COPPER WIRE AND MEN OF STEEL
CHAPTER II- THE LINEMAN

At the end of his first full day as a lineman, James had learned many lessons. The most evident of these was that climbing poles involved a considerable amount of pain. Another was that the experienced linemen were still up to their old tricks. One of the most prevalent methods of tormenting the "new kid" was to force him into competing with the "big guys." The boss, always in league with the tormentors, told our boy that there were to be seven men climbing this particular day and James was expected to "ketch every seventh pole." That didn't sound too tough for this youngster but before he finished his work on the first pole he noticed that all six of the other men had run by him and were already up their second stick. Only then did he realize he was in a race. By noon break he couldn't see the rest of the crew they were so far ahead, and he wisely decided he would fare much better with his peers if he caught up before he knocked off for lunch. Upon working his way to the chuck-wagon, to his amazement he saw his friends, having finished their meal, going back to the poles. He knew there was no way he could keep up so he elected to skip lunch and keep trying. 

Unknowingly, he had passed another unwritten test. He had given his all and failed but he was expected to fail. This was to be the last time the crew organized to torment him and good thing as he had paid a dear price.

He had discovered what the term "crow feet" meant. He swore that after standing on that narrow strip of metal for five hours his toes bent down so far they could touch his equally bent down heels. His shiny new hooks had worn huge blisters on his calves and insteps. He was filled with splinters from the square redwood poles having "burned" a couple in his haste to keep up. His hands were cut and bleeding and as he surveyed the mess he had become he realized he had reached a new depth of despair. Why he thought, did anyone want to be a lineman?

His wise and occasionally benevolent foreman had known that if James were to make it in this grueling world of the lineman he had to have guts and on this morning he had proven himself. The boss intercepted JJ, as the boys were now calling him, and told him to eat his lunch and take the afternoon off to pull a few slivers and mend his town clothes. 

That afternoon and night he had ample time to reflect on the term "burn a pole" as he tried to remove "half a cord of redwood" from his chest, arms, face and other places best left to your imagination. Redwood contains an acid that has a fiery quality all its own. This, topped off by liberal doses of iodine, produced a "burn" that left poor JJ little to smile about. This was especially true regarding those "other places" mentioned above.

The next morning, just as he did every morning, the cook woke up the camp by pounding on a old iron rim. JJ had no trouble waking as he'd had a restless night. He couldn't decide where he hurt most but he knew he was expected to "hit it" just as though he hadn't been converted to hamburger the day before. With some friendly advise from his former antagonists he was able to bandage himself and put on clothes that were designed to protect him from further redwood invasions. As a grunt he had often wondered why the linemen wore leather leggings, long underwear and bib-overalls and now he knew. 

He limped his way through that day and many more like it during his career. He experienced a multitude of trials along the way such as the building of the first transcontinental line over the Sierras and across the deserts of Nevada.

He enjoyed telling of the hardships involved in this noteworthy event in telephone history and of the contrasts between setting poles in the mountains of solid granite and of the miles of line built across sand and sometimes shallow lakes in Nevada. Perhaps the most difficult condition to contend with was the extremes in temperature -- below zero plus howling winds in the mountains where the snow sometimes buries the line completely, and temperatures well above 100 degrees on the desert floor. It can't be said too often, it took a hardy breed of men to endure and they did it with pride. Perhaps this word pride tells it all.

MA

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