food and soda at a corner mom and pop grocery store for lunch and 15 minutes was usually sufficient before moving on. I think my average time to complete my daily route was about 6 ½ hours.

But in today’s world with locked doors and women no longer at home to answer the door and privacy fences that can’t be jumped, reading meters has to be much slower than it used to me. Hence the asterisk.

Here is a typical gas meter dial.

You read the dials from right to left. I would come to this meter and say 0321, and when I wrote it down, I would write from right to left so the number came out 1230 in the book. I had to write legibly so the person that ran the billing machine could quickly read the correct numbers.

Each page of the meter book had a place for comments, which indicated where the meter could be found if difficult to find or whether there was a dog that was a problem and sometimes there would be comment that the lady of the house was good looking. I never got bitten by a dog while reading meters. My canine experience as a paper carrier paid off.

I was never propositioned by a sex stared female and never caught anyone naked, although I surprised a couple ladies ironing in the cool basement trying to escape the summer heat with just their slip and underwear on.

One house in the poorer section of town had their meter in a two foot high crawl space and the space was partially filled with debris. I saw that the meter had not been read for a long time and only an estimated amount placed in the recording space of the meter book. There were many “E’s” there to indicate estimates. I was determined to get a reading, and besides, Norman would notice it and give me an “attaboy”. I had half my body under the house and I was inching back out with the numbers in my head, when I felt something hit my legs. When I got completely out, I saw that it was some garbage. Apparently, the people didn’t want their meter read and after I wrote down the numbers, I could see why. The many estimates before were way off. The owners were probably using their gas stove to heat the place during the winter. No doubt Norman would have to deal with this later.

Once, I was in the basement when I heard a loud crash, and by the time I raced upstairs an elderly woman was calling for help. In the front room I saw a smashed glass coffee table and a woman with a severe gash in her arm that was really bleeding. I ran to the kitchen and got a towel for her arm and called the emergency unit and stayed with her until the unit arrived. If I had not been there, the woman may have been in serious trouble.

One week a year, I took over the janitor’s job while he went on vacation. Naturally, I worked as fast as possible, but I still wanted the floors to look awesome when customers came in to pay their bills or sign up new service. I used an industrial sized floor buffer that ran when both levers below the handle were squeezed. So in my haste, I let go of the levers and the handle while the buffer was slowing to a stop and the brush stopped moving but the handle swung around and smashed into a gas range on display in the front of the building. A big piece of enamel chipped off the oven door revealing a big dark area in place of the pristine, glossy white surface. “Oh no, I thought. I am in trouble.”

I had no other choice but to tell Norman what had happened. But he just smiled and said not to worry and he would see that the door was replaced. Norman was a good man.

One of the things I remember about my job reading meters in Council Bluffs for the Gas Company is that I was in almost every house in the city. I would guess that the number is at least 18,000. It occurs to me that if a company wants to do a market survey about what people have in their basements, they should talk to a gas meter reader first.

Digging Ditches for the Council Bluffs Natural Gas Company

Mother left her reporter job at the Council Bluffs Nonpareil newspaper to go to work at the Council Bluffs Natural Gas Company as secretary to the president of the company somewhere around 1950.

When I reached the age of 16 in the summer of 1951, I was legally eligible to work summer jobs that paid far more than work as a newspaper carrier or corn detasseler or raspberry picker or greenhouse worker. I was ready to move into work that men did. And thanks to my mother’s influence I secured a job with the gas company working on a crew that installed new gas mains in various parts of Council Bluffs.

Gus was my boss; a short, broad-shouldered muscular swarthy man who I think was of Greek heritage. Most of the time he had an easy manner about him and his instruction were given in a friendly manner. But he did not tolerate loafing and would say something gently sarcastic to remind someone that work was not about having fun. “Hope you’re not having trouble keeping your shovel clean” was all he needed to say to keep your mind on the task at hand.

I would typically rise about 6 AM, dress, eat, and pick up my lunch box and thermos bottle, catch the bus, and get a transfer for another bus to the South part of town. I would then walk about 3 blocks and be ready to go to work at 7:30. I would climb in back of a flat bed truck with 2-3 others. Someone would fill up the big water cooler and lift it up on the bed near the cab for safe traveling. On hot days we would stop close by and buy a big enough chuck of ice to last through the day. Gus would light up his cigar and climb into the driver’s seat and off we’d go to our destination.

Gus’s right hand man was Hans. Hans was a gentle giant of a man who spoke with a pronounced Swedish accent. Hans would always ride shot gun and once inside the cab he would place a chaw of Red Man tobacco inside his lip. I learned the best place to sit on the flat bed was next to the cab on the driver’s side. That way I was out of wind and away from potential sprays of tobacco juice occasionally emanating from the passenger side window.

We moved all around the city but sometimes our crew would spend 2 weeks at the same place installing a 6 inch gas main for 2 or 3 blocks down the side of an unpaved street. Les was our back hoe man He could really put his machine into its paces. Les was small in statue (about my size then). When one looked at Les there was no doubt that he was lower middle class working man. And he talked and thought like one. He smoked a lot was a drinking man and the lines on his face gave evidence to his habits.

This is the first job I had where men worked together as a team. Everything was always done calmly without anger or hysterics. I always carried out my jobs with eagerness and a desired to please because I wanted to build a reputation of being a hard worker and an easy person to get along with. I knew if what my boss thought of me would somehow get back to my mother causing a possible embarrassment to her if the message was negative. But, if the message was positive it would reinforce the image my mother would always try to project on to me.

When you are 16 you really don’t realize how much you are being influenced by things going on around you in so far as how many things ooze into your habits and attitudes. When in a leadership position as an adult, I always tried to act calmly even in the most stressful situations. I can’t image that I would ever pound my fist on the desk, turn red, and rant and rave as a means to motivate someone. And when I have run into people of this ilk, I always wonder how such leadership traits could possibly be effective in the long run. Usually my disrespect for them is so great that I secretly pity them. But I digress.

Laying a new 6’ inch cast iron main required lifting and moving pipe about 16 feet long into place along side the newly dug ditch. The ditch would be about 2 feet wide and 6 feet deep. When ready, two ropes would be looped around the pipe and two men would then straddle the pipe and sidle until the ditch bifurcated their bodies. Then the ropes were gradually lengthened until the pipe was in place. Each end of the pipe had a collar with six 3/8 inch holes evenly spaced around the circle. A tacky tar was smeared on the two faces to be joined, the holes were lined up and bolts were inserted and tightened. The pipe had to have a certain degree of levelness which was checked after each section was laid. Later, the pipe would be filled with pressurized air and each joint would be checked with a soapy solution to make sure the joints didn’t leak. In more modern times, the pipes are smaller, more flexible steel pipes that are welded together and checked for leaks before they are lowered into the ditch. These smaller pipes can also accept more gas pressure so more volume of gas can be pushed through.

Life working outside in the summer in the heart of the Midwest is not too difficult except in the dog days. A lot of time I would be digging a hole in the ground which requires a steady energy consuming effort. After a new main was laid, frequently there are a few houses along the street that didn’t have natural gas service. So I would dig a ditch from the new main to the house so a smaller pipe could be laid for service to them.

Half of Council Bluffs lies along the old Missouri river bottom and there are sections of the town where thick, dense clay lays a couple of feet below the surface. Digging up this material, which we called gumbo, requires a least 3 times the effort and takes 3 times as long. I took meticulous care of my two shovels, one a shade, and one a pike that was used for penetration. After each day, all the dirt was removed and the digging surfaces were polished and oiled to prevent rust and the edges were kept semi-sharp. Even so, when a shovel full of gumbo was brought up, it stuck to the shovel’s surface and had to be removed by whacking the shovel forcefully against a hard surface or pushed off with a hand, foot, or big stick.

Small tree roots were usually at the mercy of a heavy foot and sharp shovel edge. But some of the larger ones required several whacks before giving way. Buried rocks would announce their impenetrability with a clank of stone against metal. It was then time to search for soft soil near them so they could be dug up.

I tan easily and whenever possible when sweat was running down my face and arms, I took my shirt off. I learned that wearing underwear was not the desired thing. Dirt and/or sweat would travel downwards and filter themselves on my shorts and the elastic was uncomfortable. Not only was free swinging cooler; there were no more blackened white shorts to launder. There was no compromising when it came to foot ware however. Heavy work shoes were needed at all times.

My glory days as a ditch digger came when we had to make repairs on Broadway, the busiest street in town. When holes or ditches were dug on city streets, the holes had to be filled in and tamped down so that later, the dirt wouldn’t later compress and sag the pavement. We had an air compressor that traveled in back the flat bed and usually I got the job of tamping where I learned the value of keeping my feet out of the striking zone.

But when you work on a major street, you have to gouge out the multi-layers of pavement with a jackhammer before you can get to the dirt. To me the epitome of the strong all-American male back then was the image of a construction worker running a jackhammer. So here I am, 16 years old, shirt off, tanned skinny body running a jackhammer on Broadway trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. I found a do-rag for my forehead making my costume complete. Clouds of cement dust covered my body as the jarring noisy jackhammer pounded my arms and shoulders. Streaks of sweat ran down my back and chest. My hair resembled a chalk eraser. Surely, I thought, I was becoming a man. What comes next?