Barn is a letter and a number, A-1!!!

I had a job at one time that I really liked. That was building pole barns for the A-1 building company. I started the job a couple of days before I turned 19. I was working at home with dad and grandpa and not making enough money. I asked my relative, who is nicknamed A-1, if I could work for him building pole barns. He eventually took me on and I was making $8/hour before I knew it. Since I was soon to be attending SSCC, I was able to work on fridays and weekends when I wanted after school started. I was really awful doing construction at first. I could barely swing a hammer the correct way. I worked mostly during the summers, except for the summer of 2004. I didn't work then because my two younger brothers went to Germany for a week or three and I had to stay home to help on the farm. The last summer I worked for them, I was 23 and left when I started for college that year.

One time I cut my leg with a chainsaw and had to get stitches. I was cutting off the pole tops and a pole top fell and hit the blade and kicked the blade at my leg. I bled a bit and got it wrapped it up in some gauze. When I got home, no one was home. I went to my grandmas and showed it to her. She thought I should get stitches so I did. By the time I got home, everyone was back and my brother was having a farewell party for someone leaving for the marines. I got to tell people that I had a bad day because I cut my leg with a chainsaw.

I also grew my afro the summer I turned 21 and was working. I had to wear a visor to keep the hair out of my face. One of the guys we were building for thought this was pretty funny. We were building a barn clear out by columbus and I drove almost every morning. I can practically make that drive in my sleep now, since I nearly did for almost a month and a half.

I did really struggle learning how to swing a hammer for a while. I finally did get better. I would still smash my finger everyonce in a while though.

I also think that the worst thing possible could have happened on the hottest day possible happened to me once. I was swinging trusses at the BCR in georgetown one day. Right before lunch, I was at the peak nailing in a 2x4 for the peak, and as hot as a person could reasonably be. Then it happened. A water main broke and I was forced to watch cool refreshing water shoot up from the ground while I was 30 feet off of the ground and carrying around 40 extra pounds of nails in my tool bag. It was really demoralizing at the time. By the time I got to the ground and off of the trusses, I couldn't get away from the water cooler. I would stand there and drink a bottle, my boss would come and give me something to do. I would hurry and do that, then get right back to the water. I couldn't hardly stop drinking water that day.

I do really miss the work though. Being part of a crew and seeing the barns we built come along and be constructed was pretty cool. I stayed skinny, and was pretty tan. I was finally making $10/hour the last summer I worked. If it wasn't for the long hours we worked, I would go back and work for them again. I sometimes don't see the crew trucks come by my house until after 7. I was getting a little bit over one hundred hours in every two weeks when I was working last. Some of the people I worked with were not that great though. The type of work didn't demand a bunch of attention. Someone who wanted to be on drugs was usually on drugs at that job. Either that or soon after or absent a couple of days a month. I was happy having a beer or two on the way home and chewing gum the rest of the day.

In other news, I found a really cool website. It is called elev8.com and I recommend reading it.