The Rough Life Of A Telco Lineman

Location: Ajo, Arizona
Year: Roughly 1978-79

I hired on with Mountain Bell as a lineman in Yuma, AZ on June 10, 1978. Dad had been with Ma Bell my entire life and I figured the nascent career would be just like his; dependable, mellow,
and providing what, in those days, was a good wage. Well, the dependable and good wage part is still going strong 32 years later, but the mellow part would come later. On THIS job title, mellow was a word never used to describe it.

A job came up in Ajo, By God, Arizona. We were to plow a cable from Ajo to Why, a distance of about 10 miles. If you've ever been to Southern Arizona, you KNOW what a pit it is. That is some fierce and ugly desert. "YEAH! My first out-of-town trip! A REAL 'Lineman' I'm gonna be!", I thought to myself. The crew would consist of myself, Tommy, Vince and the prominent part of this story, a man everyone called 'Red'.

Red was a true character. He was, as expected, red-headed. He was also a born Hell-raiser. Drank like a fish. Worked like a demon. A very good coworker and teammate. What I didn't know was that boy could PARTY. He could party ALL NIGHT and still be functional the next day. Simply amazing.

So we arrive in Ajo after a grueling 4-hour drive in our line trucks from Yuma. In those days, they weren't air-conditioned or had power anything. They were loud, hot and dusty. Nasty business. The 'Hotel' the company provided us with was amazingly bad. Even to me, at the tender age of 20. It was a single-wide trailer seemingly 100 yards long divided into VERY small rooms. There was a bed, a small bathroom and a wall-mounted A/C unit. Being Southern Arizona, the A/C was a needed expense. The days ran close to 115 degrees. And I could only survive it because I was young and dumb.

Ajo at that point had a full-blown MASSIVE open-pit copper mine ran by Phelps Dodge. This beast was immense. It had this smokestack that appeared to be a quarter mile tall. HUGE. And it belched out this dirty brown and smelly smoke that would give the Green Weenies these days apoplexy. Maybe even induce a much-needed trip to Whole Foods for a Latte. Serious shit, man. As a company town, most everybody living there worked for Phelps Dodge. And they were all ugly and mean.

The first evening there, we, the crew, went to a bar right in the heart of 'Old Town'. It was across the street from City Hall and was an old, really cool-looking hotel. Ten minutes later, the locals were already grumbling and threatening the 'Out Of Towners'. I begged my leave of the group, went over to the local Dairy Queen and got a burger and soda and went back to my 'Hotel'. So much for a fun six weekes out of town, I thought.

I ate, cooled off and crashed, knowing the next day would be a bear, what with the heat, driving a cat in the desert all day and breathing all that craptastic smoke and dust. UGH. 5am came early and I woke up to my alarm clock. Cracking my eyes open, I came to the realization that, somehow and without a clue as to why, the side of my face was glued to my pillow. I tried to pull face and pillow apart and the adhesive was pretty good, whatever it was. I kept wondering how the Hell the guys got into my 'Hotel' room and pranked me. I was totally mystified. I got up out of bed and took the two needed steps to the bathroom mirror and was amazed to find that the 'glue' was BLOOD. I had bled from the nose pretty damn well and that was what had glued me to the pillow. Now I am running a bit scared. I jumped into the shower and used the hot water to loosen the pillow from my face. Dropping the pillow in the sink, I dressed and ran out the door to find the rest of the guys. I told them the story and they were clueless as well. I went over to the 'Hotel' office and told the guy about the bloody pillow and my nose so he wouldn't call the local (and more than likely ugly) law enforcement officers to report a bloody murder. He said, "Oh! That happens all the time to new folks here! It's the smokestack! It'll be all right in a couple of days - you'll adjust." This trip is just getting better and better...

So, for the next few weeks, we plowed miles of cable South to Why, ate a truly amazing amount of dirt and dust, and bled some more. Actually, I enjoyed the trip. What young, dumb, naive kid wouldn't want to go to a strange town, drive LOTS of heavy equipment (JD-450 and D8 Cats and a Ford 550 backhoe) and eat junk food for weeks on end? And bleed? Yes, it finally quit. Finally.

As we got the cable to where it was going in Why, we had to dig under and existing pedestal there to run the new cable into it. There, the splicers would cut new service in and life would be good. The soil there was a tad sandy, so as Red ran the backhoe, I was on the ground with a shovel helping him so he wouldn't hit the existing cables. After he took out a big scoop of sand, I'd jump into the pit and shovel and look for cables. As I was bent to the task, Red (the sneak) took the pressure off the bucket and let it slowly open up right over my head. I got hit by what felt like a ton of sand right on ny hardhat and was pile-driven to my knees. Standing back up sputtering and spitting truly epic amounts of sand out of my mouth, I turned and was ready to give Red a shovel enema. What I saw was Red and the two others just absolutely dying laughing. I sputtered a few more times and then started laughing myself. "Welcome to Line work, rookie!", Red said. I was in...

Right about that time ANOTHER line crew showed up. They were down from Phoenix and were to wreck out an old open-wire lead that went from Phoenix to Ajo. Not a bad job, getting to wreck stuff. I'd done a little of that near Yuma and I enjoyed the work. This particular crew, though, we were rooting for them to fail miserably. Why, you ask? They were a crew made up of ex-management guys that took demotions rather than outright getting fired. And this job was what the company gave them. And, NO, none of them had any experience in Line Work. This was trouble waiting to happen - on a silver platter.

The trip was about wound up. We'd plowed the cable in all the way, turned it over to the splicers and started cleaning up the plow line by compacting the trench the plow made and 'back-dragging' it with the smaller cat to level it up. Red started talking about partying with the locals a bit more. I started getting nervous. I could just imagine those three rough and tumble lineman dragging me into a bar fight and calling that their idea of a 'party'. If I remember right, last night we were there, we ended up in a small restaurant and the guys were getting rather drunk. A local came over and started yelling at Red about eyeing his wife. Red replied, "I don't like slender Blonds! I like 'em FAT!" So rather than take that as a compliment about his wife, the local said, "You calling my wife fat?!" Crap.. again. I left. No sooner did I get out the door and into the parking lot than the brawl comes rolling out the door. I STILL have no idea what happened because I was down the street and in my 'Hotel' room just that fast. I know everything worked out because Red's 'Party' arrived later that night.

I was fast asleep and at about 1am, I was jolted out of bed by some rather loud noise from Red's room adjoining mine. There was loud music and the sound of womens (Note the plural) voices and laughter! I shook my head and tried to go back to sleep. No, it didn't work. So I got up and went next door to Red's room and banged on the door. I had no idea what I was hoping to accomplish because it was damn sure not going to be Red that changed their activity. As Red came to the door, I asked him to hold it down - some of us have to sleep. He said, "Then come on in and join the party!" He swung the door wide open and there on the floor, partially dressed, were two of the most immense fat women I'd ever seen - then or now. (I'm reminded of a famous quote - "MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!") HOLY CRAP! That sight is forever burned into my mind. Red, his only clothing a pair of boxer shorts, and these two Jabba The Hut chicks quivering on his hotel room floor!

I think I got away from that scene without humiliating either myself or the three players in that 'Hotel' room. It was close, I'm sure. So, I lay there for another hour or two, listening to Red pleasure those extreme mounds of flesh in his room. I do know that THEY were thoroughly enjoying themselves. I rather wasn't.

So there I was, in one day, having escaped a bar brawl, having been kept up most of the night by Red and crew and THEN somebody is banging on MY 'Hotel' door! Cripes, does the shit never end? I got up and answered the banging on my door by ripping the door open as fast as I could and bellowing "WHAT?!" as loud as I could. I figured it was another cow looking for Red. Nope. It was one of those manager guys. He told me they needed help. "At 2am?", I asked. Here's their sad, sad, story:

It seems they'd gotten a tad bored after dinner and decided to do some off-roading. In a Line Truck. A huge, ungainly, International Harvester Line Truck. With no 4WD. They'd been bouncing across the desert and WHOOPS! Got it stuck in the bottom of a wash out in the middle of nowhere. Could we take our cat out there and drag it out before THEIR boss showed up in the morning? I said Red was the only one that touched out Cat, so I would ask him. I stepped next door and banged on his door again. After telling him their sad story, I think he laughed for 10 minutes. Finally coming up for air, he said, "Sure. Why not?" He bid his little trollops good night and went to go get OUR Semi and trailer for the Cat. He loaded the Cat and drove out to the spot of their 'accident', unloaded the Cat, dragged their truck back up to the road, reloaded the Cat, drove the Semi, trailer and Cat back to our parking area - and WENT BACK TO HIS PARTY. All while so drunk he couldn't walk straight. As I said, he was amazing.

After all this, we were all packed up and ready to head back to Yuma the next day, when the other Line Crew walked up, with their boss in tow and asked us, "Do you know where we can get our line truck fixed locally? It seems the drive shaft has been bent and it makes a Hell of a noise!" They said this with a straight face and their boss never got a clue. We looked at each other and all about died laughing. We gave them the local heavy equipment shops name and number, and pulled out of town for home.