I asked three bricklayers what they were doing
The first said laying some bricks
The second said making some money
The third said helping to erect a great building
- Unknown
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Go big or stick to the day job...
A few years back we were contacted by an individual asking if we had any "favorite" climbing images we'd like to contribute to a publication of some sort that they were workin' on. Never specified that they had to be one of ours.
"Sure!"
Sent 'em this, un-captioned and unexplained -
Image©️Royal Robbins - Spirit of the Age, 1998, Pat Ament/Author, Stackpole Books/Publisher
Imagine the forgone life this guy (left) would have had, had he succumbed to this shitty clerk job at the local bank
Subsequently, never received a response regarding our submittal
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While rummaging thru the archives we came across an old disc of a few assorted images from the day job:
On a mission
"Spec-Op" lock & dam project - operation classified
One of the boys hard at work
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Bridge inspection
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Preppin' a sectional mini-barge, then out on the lake
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Always interesting work when the divers are involved...
Divers puttin' in steady four hour split-shifts, zero visibility, vacuum-dredging a silted up gatehouse at a lake dam for later inspection
After nearly an hour and a half negotiating the final five miles of inbound city gridlock, breaking dawn finds us arriving at the next job situated along Pittsburgh's north shore riverbank. We're scheduled to meet (recently departed) Bob Brown, owner of Three Rivers Diving. Zero hour 7am. Bob's small barge is moored shoreline. We're lookin' about. No Bob. Must have run out to get himself a coffee. We settle back and watch the bumper to bumper rush hour congestion creeping snail pace along the West End Bridge, maybe a hundred feet over-spanning the Ohio River. It's mid-summer and shaping up weather-wise to be a good day out on the water. Great way to get paid. An early morning misty fog is limiting visibility downriver from our vantage point to just past the bridge span. Maybe a quarter mile. Ten minutes out and the rush hour resound is penetrated by the distant droning of a four-stroke Evinrude outboard. A 20ft aluminum workskiff penetrates the mist and a smilin' Bob motors upriver and docks... "I brought the barge up last night!"
F*k that - no traffic jams for Bob.
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Commute isn't always settin' in traffic
A simple rig we came up with for assisting with structural inspection and testing at Pittsburgh's (then named) Heinz Field.
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We're gonna' have to locate a disk that we know we have of a few steel erection projects...
Prince Georges, County, Md. Early AM. The ironworkers are gearin' up for another day of settin' structural steel for framing a new "modern-style" church building. Erection is complete up to roof level. One of the two guys settin' high steel for the day is workin' his way nonchalantly up the flange of a 1:1 pitch hip rafter framing the church "steeple". Probably 60ft off the ground floor. He's got a 50ft coil of air hose slung over the right shoulder counter-weighting the 20lb air impact wrench he's carryin' left hand.
Same crew, another project. We're ground level checkin' the plumb tolerance of a few steel columns. Hear someone calling out to get our attention. Look left, right, then all around. Where is he? Look up. Two floors above our caller is perched mid-span along the three-inch flange of an open-web steel floor joist. Until "buttoned up", a bit deflecting framing member to say the least. Hunched waist over, hands on knees. Comfortable as if standin' on a four foot sidewalk.
For all the "mountain climbing" that we did, will have to admit that we never really got comfortable the (infrequent) times we had to follow those ironworkers around above the floor decking. Is quite a difference being anchored to a rope on a cliff face and having only to focus on ascent as opposed to balancing (then) untethered along narrow beams while prioritized with concentrating on the job at hand. Hard men those guys.
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Drivin' into the shop and notice that the guys have cordoned a small, maybe 12' x 12', section of the equipment yard off with four corner spaced traffic cones and caution tape. Not a convenient spot, either, for negotiating 25ft trailers, mobile drills and heavy equipment access to the shop bay door. What the f*k did they do now, kill somebody?
"Hey - what's up with the traffic cones!?"
"A Killdeer laid four eggs right there in the gravel!!"
As Killdeers do - those guys aren't so tough and menacing as they let on.
