Dig Those Crazy Holes

What I had been hired to do was to help dig the big holes to fill with concrete for bolt-setting foundations for the towers that carried the rows of wheels (shiv trains) that carried the moving cable up and down the mountain.

We had picks and shovels to dig with of course, and the dirt in the valley was soft–– but as we went up the mountainside to dig the higher tower’s foundations, the digging got harder until we were finally digging through solid rock. For this job we switched from shovels to “rock bars”—six foot steel bars with a chisel point. You use this tool to bash at the rock and every few blows you get some chips to fly off.

We bashed eight hours a day and when I got back to my camper the first night after using the rock bar, I went to eat a sandwich and found I couldn’t open or close my hand! My fingers were paralyzed into the rock bar grip position! Luckily I could still move my hand close to the bread until I slid a slice between my fingers and managed to prepare and eat that yummy poor man’s staple, peanut butter and jelly on white bread!

But some rocks we couldn’t even dent with our rock bars and for these they had hired a dynamite expert—a kind of hippy looking guy. His tools were a heavy-duty portable pneumatic rock drill—like the things they break concrete with on road work––and sticks of dynamite.

First he would drill a hole with his rock drill––a heavy pointed steel thing—and the oddest thing about his work style was that all he wore  on his bare feet were flip-flop rubber sandals  while that  dangerous drill was pounding away boring a hole into the solid rock right between his feet!

I asked him once why he did it that way and he told me that by going almost barefoot he was twice as cautious with the drill. Maybe so.

Myself., I wore steel-capped safety boots when we were working.

When he had his hole drilled, this technician stuffed dynamite into it, warned us civilians away and shouted “Fire in the hole”. There was a muffled bang and a lot of gravel sized bits of rock rained down on us for a few seconds. That broke the rock enough so we could attack it again with our rock bars.

Once he shouted “Fire in the hole!” and there was no bang.

He came over where we were cowering behind some rocks and said “I hate it when it does this!” Then he had to go fish the dud dynamite charge out of the drilled hole and start all over again.

But he was getting paid more than the rest of us.

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