Weekend Warriors

Yesterday I spoke of the one Friday - and it was only one, I swear! - where we refused to answer the phone after 3:30. There was a reason for that, beyond the obvious ones. Me Uncle John who we call Zeke summed it up well: nothing good ever happens after 4 o'clock on Friday. That's when the Weekend Warriors come out of the woodwork.

Now, I'm not against anyone having additional income streams. Indeed most of my adult life I've worked a second job trying to make ends meet. Further, this was much more of a problem when we still rented welding equipment. Welders were much more difficult to deal with than drain snakes, for reasons I will not bore you about. My blogs can bore you well enough without added exposition, although I do readily offer that service. You're welcome.

Anyway, there were guys who we only heard from late on Fridays, and to a tee they were all nuisances. One would order a welder delivered through rush hour traffic an hour away, and want the driver to wait while he did a 15 minute weld which typically extended to 45. Another would actually bring his work to the old barn, pay Joe for use of a machine right then and there only to take two hours for a 'quick' job, leaving at least one of us to close at 7 or 7:30. A third would have a simple request: take a welder to an industrial site in the wee hours of a Sunday morning for a day job, and ask us to pick it up late, all too often very late, on that same day. And so on and so forth.

We would do it, because that's how we did it forty, fifty, and sixty years ago. It would all start with a phone call after 4 on a Friday. We will not do that anymore. Thankfully, I will add. Although I do put in enough hours on weekends myself, I at least don't affect anyone else doing it.

Dial a Joke

It was at the end of a long, difficult week at the old barn. We sat around the coffee pot, me, me Pops, and me brother Phil as the clock hit 3:30, debating whether to wish the week sayonara and close early. We compromised. We'd stay at the Shop until 5 but would not answer the phone.

Those were the days before cell phones. We did not have an answering machine at work because we always, and I mean always before that point, answered the phone. That was to be the first time we would consciously ignore it. Honest.

Somewhere around 4 the phone began to ring. True to our vow the three of us sat in our chairs, sipping coffee and engaging in small talk. We let it ring.

And boy did it ring. If I had to guess I would say a couple of hundred times. Indeed, maybe several hundred. It went on for a good 15 minutes. Likely more. Eventually we were alternately laughing and then shaking heads at the caller's persistence. He was as determined to get an answer as we were not to provide one. "Can you imagine what the guy must be thinking? Man, Cosgriff gotta be busy not to answer their phone!" 

The thing is, no one ever owned up to the call. But it finally gave up the ghost and we finished our Friday in by then glorious quiet.

Grandpaw Hutchins' coffee

Grandpaw Hutchins liked his coffee strong. So strong in fact that he thought instant coffee one of the greatest innovations ever, because he could brew a strong pot of Maxwell House and then add a teaspoon of instant granules to his cup to give it that much more horsepower. He must have drank two, three pots of coffee a day: no lie. He also was a quiet man who rarely if ever raised his voice. He let his actions speak for him. One day coffee, his manner, and Grandmaw Hutchins' will all came together in a profound, sublime way.

It was one of those typically hot, sticky North Carolina summer days which are well known in the south. At the time, though, all they had for cooking was a wood stove. Keeping that stove going on such days made the kitchen, indeed the whole house, tremendously uncomfortable and nearly unbearable. Finally Grandmaw had had enough of it. When breakfast was over, she announced that from that day forward until the weather began to cool, the stove also would be allowed to cool during the day. When the breakfast embers died, the stove would not be fired up again until it was time to make supper.

Grandpaw didn't say a thing. He simply slid back from the table, grabbed his hat, and walked out the front door. About an hour later he returned with an electric hot plate. He had walked the mile to the nearest general store (he didn't drive), bought that hot plate, and came home.

You see, a cool stove meant no hot coffee. He couldn't have that. Yet demanding the stove be kept burning against Grandmaw's orders, well, that wouldn't work either. So he improvised a conclusion which was satisfactory for all.

I think he handled the situation just right. Don't you?

Feeling Bad For Cloyce

I'm in sales, and I like sales. I particularly like to make big sales. Well, most of time, anyways. Sometimes a good sale does make me feel bad though, believe it or not.

There's this drain cleaner who comes into the old barn, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who's a genuine, purely nice guy. Indeed you can't help but like him, he's so nice. But he's had a run of awful luck lately.

A couple of weeks ago Cloyce lost nine cables in a bad sewer; the homeowner didn't have the money to dig the line up for repair. The cables Cloyce uses are $65 each. We can all say ouch at that, can't we?

A few weeks back in a flood, his power unit was covered in water for several hours. There's another two grand to replace that.

Last Friday morning Cloyce needed another eight cables, again, remember, at sixty five bucks a pop, after someone did not tell him a line they knew was broken was broken.

Suffice it say that I've made a few dollars off Cloyce recently. Yet I honestly feel bad about it. All right, yes, I took his money. Still, I do hope his, ah, fortune improves soon.

Morning Vittles

There were two things in particular which I loved to hear me Grandpa Joe say and they were both associated with working for him. They were, "Let's get that coffee," and, "Let's get them vittles," whenever he decided it was time for a break.

It struck me even back then that his words sounded almost as though we had to hunt them, had to track them down, as if the coffee pot didn't just sit there on a table by the office or that the snacks weren't right alongside it. The vittles were the snacks which he always had me or me Pops or me Uncle John buy for the morning coffee break. Joe paid for them; I think he genuinely liked treating us, but I don't doubt at all he looked forward to them too.

Vittles were the height of the workday for a young boy like me. There were always single serve and two for everyone, an assortment of cupcakes, pies, donuts, and cinnamon rolls. I hoped every morning for a Hostess French Apple pie, which was really only their apple pie with raisins added, but it seemed significantly different. Joe and Pops and me and whomever else was there would lay into them vittles like we hadn't ate in days.

Uncle John rarely did, and I don't know why. He would buy a paper and sit nearby reading it as the rest of us fell into sugar induced stupors. At times I wondered if something was wrong with him, but that was surely the kid in me thinking such stuff.

It was 15, maybe 20 minutes of the day. But man, I miss gettin' them vittles.

Word Gets Around

Up until yesterday, I was pretty certain I would not be curling this coming year (the curling season runs roughly late October to early April). We lost our ice in Windsor, Ontario where I had been throwing stones and I didn't think I had options elsewhere. 

Yet the curling fraternity runs deep and strong. Word gets around about who is doing what as a new year at the rink approaches. Three guys looking for a skip on a Thursday league at the Detroit Curling Club discovered I was available and signed me up. It's nice to be wanted. I really can't say how much I appreciate the invite to play. It makes a fella both happy and humble. 

I was mentally prepared for my curling career to be over but now can go on for another year. We'll see how much they appreciate - or regret - their decision soon enough!

Pops Strikes Joe

I've mentioned many times that me Grandpa Joe rented welding equipment and that me Pops worked for him. I don't believe that I've talked about how Pops was a Teamster. Joe paid for Dad to be union because many sites in the fifties, sixties, and seventies wanted only union workers on the job. It had further advantages for Pops and Joe too. It gave Dad health insurance, something well needed for a man with a wife and 7 kids, and a pension of sorts. I say of sorts because I don't believe the Teamsters did Pops justice on that count, but that's another story.

Anyway, for a long time every three years there was a new contract. I remember a couple of times as young teen toiling at the old barn, the Teamsters business agent would come by the Shop with the master contract to 'negotiate' it with Grandpa Joe. You know, to discuss if there were any particulars peculiar to Dad's job which the master contract either didn't touch or was vague about. For Joe and the agent I think it was simply a reason to kill an hour as they usually just looked over a few points and then shot the breeze; even Pops would join in here and there, just talking. There was never a problem of course.

But what great fun there could have been if there had been issues. Can you imagine the business agent ordering William Cosgriff to go on strike against Joe? Could you see me old Pops walking a one man picket line outside the old barn, 'Joe Cosgriff UNFAIR!' being proclaimed from the sign he'd carry. Or maybe Dad chanting between himself, 'What do I want? FAIR WAGES! When do I want them? NOW!' We could have even gotten him an old oil drum to light a fire to warm himself if it were winter.

And what about poor me? Do I cross the picket line to work for the man who was paying me, or respect my father and stay home in sympathy? Oh, it would have been the latter, but, sadly, out of a reason to be lazy rather than support a strike, all under the guise of supporting me Dad. What could be better?

It never would have happened. Yet, the possibilities and images make me chuckle.