Canadian Adventure
My first regular job in the food processing industry as a sanitor. A sanitor is a person who cleans the production equipment to a spotless condition. It was not too bad of a job to have at the time. Almost the whole crew were either Mexicans, or Mexican-Americans. At least one guy was from Puerto Rico.
I got along real well with most of them. Some became close friends. We would play softball, touch football, and basketball. I even had a wrestling match with Armando, who was an accomplished State wrestler in high school. Though he was smaller, he surprised me with a quick takedown. It was all I could handle to keep up with him and I had to concede a loss to him.
I went to the Latin-American club, and we would go to each others' social events. Armando was to be in my wedding party in a few months.
Our shift would get over at about 10:30 pm. It was Friday night and we seldom had to work Saturday or stay late at that job. We were in the restroom and I was looking at my infected tonsils in the mirror. I kept getting tonsillitis and was finally getting over it. Armando was there with Dan, another Mexican-American.
They asked me if I wanted to go to Canada.
"Huh? When?"
"After work."
"Tonight? With no sleep? You guys are crazy."
"We've never been there and we thought maybe you would go with us to help us get around. But we're worried about being up there on the Fourth of July."
"The Fourth of July is the US birthday, goof ball. You are going to Canada."
"Oh. . .yea."
I thought, how crazy! But I had the misconception that soon I would be married and I would not be able to do impulsive crazy fun things any more. The truth is that you won't want to do stupid stuff like that when you get older.
So I called up my beautiful bride-to-be and told her that I was going on this ill-conceived trip to Canada. She didn't mind at all.
After work we got our stuff and camping gear and piled it into Armando's Volkswagen Beetle and hit the road. It was only a few hours on the road for us to cross the bridge into Canada. By then it was clear to me that Armando and Dan knew nothing about navigating with a road map, among other travel related things.
We got to the border. The Canadian Customs Agent greeted us. Back then they were all friendly old guys at the border. Those guys were pretty cool. Years later it seemed like Canada was guarded by a bunch of cranky women.
"Where 'ya goin'? the Customs Agent asked.
Armando spoke up, "Canada."
"Big Country," the Agent said without the least indication that he was annoyed by the inadequate response.
We had no clue where in Canada we were going. Armando and Dan sat there and looked at each other.
"Toronto," I blurted out from the cramped back seat. I had to sit back there since I was the tall one and couldn't fit well in the front of the bug.
The Border Agent was happy he got some kind of an answer out of us and let us go without much bother. We told him where we were born, etc.
Soon we celebrated the fact we were in Canada. We were still wide awake, having had no sleep.
We were past due for breakfast. We stopped at a restaurant in Rodney, Ontario and had a good breakfast. We wondered why all of the tables in the restaurant had vinegar on them. We learned that Canadians liked vinegar on their fish and chips, which to us was deep fried fish in a basket with French fries.
The next order of business was to find a campsite, as we were fading fast. I brought a travel book along that listed campsites. This was in the days long before smart phones.
"Hey! Look at that road!" Armando exclaimed.
The road we were on was heading right toward a mountain. This was not just a hill, but a mountain, and the road was not winding, but straight up. The grade was incredibly steep. I told Armando to get some momentum to go up the thing.
In retrospect, even that was a foolhardy suggestion. We were in a fully loaded VW Beetle. Going up for the first half was okay. The little car started groaning under the weight. Armando downshifted the manual transmission.
At one point I thought we were going to start rolling backwards all the way back down. He downshifted again. The car heaved and jerked, but crept forward. There was still a ways to go.
Okay, I thought, we are going to die stupidly. We were going slow enough that Dan, who was on the front passenger side, thought about bailing out. But the bug crept along and eventually got to the top of the hill. What a relief!
We travelled to a couple of campgrounds and found that they were all booked up. I did not expect this situation. It seemed that camping was pretty popular.
Then we were pleased after I located a campground that had a sign outside of the office that said, "campsites available". Armando and Dan spared me the torment of climbing out of the back and went to the office. It was an agonizing wait. They were taking forever. I lost faith in them and climbed out to see what was going on.
The owner told me, "We are a family campground. We don't allow it."
"Allow what?" Whatever objectionable thing it was that he thought we were going to do, we certainly were too tired to do it.
He just kept saying, "We don't allow it."
I was about to ask him if he was a parrot. I was starting to get angry. I didn't know if he thought we were fugitives from the law, or because they were Mexicans, or gay, or druggies, or what the malfeasance was. We just weren't "family" enough. So I started to lecture him on sending us away all tired on the road and Armando and Dan pulled me away.
Maybe they were used to that sort of treatment, but I had never experienced it. I really felt like I had an idea of what it was like to be mistreated because of ethnic origin. I didn't like it one bit. True or not, I can see why people sometimes blame questionable actions on someone's bigotry.
The fatigue was really setting in after that. I could not stay awake.
I woke up and asked Armando why we were going so fast.
He said, "We can go a hundred."
So then I had to explain the difference between miles and kilometers. I pointed out that the kilometers/hr. was marked on the inner scale of his analog speedometer.
"Oh. I wondered what that was."
Dan was our navigator. He sucked. He got mad a couple of times when I showed him on the map we were going the wrong way, or at least a direction other than he thought.
At this point I was frequently falling asleep. I woke up and saw Armando was about asleep at the wheel. I tried to keep him awake for awhile then I fell asleep.
Another time I woke up and asked Dan where we were. He said with all assurance that we were on route such-and-such and knew exactly where we were. At the next moment we passed a road sign.
"Then how come the sign says. . ."
Dan yelled in frustration.
"Give me the road map," I said.
Eventually we found a place to camp. We could put our tent wherever we wanted. So we started setting up next to a recreational vehicle.
We were about finished setting up when a woman came out of the RV and said, "Why don't you guys move over there." She pointed down the hill.
"What for?" I asked her.
"I just think you should move down there."
This crap was really getting on my nerves. Again, Armando and Dan just told me we were going to move down there and forget it. I had that feeling again. If these people cannot tell you their reasons, their motivations must not be very good.
Armando could sleep anywhere. He laid flat out on his back on the grass and slept well. Dan and I did not do quite so well, but we got a little sleep.
Later that day the camp was completely filled up. I asked a guy if it was normal for the camp to be so full. He said that people celebrate the Fourth of July for the US, and the 1st, which is Canada's Day, the Canadian equivalent. But the first is a floating holiday, so it was a long weekend and the National Holiday of Canada. Yeesh! The knuckleheads were right after all! It was a bad weekend to be camping.
We saw that we needed some gas for the stingy bug. The owners of the camp were French Canadians. It was funny because the woman who sold us some gas from their pump was speaking to Dan in Canadian French, and Dan was speaking to her in Spanish, and they were understanding each other somewhat.
So far, we had not done anything except become totally exhausted. So I got the idea to go to Niagara Falls. Everyone likes to see the Falls. That would be the highlight we needed to make the it a real trip.
So we slept all day and woke up at night and took off for the Falls. We had to travel some distance to get there.
Not long after we were on the road, Armando mentioned excitedly, "Look at this big hill ahead!"
"Slow down!" I pleaded. "We can't see the bottom of the hill so we don't know how big it is!"
It was too late. It was that same mountain we struggled to go up before. Now we were going down. Armando was braking hard. I told him to let up, so the brakes didn't fail. By the time we got to the bottom we were flying super fast down the mountain like a toy Matchbox car down a plastic track.
After that harrowing experience, we made our way to Niagara Falls. It didn't disappoint. They were thrilled with the immensity of it. Nothing notably wrong happed there and it was a nice visit. No, really.
On the way back we pretty much did not want to look for a campsite any more. We crossed back into the US. Late at night, we found a New York State rest area listed on the map. When we got there it was big enough for about three cars total. We gave up and all three of us slept in the bug with our gear. It was a joke, but we were too tired to laugh.
A State Trooper found us there sleeping in the bug with our legs were sticking out of the windows. He told us that we were not supposed to be there since the park was closed. We told him we would leave, and he said for us to stay there until we woke up. That was a great kindness on his part.
We wanted to spend another day goofing off, so we found another campground in the US. It was a dirty place. The lake was muddy. We did not think much of it, but we stayed there.
We felt a void in our need to have fun, so on the way back we went to an Indiana State Park with a known nice beach. Armando was really dark. A lot of the darkness was a tan. Some black guys told him that he was darker than they were. The sun was no problem for them at all.
This was not the case for me. As a white guy, I was scorched to a crisp. Later that day after we got home, I was standing in the bathroom at the toilet and passed out. My sister heard the collapse and found me laying naked on the floor. My girlfriend was mad at me for not being able to go out that night as we had planned.
I was so sick that I missed work the next day and lost my holiday pay. Armando and Dan suffered no ill effects whatsoever. For a few years after that, whenever I was out for long in the sun, I felt sick. Eventually it went away.
Amphibian Horror
For a year or so, I was the crew leader of the celery inspection line. The celery was intensely washed and spread out on a wide conveyor belt for inspection. All I did was bring celery to the inspection line and take inspected celery to the production lines.
Our celery came from Florida. The fauna from Florida is quite different from our area.
Every once in awhile, I would hear a scream coming from the inspection area. The women were horrified because a frog or interesting lizard, or even a small fish would come down the line. Usually the small critters were alive and guys would take them home as pets.
The first time this happened the women ran away from the inspection belt. I got there before the little froggie was piped across the plant to the main production area. If this happened it could have easily ended up in the product.
I told the inspectors from that time forward, if they did not at least stop the belt the conveyor belt they would be sent home.
Even though they had plastic gloves on, they would never touch the animals. The downtime was usually for less than a minute so I put up with it. I didn't want any incentive for them to ignore the creatures.
Crappy Birthday to Me
I was on second shift as quality control. Second shift had the reputation for having a party-like atmosphere on our shift. Yet, I was busy all the time. So naturally, this perception about our shift and our work bothered me.
What is a party-like atmosphere? Webster's says a "party" by this meaning is a "gathering to which guests are invited in order to enjoy each other's company."
Okay, maybe in some sense it was. We would decide to eat dinner together. We would talk and laugh. Our lunch was a nice stress reducing respite. But we also got our work done, and things ran with good results.
One day, which happened to be my birthday, I was busy. I ran and ran and could not catch up enough to even have my lunch. This is probably why I have a touch of arthritis in my joints now.
My duties were not the sort of thing that could wait. My coworkers in the lab pleaded for me to stop and eat. They were nice enough to bring me a birthday cake. I ended up not getting any lunch but gulped a chunk of cake.
The next day, the Chief Operation Officer (COO) called me into his office. He started to lecture me on partying too much. Evidently someone was put out that the birthday party happened and they were not invited. Now that I think about it, it was probably Don.
I was irate and corrected his misconceptions for him. But after that no one wanted to have enjoyable lunches in the lab any more. We replaced having a small portion of time to unwind with contempt for our leadership. Just another lesson I learned on how not to handle situations.
Tricks and Traps
At one time I worked in a noodle production room. A guy I worked with was always running his mouth about things trying to agitate me for his own entertainment.
One day he and another guy took to setting traps for me. They were confounded by the fact I always knew they were up to something. For example; I disappointed them by anticipating that they had put a bag full of starch over the doorway. I opened the door, backed up, and the starch fell on the floor. I am not psychic. I could always tell by the goofy way they were acting that they were up to something.
So one day I decided to pay my arch-nemesis back. He sat all day in a small room. There was a square-foot opening by the floor. I got the help of his friend who tried to get me. He just wanted to play. I took a bag that was about the volume of a refrigerator. I put a couple of scoops of starch in it, because I knew he would cut the bag.
So I went around the put the bag into the opening on the floor. From the outside, I inflated it with an air hose. It got so big that he couldn't move in the room. Then as expected, he took his knife and stabbed the bag. The air pressure shot the corn starch out on him. He was all white with starch. It was real amusing, as well as satisfying. (Note: Horseplay often results in damage or injury.)