When I started at the cement plant in Calera, Alabama back in October 13, 1976, I was introduced to making cement. I remember my first day and all the wonders associated with manufacturing cement. The first thing that my supervisor showed me was clinkers. He reminded me that cement making is dangerous work. He looked me in the eye and said, “Hopper, you were hired for your back and not your mind. Work safe, you may walk into the plant and before the day is done we may have to tote you out!”
Clinkers are made by kiln burning raw materials of lime, iron ore, sand, and aluminum. Years later I would be a kiln burner operator and watch as the blended ingredients would start a four-hundred fifty feet journey down the kiln. I trained my eyes to watch the “burning zone” as the powder turned to liquid, then to a clinker as the liquid turn solid as it rolled down the kiln wall.
Clinkers varied in size from dust particles to baseball size. They could be gigantic if there was a disruption during the burning process. The largest I witnessed was four feet in diameter. It looked like a Volkswagen Beetle rolling toward me. That’s a story for down the road.
One of my first jobs with the labor crew was helping to tear out bricks from a kiln. Kiln bricks are 9 inches x 4.5 inches x 3 inches making a circle in a 12 feet diameter kiln hull. That’s a lot of brick. Back in the seventies management told us that replacing one row or course of brick cost $125,000 considering all the variables of down time, removal, replacement, and startup curing.
Brick removal is very dangerous. First a “key” has to be cut in the bricks. A 90 lbs. jackhammer is the principal tool to cut the key. The jackhammer weighs more than 90 lbs. It takes 90 per square inch of air to run it. It is hard using it on a flat surface and more difficult to operate it in a 12-foot circle surface which 36 feet around the kiln.
Most of the time, about 3 feet high on each side of the key is as high as one could operate the jackhammer. The rest of the row incorporated a sledgehammer that we effectually called “Percy” in honor of Percy Sledge the recording artist who was an Alabama native.
I had the privilege to operate both the 90 pounder and “Percy.” One of my first claims to fame involved the sledgehammer. I had the strength to sling the hammer. I could tear out the brick but with one fatal flaw. I would break the head off the handle. That day I broke every sledgehammer in the plant which was no small number. My co-workers replaced the handles until they had used everyone the storeroom had driving the cost a little higher. It is like the man of God replacing the lost axe head in II Kings.
Another time Don, my co-worker, and I were charged by our supervisor, Hubbard, and the plant production manager, Killingworth, to cut a key in the burning zone of the cement kiln. This area of the kiln reaches temperatures of 2200 degrees and uses a more expensive brick. $125000 multiplied by 100 rows (75 feet) is $12,500,000 for a rough estimate in 1976.
Don and I asked how far they wanted the key cut. They responded, “Don’t worry about that, just cut to we get back.” So, we did as instructed. I ran the jackhammer and Don tossed out the brick. I cut three bricks, then four for seventy-five feet key.
Suddenly, Don and I smelled the aroma of a pipe in the draft of the kiln. Hubbard, which we called” Pawpaw”, could not sneak up on us because of the pipe. Killingworth, which we called “Killer”, not because of his name but due to an attempted suicide, entered the kiln.
It was a grand entrance. Killer’s face turned blood red like unto a cartoon character and tossed his hardhat up the kiln in anger and cussing like a Corinthian sailor. Pawpaw had some unlike Pawpaw words as well. “Why in the &@!$#did you tear out so many bricks?”
Don and I had worked hard without stopping while they were gone. They were only going to replace 15 feet. Killer and Pawpaw told everyone that the brick were rotten and that is why Don, and I removed them so quickly. Killer and Pawpaw had to report to upper management, but everyone in Calera knew they were just covering their very costly blunder.
All they had to do was tell us what they wanted. We just used our backs and did not think.
But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. II Kings 6:5 KJV
He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Proverbs 10:4 KJV
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