To: DScottD who wrote (10477 ) 5/7/1998 12:05:00 PM From: Gauguin Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Speaking of mosquitos, in the early 70's I worked for a bunch of high-tech machinists building exotic lumber mill machinery up in Portland. (Harry, one of the owners: "You know why you wanna be a machinist? Because they swear the best ~ they have the dirtiest mouths of any trade.") They were inspirational ~ the energy and professional skill and can-do tough-guy rowdy mix, in the highest contrast I've ever seen it. Laser alignments, micrometers, fifty-ton overhead cranes and empties filling up the trunk. Lots of WW II vets, car restorers, "historians", virile engineers and kookle-burry characters. We were a bunch of young smarty-pants at our end of the timeline. Very heads-up, dangerous, intelligence-required environment. Jack, the other owner, had me in his office for a minute of sit and told me he'd been "doing this for fifty years, Paul, because it's a shit-or-get-off-the-pot kinda job." Most of them were Navy people in combat in the South Pacific; talk of running aft through explosions and finding out the back half of the destroyer "gone".
