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Post by One Man Gang on Aug 7, 2024 16:20:00 GMT -5
My hat is off to you guys who do this kind of work. Y'all are nuts. I always loved it even on the bad days it was good, that was back before being a lineman was cool and somewhat well thought of, one of my old boss men used to tell me that we ( his lineman ) were a little closer to the barstool than we were the church pulpit LOL and outside of them just needing us we were just one mess up away from being unemployed, but the truth was he loved us and would do about anything for us as we would him. I'm a different man today as I stay far away from any bar stools and find myself closer to the church pulpit than back then ( if he could just see me now LOL ) even though it was just a job I couldn't have done anything else. I get it. I was not cut out to shine a seat with my ass inside a office for a living either.
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Post by swampdog on Aug 7, 2024 18:05:43 GMT -5
Had and have a lot of friends that were/are linemen. BIL retired as a lineman and did really well. It’s a tough job, but the guys that are cut out for it, seem to do it really well. I agree seeing them in the area when the power is off is very reassuring.
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Post by PolarsStepdad on Aug 7, 2024 19:21:54 GMT -5
One thing I liked about the line side was there wasn't near the politics and good ole boy BS as there was on the inside. I'm sure there was to an extent but when your 20 miles from the nearest gas station or town and thwre is only 12 of you it doesn't take long to figure out who ain't pulling. And Wimpy (GF/Superintendent) wouldn't push harder than he'd pull. If we were a man short and a deadline to meet he'd strap his hooks on and up he'd go. I saw him do it on a 140' steel pole we'd just set. Nearly hanging upside down in his belt to get an insulator on or rigged for the pull. Truly impressed me. He was a damn good man to work for. And to learn from. I saw him last week and the retirees luncheon and told him how much I enjoyed working for him and he said he enjoyed having me on his crew. Made me feel good. And I'm sure my dad liked hearing it to. He wanted us to be busy. He wasn't a hard driver but he didn't want us standing around. If we were in a lull he told us to have rope kn our hands tieing knots. Damn sure don't let him catch you with your hands in your pockets. As the Jr. guys in the crew o e of our jobs wad to get all the trucks cranked and warming up (winter). And then get the kegs to go get ice and water. He'd usually give us a half hour of overtime to let us get started before the briefing (he didn't have to). One of the lineman had a plate welded up that slipped over the exhaust manifold of the kenworth. So every morning I'd flip the hood up fire it up and slip that plate over the exhaust. Then after the brief one of the linemen would go over and cook eggs and bacon on the plate for our breakfast 🤣🤣 There were two brothers out of Gainesville that hired in with us. These guys pull up in a ragged our Pontiac Grand Am. This thing was rusted out and 10 years past it's retirement date. Open the door and beer cans fall out everywhere. I thought there is no way these guys are gonna make it past FFD. But they did. And were freakin machines in the bucket. I got stuck with the oldest brother. We are in the middle of BFE in Macon Co AL. We were building a 115kv line and after a few poles he hollars down from the bucket and throws me a $20. He said find me a store and buy the biggest Kotex/maximum pads you can find. And a 12 pack of Busch light. So I stood there dumbfounded. Wth does he want with maxipads? ? He then convinced me through colorful language of his seriousness. So I jump in the truck and off I go. And I indeed bought him the biggest Maxipads I could find. I figured this was some kind of initiation joke or and I'd have to qear it on my hardhat or something. N When I got back he comes down and sits on the bumper lifts up his pants and pulled his boor off. His legs were raw to the point of bleeding where his hooks had rubbed him so bad on his last job. He took out pads and put them on the raw spots so his boots and hooks couldn't rub it anymore 🤣🤣 O e mor ing it was raining pretty good and our contract had a 2 or 4 hour show up pay clause. Wimpy asked if qe wanted to work or just go home. Everybody pretty much unanimously said work. He said it didn't look like it was going to clear up but that he'd give it an hour or so before telli g us to go home. Which since they were paying us seemed fair anyway. He said yall go into town and eat or whatever so we drive to Opelika and went to waffle house. So we are piled in there and one of them ordered 2 porkchops. We'll he was slow to eat the second one so the younger brother said hey you gonna eat that? The older picked up said no you can have it but licked it before tossing it back on the plate. The other snatched ut up licked the other side tissed it back on the plate and said nah I don't want it I was just wondering if you did. And that's how the fight started. And of course Wimpy comes walking in the door as we are all getting them separated 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Good times
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Post by linemannf on Aug 7, 2024 21:12:32 GMT -5
For me we were like family, we spent so much time with each other that we knew each others kids names and the kids that weren't from their wives, wive's names , girlfriends names, ex wives names etc, when one of us would be re-roofing a house, we were all there that weekend roofing the house, barns, I can't tell you how many barns we helped each other build on weekends and it wasn't even necessarily our barns it might have been for one of our dads but we were all there. I never knew when one of them rolled up and wanted me to go somewhere when I would be back home or where we were going but I knew it would probably be an adventure, friendships like that are a treasure and are rare these days, we looked out for each other and if we couldn't help you we sure wouldn't hurt you, no dog eat dog like in a lot of other jobs. I was a 17 year old boy straight off the farm when I went to work with them and they taught me how to be a man and learned me a trade that enabled me to eventually feed my family and provide well for them, I will forever be grateful for that.
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Post by illinoisfisherman on Aug 7, 2024 22:20:41 GMT -5
Great stories
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Post by stc1993 on Aug 8, 2024 1:20:35 GMT -5
Back before cell phones it was rough being on call. I had a friend that was a lineman. If he was on call he had to stay home Incase they called couldn't drink either.
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Post by linemannf on Aug 8, 2024 5:09:42 GMT -5
Back before cell phones it was rough being on call. I had a friend that was a lineman. If he was on call he had to stay home Incase they called couldn't drink either. In the early days, they would give us a beeper and it would go off showing a code # or a phone # and we would have to find a pay phone to call in or just go in if it was the code# instead of the phone#, we pulled stand-by out of a 3/4 ton pick-up with a tool body and our climbing gear, later on we got trucks with squirt booms, they helped a lot on barn building project's.
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