At one time I worked on road construction in western South Dakota. My coworkers and I referred to ourselves as the Road Builders of America.
The Robuam
Lenny I
1. Never be late or make it obvious.
2. Miss Utah of 1967 was my wife.
3. I've had six corvettes.
4. Get drunk every night and give it to the men the next day.
5. Dress like a pig, live like a pig.
6. Get a laugh out of a near fatal accident.
Ray I
1. Silent Ray with his mustache sitting in the shade.
2. It's no biggy.
Pat I
1. It's your mother too, son.
Padre I
1. Bundled up in coats in summer.
Moe I
1. Padre's got pneumonia.
Roy I
1. I got tar on my boots but road builders are tough.
Donut I.
1. Get that steel laid. Yup, yup boys, that's the idea.
2. Got a road to build.
Beek I
1. Back in ‘02 we didn’t have trucks.
Lenny II
1. You can't drive a truck?
The Steel Truck
The steel truck is everyone’s dream and curse.
They dream to get on her.
And curse the steel she brings
I got on near the end but caught a little of the charisma all steel truckers have.
It was hot and there was Hooksa, Jim, Ray and me.
It was burning hot and we went so slow that Ray even slept. Ray was driving. Jim would tap him when we went towards the ditch.
Hooksa and I would jump off to throw bent steel on the truck.
Jim decided to drive behind in his car.
Hooksa cursed him and called him a commie.
Jim was from Texas and disliked commies. He hated Hooksa.
Hooksa decided it was time the truck had a flat for it hadn’t had one all summer. Hooksa pounded a nail into the front tire. It was a hot job so he drank all of Jim’s icewater.
Ray drove slow so that the air could come out. Hooksa and I walked alongside listening to the hiss. It took a long time to go flat, but it was worth it because the mechanic would take all afternoon to change it. Then we would have to stop doing nothing to stop working.
Jim and Ray went to tell the mechanics and get icewater. The mechanics gave them a new tire. Hooksa and I had to change the tire. When we were finally done, Jim and Ray had drunk all the icewater.
The next day they gave us a new man, Roger. He and Hooksa thought it was fun to see how many steel rods we could lift. They called Jim a lazy commie.
“I can lift more rods than you Pollock commie can any day,” said Jim.
So Jim would get on one end, Roger and Hooksa on the other end and I was in the middle where it was twice as heavy as either end. We picked up three rods, which was ninety pounds in the middle and had to throw it onto the truck bed which was almost five feet high.
“You call that hard,” said Jim after we did it.
“I didn’t say that,” said Hooksa. “Let’s lift five rods next time.”
I had a heck of a time getting my hands around five rods and an even harder time lifting them.
“Well,” I said after nearly breaking my back, “You guys can do it, so let’s go back to two rods.”
“That’s alright with me,” said Jim.
“The commie’s had enough,” said Hooksa.
“I thought you would,” said Jim.
“Let’s take eight,” said Roger.
So I bitched while we tried to get our hands around eight. We had to settle for seven. I was afraid the whole thing would fall on me.
“Ray,” I shouted, “Come and give me some help.”
But Ray was asleep in the cab and didn’t answer.
So sweating blood, I managed to get it barely up and onto the truck bed.
Then we came to the crane. It was parked in the middle of the road bed in the middle of the project. Roger and Jim went to sleep in the shade under it while Ray and I added oil and water to the truck.
“Let’s fix this crane,” said Hooksa. “It never did run too well so they’ll never know the difference. Give me some crackers out of Jim’s lunch box.”
So I gave him Jim’s crackers. He crumbled them and dumped them into the gas tank, which wasn’t quite enough, so he urinated into it.
“Now they’ll have a time figuring out what’s wrong,” laughed Hooksa, “It’ll just sit here in the middle of the road.”
The next day they ran out of jobs for the steel truck.
