We Hired You for Your Back Not Your Mind

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?”

 Our answer was classic.  “You told us not worry about it just tear them out to you got back.”  They denied it but Don that Pawpaw kind of favored said, Hubbard you did say tear them out to you got back.”

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

Too Simple

 Has anyone ever asked you to do something, and you thought, “that’s too simple and it will not work.”  While reading my devotion I came across the word “exponentially.”  What was odd, I heard “growing exponential” in a sermon the day before.  Sometimes when I do not know what a word means, I generally see how it is used in the sentence.  This time, since it crossed my path twice, I looked it up.  The definition did not help so I looked to see a common sense use of “exponentially.”

What I found was an old math equation using a penny.  It goes like this:  Would you work for a day for a penny if I doubled it every day for 30 days?  Most people say no.  In fact, I asked my secretary Pam, and she said no.  I would!

If I work for a penny a day, $0.01, and double it each day on the thirtieth day, I would be paid $10,737,418.24 for that day.  Did I ever tell you that algebra was the easiest subject I ever took?  This exponential function can be represented by the equation: f(x) = 0.01(2^x) where x = the day number. If you plug in 30 for x, you get f(x) = 0.01×2³⁰ = 10,737,418.24.  The problem, no pun intended, is the simplicity of a penny a day.

Take my friend Keilan.  After winter shut down at the cement plant, Keilan and I were in the process of starting up the cement kilns.  The coal hoppers had a slide at the bottom above the coal mills.  Normally it took someone hammering the slide out of the hopper.  It was hard to open when the hoppers were empty and very difficult when tons of coal was on top of the slide.  Knowing how problematical it was, I had greased the slide before pushing it in place when the hopper emptied for shutdown.  The shift supervisor instructed Keilan to make sure the slide was out while the tanks were empty.

Keilan could not find a sledgehammer.  Usually, they were everywhere.  I inquired why he needed a sledgehammer.  Keilan could be easily frustrated; worried coal would be put into the hoppers before he could get the slide out.  He had a few special words for me and again asked if I knew where there was a sledgehammer.  I asked him if he had tried to pull the slide out of the hopper.  I got a few choice words explaining that it was impossible to do that.

Keilan did not know was while he was in search of the hiding sledgehammers I went to see if I could pull out the slide knowing I had greased it while the hopper was empty.  It pulled right out.  I pushed it back in for a little fun with Keilan.

The bamboozled Keilan returned with no sledgehammer.  I asked again if he had tried to pull out the slide.  After a few more inapt words from him and some persuading words from me, Keilan consented to try to pull the slide. 

If I had not caught him, he yanked the slide with the fury of an agitated Hercules; he would have gone over a safety rail and fallen twenty feet onto concrete.  It was funny and Keilan and the slide, which weighed about seventy-five lbs., were heavy.  I think Keilan would have tried to kill me, but he was too indebted since I caught him.  Again, the solution was too simple.

On another occasion, my friend Bailey, a carpenter at the University of Montevallo, had spent several days and several dollars taking his infant daughter Ashleigh to the pediatrician to cure oral thrush, a yeast infection in the mouth caused by an overgrowth of fungus.  I worked four years with Bailey.  A co-worker and I said the old timers called it “thrash” and that he should take Ashleigh to a “thrash doctor.”  That’s where I took my children.  My Grandmoe Chapman was a thrash doctor.

Bailey was a college graduate and was reluctant to believe what he termed voodoo and old wives' tales.  Ashleigh grew worse, Bailey spent more money, and we encouraged him to use a thrash doctor.

One day an officer from the University police department visited the carpenter shop for a cup of coffee.  The morning conversation was the status of Ashleigh’s mouth and Bailey’s checking account.  Hearing our advice to see the thrash doctor, which do not charge for services rendered, Officer Satterwhite advised Bailey to take her to the thrash doctor.  Not believing my co-worker and me, Bailey took Ashleigh to Officer Satterwhite’s mother, a thrash doctor.  One trip healed Ashleigh.  The solution was too simple.

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.  And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.  But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?  Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (II Kings 5:9-14 KJV).


 

 

Too Simple to Work

Has anyone ever asked you to do something, and you thought, “that’s too simple and it will not work.”  While reading my devotion I came across the word “exponentially.”  What was odd, I heard “growing exponential” in a sermon the day before.  Sometimes when I do not know what a word means, I generally see how it is used in the sentence.  This time, since it crossed my path twice, I looked it up.  The definition did not help so I looked to see a commonsense use of “exponentially.”

What I found was an old math equation using a penny.  It goes like this:  Would you work for a day for a penny if I doubled it every day for 30 days?  Most people say no.  In fact, I asked Pam, my secretary and she said no.  I would!

If I work for a penny a day, $0.01, and double it each day on the thirtieth day, I would be paid $10,737,418.24 for that day.  Did I ever tell you that algebra was the easiest subject I ever took?  This exponential function can be represented by the equation: f(x) = 0.01(2^x) where x = the day number. If you plug in 30 for x, you get f(x) = 0.01×2³⁰ = 10,737,418.24.  The problem, no pun intended, is the simplicity of a penny a day.

Take my friend Keilan.  After winter shut down at the cement plant, Keilan and I were in the process of starting up the cement kilns.  The coal hoppers had a slide at the bottom above the coal mills.  Normally it took someone hammering the slide out of the hopper.  It was hard to open when the hoppers were empty and very difficult when tons of coal was on top of the slide.  Knowing how problematical it was, I had greased the slide before pushing it in place when the hopper emptied for shutdown.  The shift supervisor instructed Keilan to make sure the slide was out while the tanks were empty.

Keilan could not find a sledgehammer.  Usually, they were everywhere.  I inquired why he needed a sledgehammer.  Keilan could be easily frustrated; worried coal would be put into the hoppers before he could get the slide out.  He had a few special words for me and again asked if I knew where there was a sledgehammer.  I asked him if he had tried to pull the slide out of the hopper.  I got a few choice words explaining that it was impossible to do that.

Keilan did not know was while he was in search of the hiding sledgehammers I went to see if I could pull out the slide knowing I had greased it while the hopper was empty.  It pulled right out.  I pushed it back in for a little fun with Keilan.

The bamboozled Keilan returned with no sledgehammer.  I asked again if he had tried to pull out the slide.  After a few more inapt words from him and some persuading words from me, Keilan consented to try to pull the slide. 

If I had not caught him, he yanked the slide with the fury of an agitated Hercules; he would have gone over a safety rail and fallen twenty feet onto concrete.  It was funny and Keilan and the slide, which weighed about seventy-five lbs., were heavy.  I think Keilan would have tried to kill me, but he was too indebted since I caught him.  Again, the solution was too simple.

On another occasion, my friend Bailey, a carpenter at the University of Montevallo, had spent several days and several dollars taking his infant daughter Ashleigh to the pediatrician to cure oral thrush, a yeast infection in the mouth caused by an overgrowth of fungus.  I worked four years with Bailey.  A co-worker and I said the old timers called it “thrash” and that he should take Ashleigh to a “thrash doctor.”  That’s where I took my children.  My Grandmoe Chapman was a thrash doctor.

Bailey was a college graduate and was reluctant to believe what he termed voodoo and old wives' tales.  Ashleigh grew worse, Bailey spent more money, and we encouraged him to use a thrash doctor.

One day an officer from the University police department visited the carpenter shop for a cup of coffee.  The morning conversation was the status of Ashleigh’s mouth and Bailey’s checking account.  Hearing our advice to see the thrash doctor, which do not charge for services rendered, Officer Satterwhite advised Bailey to take her to the thrash doctor.  Not believing my co-worker and me, Bailey took Ashleigh to Officer Satterwhite’s mother, a thrash doctor.  One trip healed Ashleigh.  The solution was too simple.

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.  And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.  But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?  Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (II Kings 5:9-14 KJV).