About a week after I went for my pre-induction processing, I got another letter. This one announced that the current draft law had expired without being renewed, and that my induction would be delayed until the bill was passed and the law re-instated. I hadn't been watching any news on TV so wasn't aware of what was going on in the Senate or House in DC.
Turns out that everybody was trying to use the draft law to load up on pork barrel items. I'd never heard the term before, but I guess it was (and maybe still is) a common practice for politicians to add clauses to bills to get funding for pet projects in their home states. These projects could range from road work, new bridges, schools, etc. They had nothing to do with actual purpose of the bill, but provided a stealthy way to get funding without writing a separate bill for each item. They were like ticks on a dog, and the bigger the dog the more ticks. The draft law was absolutely essential, and so lots of these pork barrel items were getting loaded...and causing a great deal of infighting in congress. All of them wanted to get their pet ponies on board, but there was a limit to how much of this that could be done without government watchdog agencies raising a red flag. So...the bill was stalled while they argued and bargued about who's ticks got a ride, and who's did not.
In the meantime, I was stuck in the twilight zone. I tried to find a job, but the first question they'd always ask was what was my draft status. Awaiting my induction letter was not a good selling point, and I often would not even be allowed to fill out an application. I was bored, and anxious to find out what my future would hold for me. But the battle in DC continued from May until July....when I got some surprising news.
My dad had applied for a transfer from Huntington to Florida, hoping to get out of the cold winter weather there. They IRS had done their usual magic, and had decided to transfer him to Indianapolis instead. So, they were moving to Indiana, and my older sister Ingrid would be living in our home in Huntington. My dad suggested I go with them to Indiana, knowing that it was only a couple of weeks before I'd be drafted. I called the local induction center to ask them what to do, and they said they would transfer my induction to the center in Indianapolis...so it would not be a problem. I'd never been that far west before, so I was excited to see a new part of the country....and it took my mind off the impending draft for awhile.
When we got there, it was flat, hot and humid. I decided to look for jobs again, and the very first place I applied - I got a job. It was a convenience store with gas pumps, much like a Seven Eleven today. They had a Help Wanted sign in the window...and they asked me to start that same night. I worked the midnight to 8 am shift, and was astounded that they didn't care about my draft status. I found out why later that week when I was talking to one of our new neighbors. They were shocked that I would work at that store, and said "Didn't you hear what happened there last week?". They told me that the place had been robbed at about 3 am, with the night shift employee being kidnapped in the process. He was taken to a nearby field and nearly beaten to death...and was still in the hospital. The police had no leads on the crooks and so they were still on the loose. After that conversation I wasn't feeling quite so lucky to have found that job....but I needed the money, and so didn't quit. I sure was nervous though every time I got a late hour customer come in the door...but nothing bad happened.
Finally in November, I got a letter from the draft board that the law had been reinstated, and that I would be inducted within two weeks. All my previous worries came back full force, and I waited nervously for the letter. Just like clockwork it came, and as promised, I was told to report to the induction center in Indianapolis. I'd be doing my basic training at Fort Knox. The letter was very specific about what I could and could not bring along. Two pair of underwear, two pairs of socks and a shaving kit. No money was allowed, along with pretty much anything else.
The day I was to report was tough. My mom kept wiping tears out of her eyes, but my dad was being strong and supportive. He took me to the center to drop me off, and shook my hand. He wasn't much of a hugger at that time, and was pretty formal. I said goodbye, and went into the center to give the receptionist my letter. She handed me a packet of information, and my bus ticket to Fort Knox. She said sit here on this bench with the rest of the group waiting for the bus to pull in and take us to our basic training. There were about 30 other guys going there, and we all sat there in dead silence holding our little ditty bags. It was cold outside, and I have to admit that I felt cold on the inside too.
Then an officer came out and called my name. I went over to him, and he motioned me back inside. He explained that although the draft board had revised my induction location, they'd neglected to get all my paperwork from the pre-induction process sent to them from Ashland. I said what does that mean, and he said not to worry. I would have to do the whole thing over again there..complete physical and that pesky intelligence test again before I could take the bus. He said that they would have to put me on a much later bus that evening, but promised that I would be in my bunk by midnight. The only bad thing was that I had to get up at 5 am to begin training the next morning.
I was really depressed, knowing that my life might depend on how well I did on the intelligence test, and that I'd gotten very lucky the first time. The officer told me that I'd have to take the physical first, then the rest after. This time I was the only one going through it all, since it wasn't their regular day to be processing inductees. They were also much more complete in their physical. As the doctor listened to my heart with his stethoscope and took my pulse, he frowned. He did it again, and frowned even more.
He said "Something doesn't sound right with your heart. Ever had any problems?". In fact I had. I'd had a doctor tell me before that I had an arrhythmia and had been sent to a cardiologist when I was 18. The doctor had told me it was pretty serious, and had given me some medicine to take every day to "calm" my heart. It had made feel so stupid, that I'd thrown it away. My heart just stuttered every now and again, and make my stomach flip. But I figured it was no big deal, despite the doctor telling me that I'd probably never live to see 40, and that I should try to enjoy my life.
So, when the doc in Indianapolis asked me about it all, I told him it wasn't a problem that I was worried about. He gave me a funny look, and said that he wanted a closer look. So they hooked me up and got some readings. A couple of times while I was lying there I could feel my heart do it's skipping thing - which it was wont to do when I was tired and nervous. The doctor looked at the tracings, and said that it was significant enough that I needed to see a specialist. I was beginning to get frustrated now. All the mess ups, and delays over the past months, and I just wanted to get on with it all. So, I asked where do I go to see the new doctor, and he told me that I'd need to make an appointment and that it would take at least two more weeks to get in. I really sighed a big one then. I would have to call my dad, and ask him to come and pick me up after work to take me home again. And then go through the whole ordeal again in two weeks.
I was sent out to talk to yet another doctor who was filling out my referral paperwork and processing me out for the day. He seemed like a very nice guy, and again, I was the only person in the area. So, he started reading my paperwork more closely, and then looked up at me like I was a strange insect that had wandered in from off the street. He said "Let me get this straight. You quit school in your senior year, knowing that you'd be drafted?" My cheeks got red as I shook my head yes. He said "What in the world is wrong with you boy?" I said I knew it was stupid. He asked me what had I done since I quit, and I told him about not finding a job in West Virginia, but also explained about the job I'd gotten since moving there and the circumstances around it. He just shook his head, and then asked me what would I have done if hadn't gotten drafted. I told him that I now understood just how dumb I'd been, and that I would work until I had enough money to go back to school to finish my degree.
He just looked at me for a long time silently. Then he took a deep breath, and sighed. He looked down at my paperwork one more time, and the opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a big black ink stamp. He pounded it down several times on my papers and wrote his name at the bottom of one form. He looked up at me and said..."We'll you are not going to Vietnam. I'm giving you a 4F - not physically fit for duty. You should be more careful about the choices you make in life. So, you are free to go home now, and get on with your life. Try not to laugh before you get out the door, and my favorite beer is Bud Lite...and if a case should show up mysteriously at the back door here, I would make sure it's properly disposed of!" He then gave me a huge grin, shook my hand and waved me towards the exit door. I don't think I've ever been more surprised in my whole life by anything, and I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. He pointed to the exit again and I thanked him profusely, and then walked out the door to discover the rest of my life.
So Yogi...I didn't do a very good job of taking my fork in the road, but I'll be forever thankful to that Bud drinking stranger who saved my life that cold November morning. Thanks doc, and I'm sorry that I never got you the case of beer. But if you still want it, just let me know and I'll send you a truck load.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
A change of heart - part 1
Life is full of unexpected things - at least it seems that way for me. Some times those unexpected events can drastically change the direction and perhaps the duration of life. Yogi Berra once said "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." (if you are not familiar with Yogi - google his quotes...very funny and profound too).
The insightful part of his quote is that if you don't make a conscious choice on which fork, then life will make it for you - and you never know where that fork of the road is going to take you.
When I was in my senior year of engineering at West Virginia University, I had one of the all time brain farts I've ever had. I decided during my last semester of school, that I wasn't really cut out to be an engineer, and I quit college. Now that happens millions of times to many people - so what's the big deal? Well..this was during the height of the Vietnam war. I had what was called a student deferment, and that meant I could not be drafted as long as I maintained my good standing as a full time student.
I can't really explain why I did what I did.....it makes absolutely no sense to me at all now looking back. Truly, I was unhappy at school, and not doing very well. In fact, my first semester of my senior year I achieved an amazing 0.7 GPA (out of 4.0) pulling an F in every single class except for at C- in Psychology. If I'd done better in psych I'd have probably realized just how crazy I was and had myself committed.
The other extraordinary fact surrounding me quitting school, was my lottery number. No...not the kind you win money at but the kind that can get you killed. During the war they decided to create a lottery that determined whether you got drafted or not. So, at the beginning of each year they would pull one of those numbered ping pong balls out of an air-induced blizzard for each day of the year. Your birthdate would get assigned that number, and they would call people up for the draft in that order. If your lottery number was less than around 200 you had a very good chance of being drafted. Mine was 9 which was a sure ticket to Vietnam.
So, those crafty people in Uncle Sam noticed right away when I withdrew from school in May, and since my number was long passed, they sent me a very short induction notice. I had moved back to Huntington and was staying with my parents when I got the letter, and one week later I was a the induction center in Ashland, Kentucky with about 50 other very scared young men. We knew we were in real trouble, and that Vietnam was our next stop...and that there was a very good chance we'd be coming home in a body bag.
Before I describe what the induction process is like, I need to go back a year and tell you a different but related story. My dad worked for the IRS, and so had many friends in both state and federal government. In the summer before I quit school, he said he could help me get a summer job in the Army Corp of Engineers. They paid more than twice what I could make as a minimum wage job, and so I was of course very interested. The only thing is that I still had to follow the procedures and meet the minimum requirements before my dad's friend could offer me the job. The minimum requirement was for me to achieve a passing grade on the civil service intelligence exam. To say the standards were low would be quite an understatement. I know some dogs that would be able to pass that test.
The test had 1,000 multiple choice questions - and none of them had anything to do with actual intelligence. I'm a good test taker, and so was not concerned in the least about getting the minimun passing grade that would get me to a great summer job. So...I came in one Saturday morning to take the six hour exam. The questions were easy, and all was going well until I got to the last question. I filled in the little bubble for the correct answer on on the last question, and then realized that I was only on question 999 on the answer sheet. I was shocked, and realized that I'd skipped a question somewhere along the line and so was one off in answering the questions. I was in a panic to find where I'd made the mistake....and decided to go backwards through the questions to find where I'd gotten out of sequence. I never did find it, and ran out of time somewhere around question 800.
When my dad asked me about the test, I said that it hadn't been too hard..but I was too ashamed to tell him that I'd messed up the answer sheet somehow. I was hoping that I made the error late in the test, and that I'd still get a good enough score. That hope was dashed when my dad came home from work on Monday. He told me that his friend had "previewed" my results, and that I'd basically achieved moron status. He was pretty unhappy and my dad was very embarrassed. I tried to explain to dad what had happened, but he wasn't much in a mood to listen..and just told me that I was not allowed to retake the test for six months, and so that there was no way they could give me the job. I could also see the questioning look in his eyes...was I really a moron after all?
So..back to my draft induction process. The process took a whole day, and included both the normal drop-your-drawers-turn-your-head-and-cough check, and some intelligence testing. At this time, several friends of mine had gotten out of being drafted by tanking the intelligence test on purpose. Basically they'd been deemed too stupid to be drafted. They all encouraged me to take the same approach to the test, but my dad told me the opposite. He said that if I did really well on the test, they might give me some other assigment than just being a grunt on the ground in Vietnam - and maybe save my life. So, I decided that I'd give the test my best effort, and hope for a survivable assignment once I got drafted.
I took the test, and it actually was pretty hard. I had to guess on several questions, but got done well before time expired. So, I turned it in, and sat back down at my desk and waited. The sargeant administering the test would take each completed form into the back room and run it through a reader. He took mine, headed back to get it scored, and then came back out again with a funny look on his face.
He said very loudly "OK boys, which one of you is Hank Queen?". I was startled to hear him call my name and raised my hand slowly. He walked over to me, and stared down. He started asking me a whole string of questions. Like "Did you graduate from high school? What kind of grades did you make? Did you ever attend college?" I knew right away where he was headed. I figured that somehow I'd made a mess of the answer sheet again, and had gotten moron level scores on the test again. He was trying to understand if I was really that dumb, or just faking it for the test.
I stammered as I said "I think I know what you are doing, and I promise I did not mess up the test on purpose." He held up his hand to stop me, and said "What in the hell are you talking about son?. I just wanted to meet you in person because you scored the highest anyone has ever done on this test in our four state area." I guess the fear of death had inspired me to guess right on a bunch of questions. But I have to admit that I felt pretty good at that point and felt the hope grow in my heart that maybe I'd survive the war after all.
The physical part of the examinations was just silly. Pretty much all you had to do was still be breathing to pass. So, I finished the day with a piece of paper in hand stating that I'd passed all requirements, and would receive my formal induction notice within two weeks. I went home tired, but a little less scared than I'd begun that morning...and knew that in two weeks my life would be changed forever.
The insightful part of his quote is that if you don't make a conscious choice on which fork, then life will make it for you - and you never know where that fork of the road is going to take you.
When I was in my senior year of engineering at West Virginia University, I had one of the all time brain farts I've ever had. I decided during my last semester of school, that I wasn't really cut out to be an engineer, and I quit college. Now that happens millions of times to many people - so what's the big deal? Well..this was during the height of the Vietnam war. I had what was called a student deferment, and that meant I could not be drafted as long as I maintained my good standing as a full time student.
I can't really explain why I did what I did.....it makes absolutely no sense to me at all now looking back. Truly, I was unhappy at school, and not doing very well. In fact, my first semester of my senior year I achieved an amazing 0.7 GPA (out of 4.0) pulling an F in every single class except for at C- in Psychology. If I'd done better in psych I'd have probably realized just how crazy I was and had myself committed.
The other extraordinary fact surrounding me quitting school, was my lottery number. No...not the kind you win money at but the kind that can get you killed. During the war they decided to create a lottery that determined whether you got drafted or not. So, at the beginning of each year they would pull one of those numbered ping pong balls out of an air-induced blizzard for each day of the year. Your birthdate would get assigned that number, and they would call people up for the draft in that order. If your lottery number was less than around 200 you had a very good chance of being drafted. Mine was 9 which was a sure ticket to Vietnam.
So, those crafty people in Uncle Sam noticed right away when I withdrew from school in May, and since my number was long passed, they sent me a very short induction notice. I had moved back to Huntington and was staying with my parents when I got the letter, and one week later I was a the induction center in Ashland, Kentucky with about 50 other very scared young men. We knew we were in real trouble, and that Vietnam was our next stop...and that there was a very good chance we'd be coming home in a body bag.
Before I describe what the induction process is like, I need to go back a year and tell you a different but related story. My dad worked for the IRS, and so had many friends in both state and federal government. In the summer before I quit school, he said he could help me get a summer job in the Army Corp of Engineers. They paid more than twice what I could make as a minimum wage job, and so I was of course very interested. The only thing is that I still had to follow the procedures and meet the minimum requirements before my dad's friend could offer me the job. The minimum requirement was for me to achieve a passing grade on the civil service intelligence exam. To say the standards were low would be quite an understatement. I know some dogs that would be able to pass that test.
The test had 1,000 multiple choice questions - and none of them had anything to do with actual intelligence. I'm a good test taker, and so was not concerned in the least about getting the minimun passing grade that would get me to a great summer job. So...I came in one Saturday morning to take the six hour exam. The questions were easy, and all was going well until I got to the last question. I filled in the little bubble for the correct answer on on the last question, and then realized that I was only on question 999 on the answer sheet. I was shocked, and realized that I'd skipped a question somewhere along the line and so was one off in answering the questions. I was in a panic to find where I'd made the mistake....and decided to go backwards through the questions to find where I'd gotten out of sequence. I never did find it, and ran out of time somewhere around question 800.
When my dad asked me about the test, I said that it hadn't been too hard..but I was too ashamed to tell him that I'd messed up the answer sheet somehow. I was hoping that I made the error late in the test, and that I'd still get a good enough score. That hope was dashed when my dad came home from work on Monday. He told me that his friend had "previewed" my results, and that I'd basically achieved moron status. He was pretty unhappy and my dad was very embarrassed. I tried to explain to dad what had happened, but he wasn't much in a mood to listen..and just told me that I was not allowed to retake the test for six months, and so that there was no way they could give me the job. I could also see the questioning look in his eyes...was I really a moron after all?
So..back to my draft induction process. The process took a whole day, and included both the normal drop-your-drawers-turn-your-head-and-cough check, and some intelligence testing. At this time, several friends of mine had gotten out of being drafted by tanking the intelligence test on purpose. Basically they'd been deemed too stupid to be drafted. They all encouraged me to take the same approach to the test, but my dad told me the opposite. He said that if I did really well on the test, they might give me some other assigment than just being a grunt on the ground in Vietnam - and maybe save my life. So, I decided that I'd give the test my best effort, and hope for a survivable assignment once I got drafted.
I took the test, and it actually was pretty hard. I had to guess on several questions, but got done well before time expired. So, I turned it in, and sat back down at my desk and waited. The sargeant administering the test would take each completed form into the back room and run it through a reader. He took mine, headed back to get it scored, and then came back out again with a funny look on his face.
He said very loudly "OK boys, which one of you is Hank Queen?". I was startled to hear him call my name and raised my hand slowly. He walked over to me, and stared down. He started asking me a whole string of questions. Like "Did you graduate from high school? What kind of grades did you make? Did you ever attend college?" I knew right away where he was headed. I figured that somehow I'd made a mess of the answer sheet again, and had gotten moron level scores on the test again. He was trying to understand if I was really that dumb, or just faking it for the test.
I stammered as I said "I think I know what you are doing, and I promise I did not mess up the test on purpose." He held up his hand to stop me, and said "What in the hell are you talking about son?. I just wanted to meet you in person because you scored the highest anyone has ever done on this test in our four state area." I guess the fear of death had inspired me to guess right on a bunch of questions. But I have to admit that I felt pretty good at that point and felt the hope grow in my heart that maybe I'd survive the war after all.
The physical part of the examinations was just silly. Pretty much all you had to do was still be breathing to pass. So, I finished the day with a piece of paper in hand stating that I'd passed all requirements, and would receive my formal induction notice within two weeks. I went home tired, but a little less scared than I'd begun that morning...and knew that in two weeks my life would be changed forever.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Armco Steel - part 2
Continuing with the story of working at Armco, I'd like to share the worst day I had there....and maybe one of the worst days of my life.
I got assigned to do some brick work at the basic oxygen furnace. This furnace was an odd contraption that looked for all the world like a giant thermos bottle. It was about 30 feet tall with a bottle shape and about 10 feet in diameter. It had a narrow neck at the top, and they used it to burn the impurities out of the molten iron. First they'd fill it about half full of molten iron, then insert a big metal tube into it and blow pure oxygen in. It looked like a giant fireworks display when they did that, because the oxygen would cause anything other than iron to burst into violent flames and sparks. The iron would get white hot too....so the heat was intense and almost overpowering.
To protect the furnace bottle floor on the inside from melting too, they had a layer of protective long bricks made of a mix of asbestos and silica. They were unique in shape being narrow on one end, but then expanding towards the outside of the vessel. They were each about two feet long, and maybe 3 inches square on the small end, and six inches square on the big end. They nested together in a very interesting spiral pattern that looked a lot like the seeds of a sunflower when you looked down into the bottle. As they used it, the bricks would slowly burn away and eventually they all needed to be replaced. They had two basic oxygen furnaces, and so could shut one down while the other was still operating.
My job was to do down inside the bottle, tear out the old bricks at the bottom and then lay new ones. Access was a challenge because of the narrow neck, so they had designed a special open cage elevator that a crane would drop into a vertical bottle. It was just big enough across to ride in if you kept your arms at your sides to fit into it. Some of the guys were too big around to fit, so they picked us smaller people to do the down side work. They used the elevator to drop us in, and all the tools and materials we needed too. We would load up the platform with broken brick in buckets and they would take it back up again. It was not a place for anyone who is uncomfortable in small tight places. I have to admit that it did bother me a bit, especially when I looked up a the little opening far above me.
I got assigned to this detail three days in a row, and so got pretty good at it. We got the old bricks out quickly, and then started dropping in the new bricks. Te ensure they were solidly in place, we used a dry mortar approach. They would send us down bags of very finely powdered sand and asbestos. We would put a couple of the bricks in place, and then slowly pour a little of the mortar powder into the cracks between them. This way the molten iron could not flow between the bricks and get the to outside steel vessel walls.
All was going smoothly until the unexpected happened. Someone who was loading up materials on the topside stacked a bunch of bricks into the elevator, and then a bunch of mortar bags on top of them. As the elevator came down with that load, the pile of stuff slid sideways. A couple of bags of the dry mortar first hit the sides of the elevator cage and then slipped over some more. They got caught on some exposed angle iron near the top of the vessel, and it cut the bags wide open. Immediately all the contents spilled out into space and the whole place was filled with dense white fog of fine sand and asbestos powder.
It's hard to describe just how bad it was in there. We were in a total white out, but our eyes were blind anyway from the dust and tears. Then we started breathing the dust and we all coughed until I thought we'd lose our lungs on the floor. We put our hands over our mouths in a useless gesture to cut the dust. Then the worst thing of all happened. The elevator ground to a halt about half way down, still spilling large quantities of dust into the air.
We were trapped and couldn't see and couldn't breathe. I pulled my kerchief out of my back pocket and wrapped it over my mouth. There was a lot of profanity flying, and I'm sure I was helping. The guys on the topside started yelling too. They told us to hold on and tried to reverse the direction of the elevator, but it was totally stuck. The dust had spilled into the gears and it wouldn't move up or down. It was stuck firmly half way down, but way above our heads. The full impact of our situation began to sink in. We were trapped in a place where it was almost impossible to see or breathe.
I had to try very hard not to panic, and worked on slowing my breath and keeping my eyes closed. After what seemed like forever, another crew came to help out the topside people. They couldn't get the elevator to work either, and so finally decided to call in a crane and pull the whole unit straight up out of the vessel...leaving us behind below. They really had no other option, but it took them a long time to get a crane in place and then pull the elevator up and out. Once it was gone, I was hoping for some fresh air to come down, but it didn't seem to help a bit. We were all gasping for air, coughing, and one guy was throwing up from coughing so hard. We all had tears streaming down our faces and couldn't see much of anything.
At first the top crew tried to figure out a way to get us out of there, but didn't have ladders or lines that would work. They finally decided the only option was the get the elevator working again. So, they got busy with air hoses and brushes and finally got the gears all cleaned. They did a quick power check to see if it was working again, and then dropped the elevator back down into the bottle. They could only take out one of at a time, and it seemed like forever before I got my turn...the last one out. They put us all into the back of a pickup truck and drove us over to the infirmary. They washed out our eyes with something, and let us take a shower to get all the powder off us. They said we'd be fine, and just take a day off. I didn't know any better, and this was long before people understood the impact of asbestos on lungs. Two days later I was back at work again.
I remember being tired a lot after that, but gradually recovered. It took weeks for the cough to totally disappear. One thing that I really noticed much later though was that I wasn't as good at distance running as I had been before. I just wrote it off to lack of training and getting older.
Years later I got a great job at Boeing, and when I went into Field Service they subjected me to the first indepth physical of my life. I got my first chest x-ray and the doctor came out to ask me some questions. He said I had a lot scarring in my lungs and wanted to know why. I was at a loss for awhile to explain it, but finally made the link to Armco. The body is smart and when your lungs get bad stuff in them, it puts scars around it to protect you. So...my body did it's job, and now I've got a bunch of nice scars in my lungs as my souvenir of Armco. Of course asbestos exposure can cause lung cancer, but I'm just hoping that it stays right there where it belongs, totally surrounded and isolated from the rest of me.
I don't worry about it much, figuring that if it was going to cause cancer I'd already be dead. But I can't help but count my blessings for having survived that awful day. Many times when I go outside I take a full fresh breath of air, and am so grateful that I can do that still. So, here again I'm feeling thankful for air and life on the eve of Thanksgiving. I do wonder at times if the other five guys who were down there too are as lucky as I am......
Lessons learned: Never take the little things in life for granted, they can be taken away in a single second of surprise. Enjoy the moment, it's all we ever have anyway.
I got assigned to do some brick work at the basic oxygen furnace. This furnace was an odd contraption that looked for all the world like a giant thermos bottle. It was about 30 feet tall with a bottle shape and about 10 feet in diameter. It had a narrow neck at the top, and they used it to burn the impurities out of the molten iron. First they'd fill it about half full of molten iron, then insert a big metal tube into it and blow pure oxygen in. It looked like a giant fireworks display when they did that, because the oxygen would cause anything other than iron to burst into violent flames and sparks. The iron would get white hot too....so the heat was intense and almost overpowering.
To protect the furnace bottle floor on the inside from melting too, they had a layer of protective long bricks made of a mix of asbestos and silica. They were unique in shape being narrow on one end, but then expanding towards the outside of the vessel. They were each about two feet long, and maybe 3 inches square on the small end, and six inches square on the big end. They nested together in a very interesting spiral pattern that looked a lot like the seeds of a sunflower when you looked down into the bottle. As they used it, the bricks would slowly burn away and eventually they all needed to be replaced. They had two basic oxygen furnaces, and so could shut one down while the other was still operating.
My job was to do down inside the bottle, tear out the old bricks at the bottom and then lay new ones. Access was a challenge because of the narrow neck, so they had designed a special open cage elevator that a crane would drop into a vertical bottle. It was just big enough across to ride in if you kept your arms at your sides to fit into it. Some of the guys were too big around to fit, so they picked us smaller people to do the down side work. They used the elevator to drop us in, and all the tools and materials we needed too. We would load up the platform with broken brick in buckets and they would take it back up again. It was not a place for anyone who is uncomfortable in small tight places. I have to admit that it did bother me a bit, especially when I looked up a the little opening far above me.
I got assigned to this detail three days in a row, and so got pretty good at it. We got the old bricks out quickly, and then started dropping in the new bricks. Te ensure they were solidly in place, we used a dry mortar approach. They would send us down bags of very finely powdered sand and asbestos. We would put a couple of the bricks in place, and then slowly pour a little of the mortar powder into the cracks between them. This way the molten iron could not flow between the bricks and get the to outside steel vessel walls.
All was going smoothly until the unexpected happened. Someone who was loading up materials on the topside stacked a bunch of bricks into the elevator, and then a bunch of mortar bags on top of them. As the elevator came down with that load, the pile of stuff slid sideways. A couple of bags of the dry mortar first hit the sides of the elevator cage and then slipped over some more. They got caught on some exposed angle iron near the top of the vessel, and it cut the bags wide open. Immediately all the contents spilled out into space and the whole place was filled with dense white fog of fine sand and asbestos powder.
It's hard to describe just how bad it was in there. We were in a total white out, but our eyes were blind anyway from the dust and tears. Then we started breathing the dust and we all coughed until I thought we'd lose our lungs on the floor. We put our hands over our mouths in a useless gesture to cut the dust. Then the worst thing of all happened. The elevator ground to a halt about half way down, still spilling large quantities of dust into the air.
We were trapped and couldn't see and couldn't breathe. I pulled my kerchief out of my back pocket and wrapped it over my mouth. There was a lot of profanity flying, and I'm sure I was helping. The guys on the topside started yelling too. They told us to hold on and tried to reverse the direction of the elevator, but it was totally stuck. The dust had spilled into the gears and it wouldn't move up or down. It was stuck firmly half way down, but way above our heads. The full impact of our situation began to sink in. We were trapped in a place where it was almost impossible to see or breathe.
I had to try very hard not to panic, and worked on slowing my breath and keeping my eyes closed. After what seemed like forever, another crew came to help out the topside people. They couldn't get the elevator to work either, and so finally decided to call in a crane and pull the whole unit straight up out of the vessel...leaving us behind below. They really had no other option, but it took them a long time to get a crane in place and then pull the elevator up and out. Once it was gone, I was hoping for some fresh air to come down, but it didn't seem to help a bit. We were all gasping for air, coughing, and one guy was throwing up from coughing so hard. We all had tears streaming down our faces and couldn't see much of anything.
At first the top crew tried to figure out a way to get us out of there, but didn't have ladders or lines that would work. They finally decided the only option was the get the elevator working again. So, they got busy with air hoses and brushes and finally got the gears all cleaned. They did a quick power check to see if it was working again, and then dropped the elevator back down into the bottle. They could only take out one of at a time, and it seemed like forever before I got my turn...the last one out. They put us all into the back of a pickup truck and drove us over to the infirmary. They washed out our eyes with something, and let us take a shower to get all the powder off us. They said we'd be fine, and just take a day off. I didn't know any better, and this was long before people understood the impact of asbestos on lungs. Two days later I was back at work again.
I remember being tired a lot after that, but gradually recovered. It took weeks for the cough to totally disappear. One thing that I really noticed much later though was that I wasn't as good at distance running as I had been before. I just wrote it off to lack of training and getting older.
Years later I got a great job at Boeing, and when I went into Field Service they subjected me to the first indepth physical of my life. I got my first chest x-ray and the doctor came out to ask me some questions. He said I had a lot scarring in my lungs and wanted to know why. I was at a loss for awhile to explain it, but finally made the link to Armco. The body is smart and when your lungs get bad stuff in them, it puts scars around it to protect you. So...my body did it's job, and now I've got a bunch of nice scars in my lungs as my souvenir of Armco. Of course asbestos exposure can cause lung cancer, but I'm just hoping that it stays right there where it belongs, totally surrounded and isolated from the rest of me.
I don't worry about it much, figuring that if it was going to cause cancer I'd already be dead. But I can't help but count my blessings for having survived that awful day. Many times when I go outside I take a full fresh breath of air, and am so grateful that I can do that still. So, here again I'm feeling thankful for air and life on the eve of Thanksgiving. I do wonder at times if the other five guys who were down there too are as lucky as I am......
Lessons learned: Never take the little things in life for granted, they can be taken away in a single second of surprise. Enjoy the moment, it's all we ever have anyway.
Armco Steel - part 1
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| Sign at the Main Entrance |
One of my more interesting and challenging jobs was working at Armco Steel in Ashland, Kentucky. My younger brother Ed and I got jobs there one summer with the help of a family friend. The pay was amazingly good, but the place was filled with ways to get hurt or killed.
We got temporary summer jobs called vacation fill in. Vacation fill in means that each day when you punch in for work, you also get a pink card that tells you where in the plant to report for work. Pretty much every day or night was a different job, but a lot of the time we did the worst of the worst kind of annual maintenance work. Like climbing down into deep concrete wells and pumping out hydraulic fluid and other junk that had fallen in. It was kind of like the scene in the first Star Wars movie where they were all trapped in the garbage collection area and the walls started closing on them. It stank, it was dark, and if you got the skydrol on your hands, the skin would peel off. Nice.
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| The Tipple area where the iron ore was delivered by trains |
Steel mills are tough places to work, and Armco was no exception. Their primary idea for an employee safety program was putting a big illuminated scoreboard at the main gate. It was just like the kind you see at football games, except this one was a bit more personal. They posted three different numbers for the last 12 months...Minor Injuries, Major Injuries, and Fatalities. There were no zeroes in any of the three, including the fatalities. I think there were three people killed the summer we worked there. They seemed to think that posting the scores would scare people into being more safe...but it sure didn't seem to have much effect.
We were required to join the United Steel Workers Union to work there, and they had one particular practice that drove me nuts, but made Ed smile. When you hired in, you got a seniority number assigned. It was based on the date, and also the order you hired in on a particular day. In our case we were hired in the same day in alphabetical order. Meaning that Ed was the person who got hired right before me. That was ok, except he was my younger brother.
The full impact of the seniority system didn't take long to rear it's head. When we'd both get assigned to the same fill in detail, we would often be assigned slightly different jobs. Like the hydraulic pit clean up job. For that job, two people were required. One had to climb down into the pit, and wade around in hip boots in smelly, caustic junk...and the other would lower down a big bucket, that the down side person would load with junk. So the top side person would then pull up the bucket and dump it into a loader, and lower it again. Clearly the top side person had the much better of the two jobs, so it went to the person with the higher seniority...in our case to Ed. Ed was good about it and never rubbed it in, but he would always have that quiet smile on his face when I got the worst part of every assignment, and he didn't.
We had many really dirty, hot, smelly and dangerous jobs there. Without fail, the foreman would always ignore all the posted safety warnings and never issue the required safety equipment. On one job we both were working on the roof of the basic oxygen furnace building to sweep and blow off iron ore dust before it got so heavy it would collapse. Since heat rises, it was about 130 degrees up there, and we wore face masks, big smelly rubber gloves and walked around with a huge vacuum hose to pick up the piles of drifting dust. There was a large sign that said "Natural Gas Hazard Area - Oxygen Masks Required at All Times".
Of course they didn't give us the masks, and I got concerned. When you use natural gas in a residential setting they add that wonderful aroma to it so people can smell it in case of a leak. However, in industrial use, it is completely odorless, but just as deadly. So, being a bit concerned, I pointed at the sign and asked the foreman, where were our masks. He frowned and said "We ain't got none son.". Pressing the point, I asked about how we can know we will be safe. He paused, and then wet his finger in his mouth and stuck it straight up into the air. I thought he was pointing to God as our protector, but he had a brilliant plan. He was checking for which way the wind was blowing. He then asked the most senior person on the crew to move to the upwind side of the building and watch us all. He told him that if any of us collapsed, his job was to call for help on the radio. Unfortunately, the foreman's radio wasn't working...but at least he made an effort, and none of us did collapse.
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| At night it seemed like a set from the movie Alien |
We got this same foreman a number of times (maybe he was being punished), and so got to know him pretty well. I think his name was John, and he rolled his own cigarettes. Fascinating but disgusting at the same time. But I learned to appreciate his dry wit, and especially his ability to act fast when needed...and that time came one day.
Ed and I had been operating jack hammers inside a large bathroom complex, and so got pretty good at it. Don't know if you've every used a jack hammer, but they weigh around 100 pounds, shake the crap out of you, and will deafen you when you start them up in a tiled room. Not to mention the chocking concrete dust they blow everywhere since they run off of compressed air.
So we were both happy to get cards one day that told us to report to a closed building for jack hammer work. At least we wouldn't be in that bathroom sounding like a war zone. John was our foreman, and he had us walk up several flights of stair to the very top of the building lugging our hammers and hoses. They had big steel beams, laid in pairs that crossed just under the ceiling at regular intervals. The one foot space between each pair had been filled with reinforced concrete, and it needed to be broken out so they could take the beams down. They were remodeling it for some purpose that did not require ceiling cranes. So, our job was to keep our left foot on one beam, our right foot on the other, and use the jack hammer to break out the concrete in between. All this was done while we were about 60 feet in the air above a concrete floor.
Of course there was no safety equipment...no ropes or harnesses to catch us if we slipped. And slipping was easy. We walked backwards down the beam pairs, and would set the hammer down on the concrete to break it free. When the concrete broke, it would fall to the floor below with a crash, and the jack hammer would try to fall too. It was a fine art to know just when to pull back hard on the hammer to keep you and it from going down with the concrete. And the longer we worked and the tireder we got, the more likely an accident was. I knew if we made a mistake on this one, we would show up in the Fatalities section of the scoreboard.
At first it went fine, but both Ed and I had some near misses. We learned very quickly to be slow and methodical. I got my beam pair done first, and was standing back on safe ground watching Ed get to the last five feet of beam before he too would be done. John had been watching us the whole time, rolling and smoking, but not saying much. He moved over to stand behind Ed, and watched him slowly backing towards him breaking out the beams. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but suddenly Ed lost his balance forward as the concrete broke. His jack hammer dropped about half way down through the beams, and Ed was clearly going down with it despite his strength.
Just like a miracle, John quickly reached out one had and grabbed Ed's belt in the back, and reached back with his other hand to grab a piece of pipe attached to the wall. He was now holding Ed and the jack hammer both, and swung them both back to the platform on which he was standing. Ed and I were both totally freaked out, knowing how close he'd just come to dying...but John just smiled and said "Sure wouldn't do for you to work alone would it boy? Next time just let go of the GD jack hammer.". My heart was beating so fast I felt like I was going to throw up...and I think Ed felt even worse.
So...John let us take a break, and then we went back to work again...more slowly and carefully than before.
I learned a lot from working there, and in part 2 of this story will share how I still carry a souvenir of one of my worst days. It wasn't all bad though. I loved working with Ed. He had a nice 57 Olds, and would would take us both to and from work in it. We got so filthy dirty there that he had to put blankets in the car for us to sit on to keep from ruining the seats. Our faces and clothes would be black, which made it all the more fun to see each other smile and laugh as we'd talk about our day on the way home...totally exhausted but proud of the hard work we'd done together.
I also learned the value of a good job, and to appreciate one when I had one. I have a lot of respect for the people who actually made a life career of working at Armco. I knew that I could never do that work for long, but some of them had been at it for 30 years. They were tough, still hard working, and very wise in their own way. They are the kind of people, like miners, who gave their lives to make a living for their families and to help build this country.
So, I give thanks to each of them on this day, but am especially thankful to foreman John....I love my brother Ed, and without you John, he wouldn't be here with us all today. Thank you!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Life after Death
In my last blog I described how it's possible to fly down stairs with only minor injuries. This blog of a different sort, and describes the accident that most changed my view of myself and my life. I've had a lot of accidents in my life, but have only had one turn out to be fatal...and this is the story of that event.
When I was 14, I got one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had - and I consider myself world class at coming up with dumb ideas. The dumb idea? I decided to get Red Cross certified as a life guard. That's something thousands of people have done, and maybe it doesn't sound so silly. But, I was about 4 foot 9 inches tall, and weighed maybe 80 pounds after a big meal. So, physically I would have struggled to rescue a small wet dog, much less a real person. The second thing is that I'd never had a swimming lesson in my life, and didn't know the first thing about proper swimming technique.
None of that deterred me in the least, especially since my big sister Ingrid was taking the class too. We went to the local pool the first evening, and signed up with 40 other people to take the class. The instructors were interesting - two big beefy guys just out of the Marines, and right away I could tell they were wondering why I was there. I think they thought I was the kid of one of the real students at first, and that I was just going to watch from the sidelines. I made sure very quickly that they understood that I was there as a student, and that I had every intention of completing the classes and getting that treasured certificate.
The Red Cross offers a standard curriculum for training life guards across the US, including a nice book and handouts that tell you all about how to save other people without getting yourself drowned in the process. Not getting drowned is the biggest challenge when you try to save someone. Drowning people are always in a panic, and they will literally climb up on top of you, or get you in a death grip if they can. So, a big part of the training is how to approach a victim, get them into a hold that is safe for both of you, and then swim you both to safety. It's not easy- especially when most of the people are about twice your size, but I did surprisingly well at it..
About a third of the way through the class, when everything was going swimmingly well (sorry), the two lifeguards got bored. They decided that the standard classes were just not challenging enough to prepare us for the real world. They introduced a very difficult training regimen into our evening sessions. We had to be either swimming, running or doing pushups/situps all the time. They said that endurance and strength were critical to our future success. That's when people started grumbling behind their backs and some people quit.
I have to admit it was hard work...harder than anything I'd done before, but I wasn't going to give up no matter what. And besides, if Ingrid could do it so could I. After an evening session, we would walk home together and eat a whole loaf of bread between us. We were like starved animals all the time, but the exercise was starting to have it's effect, and we got stronger and better at our swimming and rescue work.
The real downward spiral of our class began when the lifeguards once again reviewed what we were doing, and had a brilliant idea (at least they thought it was brilliant). They decided we should wear clothes while we did our training - tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a long sleeved sweat shirt. The swimming and exercise was already hard, but doing it fully clothed was incredibly difficult. I think that their experience in the Marine Corp had caused some significant skewing of their view of what was normal and expected.
The very first evening of when we were to begin our training this way, I brought my clothes in a brown paper bag, and my dinner in another bag. I was very worried I wouldn't be able to swim with the clothes on, and I asked them if I could practice in the pool before class began. The way it worked is that the pool closed at 6 pm, and the classes started at 7 pm. So they had a one hour break for their own dinner and paperwork between. They said ok, and then went to the pump house office to do their daily work and eat their meal.
There was no one else in the whole pool complex and the water was glass smooth. I put on the clothes, and got into the shallow end of the pool. It just felt wrong to be in the pool with shoes and clothes on, but I forced myself. However hard I thought it was going to be, the reality was worse. It was very hard to kick effectively and swim, and just try raising your arms out of the water to swim a crawl when you have a sweat shirt on. I finally decided to move to deeper water and try swimming all the way across the pool. I did fine for a bit, but was getting very winded and losing my rhythm. Somewhere in the middle of the pool, I did a very bad thing. I took a full breath while my face was in the water...I still don't know why.
Taking a full breathe of water is usually not a good idea, and in my case was no different. I realized immediately that I was in serious trouble. I fought my way to the surface to yell, but couldn't make the slightest sound. I couldn't breathe, couldn't call for help, and in very short order could not even stay on the surface any more. In total panic I sank towards the bottom and knew I was going to die.
I continued to thrash around ineffectively for awhile, but gradually my movements slowed, and I came to a complete stop. I remember my feet hitting the bottom, and a great sense of peace replaced my panic and fear. Things got dark, and I couldn't see anymore...but I really didn't care. Then I heard an amazing sound. It grew louder and louder, and completely filled me with it's vibration. Much later in life I heard Tibetan prayer bowls, and realized they are very similar to this sound when you "ring" them by rubbing a stick around the rim slowly.
The sound was like a magnet, and in total darkness I started moving towards the sound. Not swimming, but somehow just moving because I wanted to move. As I moved that way, I saw a dim light ahead. The closer I got to it, the brighter it became. It was a golden, yellow, warm light...and I was totally drawn to it. At one point I felt like I was being pulled along down a shimmering tunnel of light, and then I came out on the other side. I immediately realized that what I had seen was not a light.....but an entire universe of lights. These lights were orbs of the same golden color, each shimmering and radiating their light. It was their individual lights that was creating the light I had seen from afar.
The other thing I felt immediately was being totally bathed in complete, unconditional love, bliss, and connection. I realized that each light was in fact another person, and that they were welcoming me home. I knew I'd been here before, and recognized many, many beings there as people I'd known before. I was also filled with a huge relief that I was home again after a tough journey. I continued moving slowly through the lights, and knew that I was a light just like them. It's hard to describe just how wonderful the experience was, but it is forever burned into my brain and heart. I don't know how long I was there, but it seemed like days.
Then without warning, I was moving very rapidly backwards out of there. I awoke lying in the grass beside the pool with my face in the dirt. I was scratched and bleeding from being pulled up over the concrete edge of the pool, and had been throwing up water and my recent dinner. I was completely confused for a few seconds, and then realized I was back here and had left the other place behind. I jumped to my feet, and have never felt such rage and anger in my life at being brought back. I was a very well mannered, quiet boy...but not then. I screamed at both of the lifeguards, calling them bad words I didn't even know I knew, and started kicking and punching them both. I don't need to get into all of it, but I'd had some really challenging times in my life, and was extremely unhappy to be back here again.
Clearly they were caught by surprise - after all they had just saved my life. They just kept pushing me away, and then one of them got me in a bear hug and lifted me off the ground until I stopped struggling. At this point, I was so filled with sadness for the loving place I'd just lost that I just went limp and sobbed with my hands at my sides. I'm sure they must have thought I'd gone totally insane...and maybe I had.
They then told me their story. After I said I was going to swim, they went back into the pump house. Some time later, one of them said he felt something was wrong. He went outside and looked at the pool and the area around it. He said the water was calm, and that I was nowhere in sight. So, he decided that I'd changed my mind about practicing and had gone home for dinner. He went back inside and continued his paperwork. About 5 minutes later, he again got a strong feeling that not all was well, and went out again to look around. Still not seeing anyone, he walked over to the deep end of the pool, and saw my body at the drain in deepest water. Apparently, my body had slowly drifted down the bottom to the drain. He called for help, and they jumped in, pulled me out, and were able to revive me after a lot of work.
As I regained my senses and my temper, I went into a form of shock. Shock from being oxygen deprived for so long (they estimated 15 to 20 minutes under water). But also shock at being back from a place I so loved, to one I didn't love so much. I began to wonder if maybe what had happened was just a crazy dream of some sort, but I knew in my heart it was very real. Maybe even more real than here. But I just kept my mouth shut about my experience, and instead asked them if there was any way they'd be willing not to tell my parents about it. They readily agreed, and I now understand it was because they knew they'd get in a bunch of trouble if anyone found out they'd let me swim without any supervision...and I'd almost drowned as a result.
By the time they revived me, I had to have been dead for at least 15 ro 20 minutes...plenty of time for brain damage which starts after 2 minutes. I'm pretty sure that I did suffer some brain injury, but one of the nice things about brain damage is that you don't really know you have it. I do know I had a much better memory and total recall before that day, and I wasn't so good at that after.
The impact of that evening has continued to change me throughout my life. I didn't tell anyone about what happened for 25 years or more, but I couldn't help but see my life and the world in a very different way. I was no longer afraid of death, and understand that it is just a transition to a much better place. But at the time some of my experience was very troubling for me. How could I have known so many people there, and why did I know I'd been away before and come home before too?
When I was 14, I got one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had - and I consider myself world class at coming up with dumb ideas. The dumb idea? I decided to get Red Cross certified as a life guard. That's something thousands of people have done, and maybe it doesn't sound so silly. But, I was about 4 foot 9 inches tall, and weighed maybe 80 pounds after a big meal. So, physically I would have struggled to rescue a small wet dog, much less a real person. The second thing is that I'd never had a swimming lesson in my life, and didn't know the first thing about proper swimming technique.
None of that deterred me in the least, especially since my big sister Ingrid was taking the class too. We went to the local pool the first evening, and signed up with 40 other people to take the class. The instructors were interesting - two big beefy guys just out of the Marines, and right away I could tell they were wondering why I was there. I think they thought I was the kid of one of the real students at first, and that I was just going to watch from the sidelines. I made sure very quickly that they understood that I was there as a student, and that I had every intention of completing the classes and getting that treasured certificate.
The Red Cross offers a standard curriculum for training life guards across the US, including a nice book and handouts that tell you all about how to save other people without getting yourself drowned in the process. Not getting drowned is the biggest challenge when you try to save someone. Drowning people are always in a panic, and they will literally climb up on top of you, or get you in a death grip if they can. So, a big part of the training is how to approach a victim, get them into a hold that is safe for both of you, and then swim you both to safety. It's not easy- especially when most of the people are about twice your size, but I did surprisingly well at it..
About a third of the way through the class, when everything was going swimmingly well (sorry), the two lifeguards got bored. They decided that the standard classes were just not challenging enough to prepare us for the real world. They introduced a very difficult training regimen into our evening sessions. We had to be either swimming, running or doing pushups/situps all the time. They said that endurance and strength were critical to our future success. That's when people started grumbling behind their backs and some people quit.
I have to admit it was hard work...harder than anything I'd done before, but I wasn't going to give up no matter what. And besides, if Ingrid could do it so could I. After an evening session, we would walk home together and eat a whole loaf of bread between us. We were like starved animals all the time, but the exercise was starting to have it's effect, and we got stronger and better at our swimming and rescue work.
The real downward spiral of our class began when the lifeguards once again reviewed what we were doing, and had a brilliant idea (at least they thought it was brilliant). They decided we should wear clothes while we did our training - tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a long sleeved sweat shirt. The swimming and exercise was already hard, but doing it fully clothed was incredibly difficult. I think that their experience in the Marine Corp had caused some significant skewing of their view of what was normal and expected.
The very first evening of when we were to begin our training this way, I brought my clothes in a brown paper bag, and my dinner in another bag. I was very worried I wouldn't be able to swim with the clothes on, and I asked them if I could practice in the pool before class began. The way it worked is that the pool closed at 6 pm, and the classes started at 7 pm. So they had a one hour break for their own dinner and paperwork between. They said ok, and then went to the pump house office to do their daily work and eat their meal.
There was no one else in the whole pool complex and the water was glass smooth. I put on the clothes, and got into the shallow end of the pool. It just felt wrong to be in the pool with shoes and clothes on, but I forced myself. However hard I thought it was going to be, the reality was worse. It was very hard to kick effectively and swim, and just try raising your arms out of the water to swim a crawl when you have a sweat shirt on. I finally decided to move to deeper water and try swimming all the way across the pool. I did fine for a bit, but was getting very winded and losing my rhythm. Somewhere in the middle of the pool, I did a very bad thing. I took a full breath while my face was in the water...I still don't know why.
Taking a full breathe of water is usually not a good idea, and in my case was no different. I realized immediately that I was in serious trouble. I fought my way to the surface to yell, but couldn't make the slightest sound. I couldn't breathe, couldn't call for help, and in very short order could not even stay on the surface any more. In total panic I sank towards the bottom and knew I was going to die.
I continued to thrash around ineffectively for awhile, but gradually my movements slowed, and I came to a complete stop. I remember my feet hitting the bottom, and a great sense of peace replaced my panic and fear. Things got dark, and I couldn't see anymore...but I really didn't care. Then I heard an amazing sound. It grew louder and louder, and completely filled me with it's vibration. Much later in life I heard Tibetan prayer bowls, and realized they are very similar to this sound when you "ring" them by rubbing a stick around the rim slowly.
The sound was like a magnet, and in total darkness I started moving towards the sound. Not swimming, but somehow just moving because I wanted to move. As I moved that way, I saw a dim light ahead. The closer I got to it, the brighter it became. It was a golden, yellow, warm light...and I was totally drawn to it. At one point I felt like I was being pulled along down a shimmering tunnel of light, and then I came out on the other side. I immediately realized that what I had seen was not a light.....but an entire universe of lights. These lights were orbs of the same golden color, each shimmering and radiating their light. It was their individual lights that was creating the light I had seen from afar.
The other thing I felt immediately was being totally bathed in complete, unconditional love, bliss, and connection. I realized that each light was in fact another person, and that they were welcoming me home. I knew I'd been here before, and recognized many, many beings there as people I'd known before. I was also filled with a huge relief that I was home again after a tough journey. I continued moving slowly through the lights, and knew that I was a light just like them. It's hard to describe just how wonderful the experience was, but it is forever burned into my brain and heart. I don't know how long I was there, but it seemed like days.
Then without warning, I was moving very rapidly backwards out of there. I awoke lying in the grass beside the pool with my face in the dirt. I was scratched and bleeding from being pulled up over the concrete edge of the pool, and had been throwing up water and my recent dinner. I was completely confused for a few seconds, and then realized I was back here and had left the other place behind. I jumped to my feet, and have never felt such rage and anger in my life at being brought back. I was a very well mannered, quiet boy...but not then. I screamed at both of the lifeguards, calling them bad words I didn't even know I knew, and started kicking and punching them both. I don't need to get into all of it, but I'd had some really challenging times in my life, and was extremely unhappy to be back here again.
Clearly they were caught by surprise - after all they had just saved my life. They just kept pushing me away, and then one of them got me in a bear hug and lifted me off the ground until I stopped struggling. At this point, I was so filled with sadness for the loving place I'd just lost that I just went limp and sobbed with my hands at my sides. I'm sure they must have thought I'd gone totally insane...and maybe I had.
They then told me their story. After I said I was going to swim, they went back into the pump house. Some time later, one of them said he felt something was wrong. He went outside and looked at the pool and the area around it. He said the water was calm, and that I was nowhere in sight. So, he decided that I'd changed my mind about practicing and had gone home for dinner. He went back inside and continued his paperwork. About 5 minutes later, he again got a strong feeling that not all was well, and went out again to look around. Still not seeing anyone, he walked over to the deep end of the pool, and saw my body at the drain in deepest water. Apparently, my body had slowly drifted down the bottom to the drain. He called for help, and they jumped in, pulled me out, and were able to revive me after a lot of work.
As I regained my senses and my temper, I went into a form of shock. Shock from being oxygen deprived for so long (they estimated 15 to 20 minutes under water). But also shock at being back from a place I so loved, to one I didn't love so much. I began to wonder if maybe what had happened was just a crazy dream of some sort, but I knew in my heart it was very real. Maybe even more real than here. But I just kept my mouth shut about my experience, and instead asked them if there was any way they'd be willing not to tell my parents about it. They readily agreed, and I now understand it was because they knew they'd get in a bunch of trouble if anyone found out they'd let me swim without any supervision...and I'd almost drowned as a result.
By the time they revived me, I had to have been dead for at least 15 ro 20 minutes...plenty of time for brain damage which starts after 2 minutes. I'm pretty sure that I did suffer some brain injury, but one of the nice things about brain damage is that you don't really know you have it. I do know I had a much better memory and total recall before that day, and I wasn't so good at that after.
The impact of that evening has continued to change me throughout my life. I didn't tell anyone about what happened for 25 years or more, but I couldn't help but see my life and the world in a very different way. I was no longer afraid of death, and understand that it is just a transition to a much better place. But at the time some of my experience was very troubling for me. How could I have known so many people there, and why did I know I'd been away before and come home before too?
We were raised in a traditional Christian family, and I'd never heard the word reincarnation before. But when I came across it years later, and I knew that's what it was about. Not in the way that many might think though. The "me" that went through the tunnel and went home was not so much like the "me" here. The essential elements are the same, but the personality I have here just dropped away, much like my scrawny little body did too. I also understood that all people are connected through love and compassion there, and that we search for and long for that connection here. That sure knowledge of the love that awaits me has been a lifelong comfort to me here.
In my own lack of understanding and maturity, I decided at that age that my religion was just wrong about too many important things. I stepped away from it, and began studying every other religion to see which one was "right". I didn't find one that matched my experience, so I rejected them all for awhile. Then I finally realized something. I was studying religions like I was panning for gold. Except that I'd throw the whole pan back in the water because it contained some sand, and was not all gold. Now instead, I see that every religion has gold nuggets, and all do also have some sand. So they are all good in some way - and not so good in others. All can be helpful for our growth and betterment as human beings - and learning to understand what is true or for ourselves.
I'm not trying to say anyone's religion is better or worse. I just think they all are doing their best to describe the same thing from different perspectives, and do so in different ways. One thing I am very sure about though is that the ones that think they are the only ones with a ticket to heaven are seriously confused. There were no Christians, Muslims, or Jews where I went...only wonderful caring beings who hope for nothing more than to love and be loved. I hope this doesn't offend any of you who might read this, and I'm only describing own personal experience. I respect and honor everyone else's point of view, and I've found that arguing or debating doesn't help or matter. After all, we are all taking whatever we believe on faith or our own experiences. The most important thing is to do our best to help and love each other while we are here, and to give that love unconditionally.
So...back to the lifesaving class before I end this. I did end up learning to swim with the clothes on without drowning, and eventually completed the very difficult test at the end to get my treasured certificate. We had to swim three miles in our final exam in our clothes to prove we were worthy. In the end, only three of us out of the originally 42 graduated. My sister Ingrid was one of the three too...so don't ever underestimate just how tough and determined she is. The two lifeguards were fired at the end of the season for changing the training to make it so hard - the city got a lot of letters of complaint from the people who dropped out.
To this day, I don't remember the names of the two teachers...and I'm ashamed I never said thank you for saving my life. I was angry for a long time at having to be here again, but now I know that they gave me a great gift by bringing me back - even though I thought it was against my will. Now I do my best to spend each day in gratitude that I did get to see what I saw, and that I still have a chance to experience each day here as the treasure that it is. I'm not in any hurry to die, but know that one of these fine days I will be going home again...and I will smile all the way there.
Lessons Learned: Life is simple, just listen to your heart. Sometimes when you sign up for a lifesaving class, you get exactly what you signed up for.
In my own lack of understanding and maturity, I decided at that age that my religion was just wrong about too many important things. I stepped away from it, and began studying every other religion to see which one was "right". I didn't find one that matched my experience, so I rejected them all for awhile. Then I finally realized something. I was studying religions like I was panning for gold. Except that I'd throw the whole pan back in the water because it contained some sand, and was not all gold. Now instead, I see that every religion has gold nuggets, and all do also have some sand. So they are all good in some way - and not so good in others. All can be helpful for our growth and betterment as human beings - and learning to understand what is true or for ourselves.
I'm not trying to say anyone's religion is better or worse. I just think they all are doing their best to describe the same thing from different perspectives, and do so in different ways. One thing I am very sure about though is that the ones that think they are the only ones with a ticket to heaven are seriously confused. There were no Christians, Muslims, or Jews where I went...only wonderful caring beings who hope for nothing more than to love and be loved. I hope this doesn't offend any of you who might read this, and I'm only describing own personal experience. I respect and honor everyone else's point of view, and I've found that arguing or debating doesn't help or matter. After all, we are all taking whatever we believe on faith or our own experiences. The most important thing is to do our best to help and love each other while we are here, and to give that love unconditionally.
So...back to the lifesaving class before I end this. I did end up learning to swim with the clothes on without drowning, and eventually completed the very difficult test at the end to get my treasured certificate. We had to swim three miles in our final exam in our clothes to prove we were worthy. In the end, only three of us out of the originally 42 graduated. My sister Ingrid was one of the three too...so don't ever underestimate just how tough and determined she is. The two lifeguards were fired at the end of the season for changing the training to make it so hard - the city got a lot of letters of complaint from the people who dropped out.
To this day, I don't remember the names of the two teachers...and I'm ashamed I never said thank you for saving my life. I was angry for a long time at having to be here again, but now I know that they gave me a great gift by bringing me back - even though I thought it was against my will. Now I do my best to spend each day in gratitude that I did get to see what I saw, and that I still have a chance to experience each day here as the treasure that it is. I'm not in any hurry to die, but know that one of these fine days I will be going home again...and I will smile all the way there.
Lessons Learned: Life is simple, just listen to your heart. Sometimes when you sign up for a lifesaving class, you get exactly what you signed up for.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
C&O Railroad Hospital
I've worked many different places and had many jobs in my life. Last count was somewhere around 35 - 16 of which were when I worked at Boeing. I liked most of them, and learned a lot at each one. Some of them mostly taught me to appreciate a good job when I had one.
When I was 16 years old I got a job at the C&O Railroad Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia. You may have heard of Huntington...Jamie Oliver had a reality show about it on TV last season because it was named by the CDC in Atlanta as the most unhealthy city in the US. The railroad hospital is long gone, but I'm guessing it could have won that same unflattering award for hospitals in the US.
When I started at the hospital I got a job as a janitor. It was a good job, and paid very well - $1.72 an hour which was a whole bunch better than I had been making at MacDonald's. MacDonald's had paid me the current minimum wage, but it was only $0.90 an hour for the food service industry...because they figured people would make extra money on tips. At MacDonald's? But I digress...that's another story for another time.
The hospital was four stories high, with a north and south wing. I don't know how many beds they had, but it was a good sized place, and there were about 15 of us in the custodial crew. I was working the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, and was pretty much a runt. I had just passed the 5' 1" mark, and weighed in at around 100 pounds. Our high school was almost completely white, and there was not a single African-American there. So, when I found out I was the only white person on the custodial staff, it was very interesting. They were nice to me for the most part, and started calling me "Slim"...which I didn't mind. They didn't have any uniforms my size, so all my clothes just hung off me. Good thing that the shirts just hung over the pants they gave us, because I had to pull my pants up the my armpits to keep the bottoms from dragging the ground. The TV show Erkle hadn't come out yet, but I knew a fashion disaster in the making when I saw one.
They had a nice system for assigning work at the hospital. We would rotate to different floors each week, and we also had a list of maintenance and cleaning tasks we did at various times. There was enough work and variety to keep me busy, but not so busy that I couldn't stop to chat with the staff, and especially the patients. I met a lot of great people, and made so many friends. The really hard part was when they died sometimes...but I knew how wonderful it was going to be for them when they moved on. So, I was sad to not get to see them again, but full of joy for them for the next part of their journey.
I had a lot of things happen at the hospital - way too many for one blog. So, I'll just start somewhere and come back to this place several times in the future.
One of the period cleaning jobs was to sweep, mop and wax the stairwells at the north and south end of the hospital. We didn't have to do it often, so when it came my turn to do it - it was my first time. As you can imagine, it's not a very challenging assignment. Sweep everything clean, wet mop the floors and stairs, and then wax the floors on the landings (but not the stairs). So, as I did the north stairwell, I kind of settled into the zen janitor space where your body just does it's thing, and your mind goes where ever it wants to go. Before I knew it, I was done there, and so bundled up all my equipment and headed for the south stairwell.
I started on the top floor because you know the old saying "dirt rolls downhill"? Well, that's not exactly the saying but close enough. So, I swept the fourth floor and then swept my way down the stairs to the third floor. As I was standing on the third floor, I looked to the side and could see what some janitors unflattering called "crow row". On the other side of the glass doors and glass walls, there was a row of wheelchairs, all in a side by side line. Looked like vehicles in a parking lot. In each chair was a very old, feeble man. Each had a belt strapped around them to be sure they didn't fall out. All of them were in some state of stupor, and no wonder. They pretty much spent all day in that row, except for meal and bathroom time. The idea was to get them out of their rooms, and give them the opportunity to talk. But most of them were too far gone to talk, so mostly they sat quietly, heads and eyes drooping.
I'd seen them many times before, and even tried to engage some of the more lively ones in conversation. Some actually could talk, and loved to tell stories of steam engines and their adventures on the rails. Some of the stories were a bit beyond belief, but they were all entertaining. Mostly I just enjoyed seeing the light come back into their tired eyes as they relived a part of their lives that was far away now.
Anyway, I trudged back up the stairs to get my mop and fresh bucket of hot water and cleaner. I started on the part of the landing away from the stairs, and began swiping the mop back and forth in a familiar rythym as I walked backwards. The stairs were the usual in commercial buildings. There was one long flight all the way down to the third floor landing, and the steps had rugged steel edges to prevent wear and damage.
As I mopped, I went back in to the zen zone...not really thinking anymore about what I was doing. All of the sudden my silent meditation was disturbed when I took a step back with my right foot and landed on....nothing. In a sudden panic, I realized that I'd walked backwards off the landing and was surely going to fall down those steel edged stairs. I figured that I'd probably be seriously injured, and wouldn't stop bouncing until I got all the way to the bottom.
Everything went into very slow motion at that point. I considered my options - falling backwards, or trying something else. It occurred to me that if I jumped backwards as hard as I could off my still-grounded left foot, that maybe just maybe, I could clear all the stairs in a single bound and come down on the landing on the fourth floor. There were two major issues with this plan though. First, it was a good 12 foot drop to the landing below, and second the ceiling was sloped down following the descending stairs. I couldn't remember just how high that ceiling was, and knew that there was a very good chance that I would ram my head into the ceiling and then fall the rest of the way down the stairs. Hmmmn....
After what must have been only milliseconds of thinking, I decided to chance the jump rather than just letting myself fall. So, I jumped as hard and low as possible backwards off the landing and began my descent towards either doom or salvation. I remained in the same super slow motion mode, watching the wall and railing fly by, and feel the top of my head ever so lightly brush the ceiling as I gathered speed. I set my legs in position to land, and suddenly I was down to the landing. I hit pretty hard, and staggered back just a bit, but I was safe and totally amazed that it had worked.
Well....almost worked. I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Still in slow motion mode, I looked back up the stairs and what I saw was not good. In my right hand, at the end of my full outstretched right arm, was my trusty mop. Only it wasn't looking so trusty any more. It was flying down and coming at me like a spear. I tried to deflect it, but it had way too much speed and inertia. I only managed to change it's direction slightly...and my arm folded against the force of it as the end went straight into my gaping mouth.
Sometimes when we get hurt under stress we don't feel it, but that wasn't the case this time. It REALLY hurt as the mop handle smashed my lips against my teeth, and then continued on into the inside of my mouth. It hit the roof of my mouth, and knocked my head dramatically backwards. It stopped finally and I yanked it out of my mouth and the blood started to pour onto my hospital blue shirt.
It was at this point that I looked to the side to see if anyone had been watching. I'd completely forgotten about the crow row, and as I looked at them, they were to a man all wide eyed and staring at me with expressions of disbelief on their faces. I suppose it was an appropriate expression, because you don't often get to see someone flying backwards down the stairs and then catch a mop in their mouth. Anyway their heads had snapped up, and their mouths dropped open. They looked at me and then each other, and then back at me again. Many of them began to smile, like they'd just seen a great circus trick that they'd love to see again.
I dropped the mop, and headed towards the doors to the landing. I didn't want to tell anyone what I'd done (this wasn't my first injury there and I was on their "watch" list already), so I figured I'd go to the washroom and see if I could get the bleeding stopped and get a clean jersey. As I got to the glass door, who should appear but my family doctor, doing his monthly day of doing rounds there. His shocked look was revealing, and he said "What in the hell happened to you son?". I just mumbled that I'd had a mopping accident..and I quickly moved past him to the hall and bathroom.
I was so embarassed at it all, and hurt too. While I was washing the blood out of my mouth and off my face, I thought again about what had just happened. How had I forgotten that stupid mop? I finally realized that holding onto the mop was a critical part of why I'd been able to make the whole escape work. It had stabilized me during the jump, like feathers on an arrow, and without it in my hand I'd most likely tumbled in the air, and then come down even harder than if I'd just let myself fall. My mop was completely trusty again.
I stepped out of the bathroom to get back to work, and saw that the men in crow row were all still wide awake and watching me keenly to see if I had any other tricks up my sleeve. As I got up to them, I stopped and gave them a grand bow, and they laughed. I smiled too, but it hurt. I grabbed my mop off the floor, told it "thank you" for saving my life, and went in search of a clean shirt before I got into trouble again with the staff.
Lessons learned: Pay attention to the moment. Sometimes even the best plan is made to succeed by small mistakes. It can be good to bring joy and happiness to other's lives, but choose your method carefully.
When I was 16 years old I got a job at the C&O Railroad Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia. You may have heard of Huntington...Jamie Oliver had a reality show about it on TV last season because it was named by the CDC in Atlanta as the most unhealthy city in the US. The railroad hospital is long gone, but I'm guessing it could have won that same unflattering award for hospitals in the US.
When I started at the hospital I got a job as a janitor. It was a good job, and paid very well - $1.72 an hour which was a whole bunch better than I had been making at MacDonald's. MacDonald's had paid me the current minimum wage, but it was only $0.90 an hour for the food service industry...because they figured people would make extra money on tips. At MacDonald's? But I digress...that's another story for another time.
The hospital was four stories high, with a north and south wing. I don't know how many beds they had, but it was a good sized place, and there were about 15 of us in the custodial crew. I was working the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, and was pretty much a runt. I had just passed the 5' 1" mark, and weighed in at around 100 pounds. Our high school was almost completely white, and there was not a single African-American there. So, when I found out I was the only white person on the custodial staff, it was very interesting. They were nice to me for the most part, and started calling me "Slim"...which I didn't mind. They didn't have any uniforms my size, so all my clothes just hung off me. Good thing that the shirts just hung over the pants they gave us, because I had to pull my pants up the my armpits to keep the bottoms from dragging the ground. The TV show Erkle hadn't come out yet, but I knew a fashion disaster in the making when I saw one.
They had a nice system for assigning work at the hospital. We would rotate to different floors each week, and we also had a list of maintenance and cleaning tasks we did at various times. There was enough work and variety to keep me busy, but not so busy that I couldn't stop to chat with the staff, and especially the patients. I met a lot of great people, and made so many friends. The really hard part was when they died sometimes...but I knew how wonderful it was going to be for them when they moved on. So, I was sad to not get to see them again, but full of joy for them for the next part of their journey.
I had a lot of things happen at the hospital - way too many for one blog. So, I'll just start somewhere and come back to this place several times in the future.
One of the period cleaning jobs was to sweep, mop and wax the stairwells at the north and south end of the hospital. We didn't have to do it often, so when it came my turn to do it - it was my first time. As you can imagine, it's not a very challenging assignment. Sweep everything clean, wet mop the floors and stairs, and then wax the floors on the landings (but not the stairs). So, as I did the north stairwell, I kind of settled into the zen janitor space where your body just does it's thing, and your mind goes where ever it wants to go. Before I knew it, I was done there, and so bundled up all my equipment and headed for the south stairwell.
I started on the top floor because you know the old saying "dirt rolls downhill"? Well, that's not exactly the saying but close enough. So, I swept the fourth floor and then swept my way down the stairs to the third floor. As I was standing on the third floor, I looked to the side and could see what some janitors unflattering called "crow row". On the other side of the glass doors and glass walls, there was a row of wheelchairs, all in a side by side line. Looked like vehicles in a parking lot. In each chair was a very old, feeble man. Each had a belt strapped around them to be sure they didn't fall out. All of them were in some state of stupor, and no wonder. They pretty much spent all day in that row, except for meal and bathroom time. The idea was to get them out of their rooms, and give them the opportunity to talk. But most of them were too far gone to talk, so mostly they sat quietly, heads and eyes drooping.
I'd seen them many times before, and even tried to engage some of the more lively ones in conversation. Some actually could talk, and loved to tell stories of steam engines and their adventures on the rails. Some of the stories were a bit beyond belief, but they were all entertaining. Mostly I just enjoyed seeing the light come back into their tired eyes as they relived a part of their lives that was far away now.
Anyway, I trudged back up the stairs to get my mop and fresh bucket of hot water and cleaner. I started on the part of the landing away from the stairs, and began swiping the mop back and forth in a familiar rythym as I walked backwards. The stairs were the usual in commercial buildings. There was one long flight all the way down to the third floor landing, and the steps had rugged steel edges to prevent wear and damage.
As I mopped, I went back in to the zen zone...not really thinking anymore about what I was doing. All of the sudden my silent meditation was disturbed when I took a step back with my right foot and landed on....nothing. In a sudden panic, I realized that I'd walked backwards off the landing and was surely going to fall down those steel edged stairs. I figured that I'd probably be seriously injured, and wouldn't stop bouncing until I got all the way to the bottom.
Everything went into very slow motion at that point. I considered my options - falling backwards, or trying something else. It occurred to me that if I jumped backwards as hard as I could off my still-grounded left foot, that maybe just maybe, I could clear all the stairs in a single bound and come down on the landing on the fourth floor. There were two major issues with this plan though. First, it was a good 12 foot drop to the landing below, and second the ceiling was sloped down following the descending stairs. I couldn't remember just how high that ceiling was, and knew that there was a very good chance that I would ram my head into the ceiling and then fall the rest of the way down the stairs. Hmmmn....
After what must have been only milliseconds of thinking, I decided to chance the jump rather than just letting myself fall. So, I jumped as hard and low as possible backwards off the landing and began my descent towards either doom or salvation. I remained in the same super slow motion mode, watching the wall and railing fly by, and feel the top of my head ever so lightly brush the ceiling as I gathered speed. I set my legs in position to land, and suddenly I was down to the landing. I hit pretty hard, and staggered back just a bit, but I was safe and totally amazed that it had worked.
Well....almost worked. I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Still in slow motion mode, I looked back up the stairs and what I saw was not good. In my right hand, at the end of my full outstretched right arm, was my trusty mop. Only it wasn't looking so trusty any more. It was flying down and coming at me like a spear. I tried to deflect it, but it had way too much speed and inertia. I only managed to change it's direction slightly...and my arm folded against the force of it as the end went straight into my gaping mouth.
Sometimes when we get hurt under stress we don't feel it, but that wasn't the case this time. It REALLY hurt as the mop handle smashed my lips against my teeth, and then continued on into the inside of my mouth. It hit the roof of my mouth, and knocked my head dramatically backwards. It stopped finally and I yanked it out of my mouth and the blood started to pour onto my hospital blue shirt.
It was at this point that I looked to the side to see if anyone had been watching. I'd completely forgotten about the crow row, and as I looked at them, they were to a man all wide eyed and staring at me with expressions of disbelief on their faces. I suppose it was an appropriate expression, because you don't often get to see someone flying backwards down the stairs and then catch a mop in their mouth. Anyway their heads had snapped up, and their mouths dropped open. They looked at me and then each other, and then back at me again. Many of them began to smile, like they'd just seen a great circus trick that they'd love to see again.
I dropped the mop, and headed towards the doors to the landing. I didn't want to tell anyone what I'd done (this wasn't my first injury there and I was on their "watch" list already), so I figured I'd go to the washroom and see if I could get the bleeding stopped and get a clean jersey. As I got to the glass door, who should appear but my family doctor, doing his monthly day of doing rounds there. His shocked look was revealing, and he said "What in the hell happened to you son?". I just mumbled that I'd had a mopping accident..and I quickly moved past him to the hall and bathroom.
I was so embarassed at it all, and hurt too. While I was washing the blood out of my mouth and off my face, I thought again about what had just happened. How had I forgotten that stupid mop? I finally realized that holding onto the mop was a critical part of why I'd been able to make the whole escape work. It had stabilized me during the jump, like feathers on an arrow, and without it in my hand I'd most likely tumbled in the air, and then come down even harder than if I'd just let myself fall. My mop was completely trusty again.
I stepped out of the bathroom to get back to work, and saw that the men in crow row were all still wide awake and watching me keenly to see if I had any other tricks up my sleeve. As I got up to them, I stopped and gave them a grand bow, and they laughed. I smiled too, but it hurt. I grabbed my mop off the floor, told it "thank you" for saving my life, and went in search of a clean shirt before I got into trouble again with the staff.
Lessons learned: Pay attention to the moment. Sometimes even the best plan is made to succeed by small mistakes. It can be good to bring joy and happiness to other's lives, but choose your method carefully.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
My Story
This post is a bit different. I came across this story on the web...had forgotten about it. The author was a really nice guy from Purdue University, where I finally received a degree after previous enrollment at Marshal University and West Virginia University. He wrote this in 2004 about a year before I retired.
The author's a better writer than me by a mile, and I think he captured some of my life story pretty well. So, I am hoping to still be modest, and include it as a blog. :-)
Hank Queen
For his outstanding engineering leadership within the world’s largest commercial airplane manufacturer, and for his service to Purdue University, the College of Engineering is proud to present the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award to Hank Queen.
His Eyes on the Sky
“I’m one of those people that whenever an airplane flies over I stop and look up,” Hank Queen says. “It’s just in my blood. All my life I’ve been challenged and interested in all things mechanical, and I particularly loved airplanes. I can remember even being three years old and looking up at an airplane and wondering how it does that.”
As Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes—a global organization of over 40,000 engineering personnel, with an annual multi-billion-dollar budget—Queen has plenty of opportunity to stop and watch the giants of the skies.
Both Queen’s father and grandfather were miners, and Queen grew up in a West Virginia coal mining town called Lando Mines. When the mine closed, the town was bulldozed to one end and burned by the company, and the Queen family moved to Huntington, West Virginia.
Queen studied engineering at the West Virginia University but chose not to finish his degree there. “I quit school the last semester of my senior year,” he says, “and I decided I would never be an engineer.” He followed his family to Indiana “because it seemed like an interesting thing to do,” Queen says. “I had never been that far west.” He then transferred to Purdue to finish his education.
A Passion for People
Queen began his career as a tool designer in Columbus, Indiana, before taking a job as an engineer for Boeing. At that time he had no desire to work in a management position.
“I had a stint in management about five years into my work at Boeing,” Queen says, “and I found I just didn’t like it.” So he returned to engineering, but it was the interaction with another employee that changed the direction of his career. “I worked with a guy that, for the first time, helped me understand that you can do engineering and make a significant contribution,” Queen says, “but you can do that with other people, not just on your own.”
This gentleman’s name was Mac Kiyono, a first-level manager at Boeing. “He was just such a neat leader,” Queen says. “He had a terrific perspective on life, and people and leadership. And he inspired me to want to be more like him.” And there was some quality that Kiyono noticed in Queen.
“He told me, and remember, I was just an engineer at this time, ‘You’re going to be vice president of engineering someday.’ And I said, ‘Mac, you are out of your mind.’”
But when Queen returned to management in 1987, he found that his friend and mentor had been right after all. “I didn’t really know that I had it,” Queen says, “but I have a real passion for people. I really felt good about watching other people be successful, which is at the heart of being a good manager, because your success is when other people are successful.”
A Tale of Two Feelings
Queen flew through the company ranks. He has worked as a service engineering manager for the 767 fleet, as a chief project engineer on the extended-range version of the 767, and as the director of the Twin-Aisle Airplane Program, which oversaw the technical integration of the 747, 767, and 777 family of airplanes. In 2000 he was named vice president in the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group.
“A lot of my job is coaching and mentoring and developing and understanding human dynamics,” Queen says, “because people in a way are a large-scale systems problem. It has such a personal deep meaning when things go well.
“But things don’t always go well.”
The years since the 9/11 tragedy have been hard on the air travel industry; over the last three years, Queen’s organization has dropped from 22,000 people to 15,000 people. “And it’s just been a heartbreaking thing to have people come into your office and cry, knowing that you can still have respect for people and treat them with dignity and value their contribution. So it’s been the best of times and the worst of times—it’s been a tale of two feelings.”
Throughout his career, Queen credits his training as an engineer as a keystone to his success.
“That same rigor and understanding how to go about identifying what’s important and what’s not important: people, process, products, and performance—not to blow Purdue’s horn, but the quality of the staff, of the professors, of the people, I felt so fortunate that life led me to graduate from Purdue, because they taught us how to solve problems. And that was much more valuable than just learning a lot of technical things.”
Career Summary
2005 Retired
2004 Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing, Boeing
2001 Outstanding Aerospace Engineering Award, Purdue
2000-04 Vice President, Engineering and Product Integrity, Boeing
1999-2000 Director of Engineering for Twin-Aisle Airplane Programs, Boeing
1997-99 Chief Project Engineer, 767-400ER Program, Boeing
1995-97 Chief Project Engineer, 767 Program, Boeing
1990-95 Service Engineer Manager, Boeing
1982-90 Electrical and Avionics, Service Engineering, Boeing
1975 Engineer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group
BS Aeronautical Engineering ’74, Purdue University
The author's a better writer than me by a mile, and I think he captured some of my life story pretty well. So, I am hoping to still be modest, and include it as a blog. :-)
Hank QueenVice President, Engineering and Manufacturing
Commercial Airplanes Group
The Boeing Company
BSAE ’74
For his outstanding engineering leadership within the world’s largest commercial airplane manufacturer, and for his service to Purdue University, the College of Engineering is proud to present the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award to Hank Queen.
His Eyes on the Sky
“I’m one of those people that whenever an airplane flies over I stop and look up,” Hank Queen says. “It’s just in my blood. All my life I’ve been challenged and interested in all things mechanical, and I particularly loved airplanes. I can remember even being three years old and looking up at an airplane and wondering how it does that.”
As Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes—a global organization of over 40,000 engineering personnel, with an annual multi-billion-dollar budget—Queen has plenty of opportunity to stop and watch the giants of the skies.
Both Queen’s father and grandfather were miners, and Queen grew up in a West Virginia coal mining town called Lando Mines. When the mine closed, the town was bulldozed to one end and burned by the company, and the Queen family moved to Huntington, West Virginia.
Queen studied engineering at the West Virginia University but chose not to finish his degree there. “I quit school the last semester of my senior year,” he says, “and I decided I would never be an engineer.” He followed his family to Indiana “because it seemed like an interesting thing to do,” Queen says. “I had never been that far west.” He then transferred to Purdue to finish his education.
A Passion for People
Queen began his career as a tool designer in Columbus, Indiana, before taking a job as an engineer for Boeing. At that time he had no desire to work in a management position.
“I had a stint in management about five years into my work at Boeing,” Queen says, “and I found I just didn’t like it.” So he returned to engineering, but it was the interaction with another employee that changed the direction of his career. “I worked with a guy that, for the first time, helped me understand that you can do engineering and make a significant contribution,” Queen says, “but you can do that with other people, not just on your own.”
This gentleman’s name was Mac Kiyono, a first-level manager at Boeing. “He was just such a neat leader,” Queen says. “He had a terrific perspective on life, and people and leadership. And he inspired me to want to be more like him.” And there was some quality that Kiyono noticed in Queen.
“He told me, and remember, I was just an engineer at this time, ‘You’re going to be vice president of engineering someday.’ And I said, ‘Mac, you are out of your mind.’”
But when Queen returned to management in 1987, he found that his friend and mentor had been right after all. “I didn’t really know that I had it,” Queen says, “but I have a real passion for people. I really felt good about watching other people be successful, which is at the heart of being a good manager, because your success is when other people are successful.”
A Tale of Two Feelings
Queen flew through the company ranks. He has worked as a service engineering manager for the 767 fleet, as a chief project engineer on the extended-range version of the 767, and as the director of the Twin-Aisle Airplane Program, which oversaw the technical integration of the 747, 767, and 777 family of airplanes. In 2000 he was named vice president in the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group.
“A lot of my job is coaching and mentoring and developing and understanding human dynamics,” Queen says, “because people in a way are a large-scale systems problem. It has such a personal deep meaning when things go well.
“But things don’t always go well.”
The years since the 9/11 tragedy have been hard on the air travel industry; over the last three years, Queen’s organization has dropped from 22,000 people to 15,000 people. “And it’s just been a heartbreaking thing to have people come into your office and cry, knowing that you can still have respect for people and treat them with dignity and value their contribution. So it’s been the best of times and the worst of times—it’s been a tale of two feelings.”
Throughout his career, Queen credits his training as an engineer as a keystone to his success.
“That same rigor and understanding how to go about identifying what’s important and what’s not important: people, process, products, and performance—not to blow Purdue’s horn, but the quality of the staff, of the professors, of the people, I felt so fortunate that life led me to graduate from Purdue, because they taught us how to solve problems. And that was much more valuable than just learning a lot of technical things.”
Career Summary
2005 Retired
2004 Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing, Boeing
2001 Outstanding Aerospace Engineering Award, Purdue
2000-04 Vice President, Engineering and Product Integrity, Boeing
1999-2000 Director of Engineering for Twin-Aisle Airplane Programs, Boeing
1997-99 Chief Project Engineer, 767-400ER Program, Boeing
1995-97 Chief Project Engineer, 767 Program, Boeing
1990-95 Service Engineer Manager, Boeing
1982-90 Electrical and Avionics, Service Engineering, Boeing
1975 Engineer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group
BS Aeronautical Engineering ’74, Purdue University
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