2015 Collection: Sporadic Notes From The Toy Factory #14

June 23, 2015 Heat Exchangers

Sort of an in-between day; the building is unusually warm. My upper body is soaked with perspiration, so I've taken off my cap to soak it in cold water. With my long hair and full beard, I've learned to deal with the energy-sapping heat at work by wetting down my head and neck, and letting the cool water just soak it. People think beards are hot, when the reality, for me, is that when they're wet they act like heat exchangers and cools my face as I drive.

Appearance-wise, you can't tell the difference what moisture is outside your clothes, coming in, or outside your clothes coming out. Further, it isn't like an employee can wear anything they want in a factory setting -- least here in Minnesota -- because of OSHA safety regulations. Long sturdy pants, steel-toed shoes or boots, upper body shirts; sleeves optional depending on what you are doing; as well as safety glasses that tend to hold the heat to your face; and ear protection.

Evening shift is the worst during the summer as the day shift work force heats the building up by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, just when evening shift starts. Walking into the plant, just before every one is walking out, is, in a word, 'brutal.' With gigantic heat exchangers on top of the building exhausting the heat and huge floor fans circulating cooler air throughout, it gets cooled down by 11 pm just in time for the graveyard shift who work from 11 pm to 7 am.

Comments

August 6th, 2020 Tired of Writing

Comment on Parental Rights 1869-1940 I finished the second installment of my grandfathers biography I wrote in the Wannaskan Almanac for today, late yesterday evening. http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/08/thursday-august-6th-2020-parental.html I had worked on it for a good day, by Wednesday, including a few hours on Tuesday too, and in my waning energy for it decided just to wrap it up, rather than keep slogging through dozens of transcribed interviews, page after page, searching for some item that would fit my story, chronologically. In truth, I wanted to be writing something fun. It wasn't like I wasn't interested in what I was mired in; I enjoy a good slog once in awhile myself, but my dilemma was how do I keep it interesting to others and not get bogged down? I could've just copied pages to be sure, but I needed it to flow somewhat smoothly, and not become just a repetitive list of names, dates and places. Argh. But t

Friends to the End: Delmer Roseen and Curtis Johnson

Delmer and Curtis: Friends to the End From where he was buried on Saturday April 11th, 1992, the tin roofs of his buildings could be seen through the trees. Across the fence, at the foot of his grave, were the fields he farmed. Between them, Mikinaak Creek--so much a part of Delmer Roseen’s life and sadly, his death--still winds through willow slough, over beaver dams below the Palmville Cemetery, and past his door to the South Fork of the Roseau River, only a few yards to the southeast. Delmer lived northeast of us in Palmville Township. If I looked just right, I could see his yard light through the woods between his place and mine. Either of us could hear the soft ‘clung’ of the rope and pulley against the flag pole in the cemetery at the corner of our two farms. Red willows, popple islands, and slough grass; green mossy fence posts; the often submerged patchwork of woven wire, and the depth of water in the creek vaguely separated us. Delmer had live

GUD-RIDGE! MAYBE THIS YEAR, BABY!

Late April renders up another fine Joe tradition hereabouts, the Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge) Lions Annual Smelt Fry, in Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge), Minnesota, seventeen miles east and a mile north of Tuff Rubber Balls (Thief River Falls), Minnesota. ‘Gud-drudge’ is the local vernacular for ‘Goodridge,’ and its proper annunciation, is the separation between towners and tourists. A small rural town, with a population of about 150 people, is an agricultural community residing within and well beyond the city limits. Often several miles apart, resident farmsteads dot the remote flatland topography of northwestern Minnesota, whose inhabitants often share the lifelong experiences of church, school, employment, and/or family relation. The smelt fry is a community event that brings people home from across the region. Beginning in the morning, and in combination with area garage sales, auctions begin around town selling consignment items from boats to barrettes, wood stoves, ductwork, framed

WannaskaWriter

Search This Blog