Lightin Gene

 My ole drinkin buddy was driving his 18 wheeler down the highway when there was a flash of light and a Hugh bang. He had been hit by lighting.
 The truck shut down and luckily he managed to get it to the side of the freeway before it completely locked up.
 The whole left side of his body was a little numb, but seemed to be no real personal damage,other than being almost scared to death. And when his girlfriend  arrived to pick him up she said his left cheek was hanging down a little, but in a few hours there was no more sign of any real damage.
 Everything electrical had to be replaced on the truck, and all the tires had to be replaced. haven't heard from him lately but i suspect there was probably a lot more problems with the truck.
 Anyway he survived and not has the name  ,Lighten Gene,
 like myself i think he also kind of likes that negative attention.  LOL, we sure got lots of that back in the ole drinkin days.  Thanks for the good times we had , Lightin Gene

Dnynamite on the seat

 While working as a drillers helper My job was to haul water to the drill rig.
 I stopped for water, blew a hole in the ice with dynamite and started loading water on the truck. i was sitting in the truck waiting for the automatic shutoff to indicate the truck was full. seemed like i was sitting there a long time. got out of the truck to check things out. i heard water running behind the truck.
 I went behind the truck and to my disbelief there was water running out of the exhaust pipe. Somehow the shutoff hadn't worked right and the truck was sucking water into the motor and it was running out the exhaust pipe.  No idea how that happened and nobody really believed it did happen, even the mechanic at camp said it was impossible for the truck to keep running while sucking water into the motor. But as i have learned  in life ,many strange things happen.
 anyway the truck was full of water and and i went back to the rig., used up that load of water and went back to get another load.
 When i tried to load the truck again i found the shutoff valve under the seat had frozen after sucking all that water tho the motor.
There was only one way to thaw the valve so i got the propane torch and blasted it under the seat, thawed out the valve, loaded up with water and headed back to the rig.
Then i smelled smoke, stopped the truck, got out and discovered that the torch had stared the padding under the seat burning. it was just smoldering . I tried to pull the padding out, threw water on it best i could, but it kept on smoldering.
I wasn't far from camp so i thought id just stop at camp and get a fire extinguisher to shoot under the seat and that would be the end of it.
 I pulled up to the office in camp and in no hurry i walked into the office and ask for a fire extinguisher, mistake, everybody jumped up and said , wheres the fire, i said , my truck seat is burning but its no big deal, just smoldering.
 Well everybody seemed to think it was a big deal, and the party chief, Larry Sexton, just happen to be there.  he was the first one out the door to the truck, he opened my truck door, and jumped back in surprise.
 There wasn't much smoke so i didn't see what the big deal was. Larry called everybody over to the door and said look at this, This guys drives up here with his seat burning and there, sitting on top of the seat was,,, A five pound stick of dynamite,,,,,
 After i had blown the hole in the ice i had just put the rest of the dynamite on the seat beside me and never thought anymore about it.
 I caught all kinds of hell, but guess who was the talk of the camp at the dinner table that night.
 I sure do hate that negative attention :)

Impressed with a childhood friend

Was too young to remember meeting Rick. We both lived in the same neighbourhood and tho were were raised quite different from one another we were always friends. There were 3 of us, Rick,Dave and  myself.
 Rick was the most intelligent by far and came from a different family upbringing than Dave or I.
 The last time i saw Rick was over 30 years ago. Tho the Internet I got back in touch with him just a year ago.
 Found out that he was doing great and had been dragged, kicking and screaming, threw the high tec age and did not like to use the computer. Hell i figured he would be the one of us who would be the computer whizz. Being as he was the only one of us that hadn't dropped out of school. he wrote me a few letters and sent a few pics via snail mail, and mostly communicated with me tho his wife  whom was the computer person in the family :)  even tho she too did some kicking and screaming  about the new technical age.
 Anyway, the wife was gone for the day and Rick finally got on her computer and sent me an email. it was great, and the thing that really threw me was how well he typed. Wow, i was really impressed.
 Here i am 64 years old and thinking maybe there was some advantages in going to school :)
 Al tho i have never regretted not going to school ( never wanted to do anything that I needed an education for) i sure wish i could type as good as rick :)
 Thanks rick, u have inspired me to use spellcheck :)

Spam scar

 Second year grade3.

 I was on my way to school, i my pocket i had a can of spam i had stolen from my mothers cupboard. I took a shortcut thro a wooded lot. while in the cover of the woods i started to open the can of spam.
 In those days there was a key you pulled off the lid and then rolled the key around the can to open it. i had the key about 3/4 way around the can when it broke off. The edges where the key had removed a small strip of tin were very sharp.
 I tried to pull the lid off but it just wouldn't come off. Finally i just pulled as hard as i could and my fimgers slipped off the can. As my thumb passed over the sharp edge of the lid a chunk of hide and meat was cut off of my thumb.
 I was bleeding like a stuck pig, but was scared to go home cuz i had stolen the can of spam from my mother.
I headed for school , running as hard as i could. got to school and ran down the hallway to the basement bathroom.
 I held my thunb under the water tape thinking the water would make it stop bleeding. the in walked ole Mr bullman, the principal of the school
 H had followed the trail of blood all the way down the hall to the bathroom. by this time there was blood all over the sink and floor and i guess it looked like i was bleeding to death. Bull man grab me and took me to the nurses office where the nurse got the bleeding stopped and had me all bandaged up.
 When they asked me what happened i told them i was running tho the woods when i tripped over a stick and cut my finger on a broken 7up bottle. That was my story and i was sticking to it. And of course i told my mother the same story.
 Mom even made me take her to the woods where it happened to find the bottle for evidence so the school insurance would pay the doctor bill. I remember looking tho the woods but of course i didn't take her to the place where it really happened, for fear of her finding the half open spam can
 Everybody made a big deal out of it and i got a lot of attention because i had to miss a day of school and go to the doctor and my thumb was bandaged up for quite soom time.
 I made a big deal of not being able to write in school cuz it was my right hand thumb and i couldn't hold a pencil for a few days.  How i loved all the attention :)
 When it was all healed up i had a scar on my thumb and whenever and whenever there was a question of what was my right hand i would feel that scar and know that was my write hand
 Even today when anything comes up about right or left, i rub that scar with my forefinger, and think  "That's my right side:"
 When i was 30 years old and my mother was on her deathbed i finally told her how i had cut my thumb. She smiled and said"U little bugger"

Did i have crabs?

i was  working in the northwest territories, living in a remote camp on the tundra in the middle of nowhere.
there was a camp meeting and it was announced that some people in camp had crabs
it was no big deal they said, if u think u might have crabs, just come to the office and somebody will look at u with a flashlight, and if u have crabs u will be given a bottle of blue ointment and that will take care of it..
of course then everybody was thinking about it and a couple of days latter i thought i felt an itch,  i didn't want to have crabs but the more i thought about it the more i thought i might have.
but i sure as hell wasn't going to the office to have some bastard looking at my crotch with a flashlight.
 it never did get bad, but was still itchy, i just didn't know for sure, so finally i came up with a solution to the problem
at the time it was about 30 or 40 below outside. i got a gallon coffee can and filled it with diesel fuel. it was kept outside of course so u can imagine how cold that fuel was.
i snuck it into the lavatory, pulled down my pants and sat on the toilet,  i took that coffee can full of diesel and dumped it right in my crouch.  i gritted my teeth to keep from yelling. i don't know if it was the cold or just the burning of my skin but i was in some real pain. probably burnt and frozen at the same time. but i survived and went to work the next day like nothing happened
 a few days latter all the skin pealed off my crouch area, my poor little penis looked pitiful, all shrunk cracked and peeling.
it was a hell of a way to keep from being inbearest by a flashlight, i never did know if i had grabs or not, but i sure new i didn't have them after that desial wash :)
nobody in that camp ever knew what had happened that night

my buddy's got a big laugh out of it,     sure hate that negative attention :)

stuck in the ice

while working in the northwest territorries, i was driveing water truck.
to get water u just drive out on the ice of a lake or swamp, which is everywere, and lay a samll peace of dynamite on the ice, then get behind the truck and set the dynimite off with a battery from the truck or even a flashlight. this dnyimite was the kind that blows down, not up,  the blast shakes u and hurts your ears if u dont have them covered. i was real impressed by the blast the first time i did it. even scared
anyway, i drove out on the ice to get water. i blew the hole in the ice, put the sucktion hose in the hole and waited for the truck to fill up.
when the truck was full i loaded the hose back on and was ready to leave
i let the cluch out and just as the wheels started to turn the ice broke. just one back wheel went thro the ice and there i sat in the ice hole
soon a drill truck came by to pull me out.  we hooked up the chain ans started to pull. i heard something break and everybody yelled to stop.  we had pulled the truck about a foot forward but the rear axle was still stuck in the ice hole. had colpletely broken the rear end and springs from the truck
i got in a lot of shit over that, but i fgured there were about 6 guys there when they pulled on the dam truck,,,, why didnt one of them think about what would happen,,,,,,, hell no,  lets blame the greenhorn driver that got it stuck . and i guess i was suposed to know there was a soft spot in the ice right were i parked the tires. i was amased only the tires went tho, i would think when it droped the whole truck ,loaded with water, would have gone tho the ice. then ofcourse the ice would have held the doors closed so i would have drwn is i didnt freeze to death first.

the big coinsidence

in the early 70s funny and i drove from veron bc canada to acapolco mexico.
on our way home we stopped at a bar in gainesville texas. had a couple of drinks but not much happened.
in 1981 i was called in canada to do the brickhorsehead job in gainesvile texas.
at that time i had forgotton about ever being in gainesville.
in the late 90s, funny called me from canada, just to see how i was doing. she had found my number and she remembered the bar we had stopped at in the 70s. after she mentioned it to me, i also , remember stopping at that bar on our way home from mexico,  at the time she called i just happened to be friends with the man whom had owned that bar in the 70s and still owned it at the time of the call.
jimmy has since sold the property and the bar was replaced with retail stores.
i had spent a lot of time in that bar, it was one of the first places i drank when i came to build the horsehead.
i was there with god and family one night, we were haveing dinner and shrimp was on the menue,
nancy ordered a big plate of shimp. i had never tasted shimp before. i found it quite tasty and after i had eaten quite a few, nancy asked , hows the shrimp, i replied. they are good but a little crunchy.
nancy laughed and laughed , then told me i was suposed to remove the shell before eating shrimp. lol
i laughed also.   man , i hate that negative attention