I was a Teamster once. It happened while I was
living near Yosemite National Park, pursuing a doomed mailorder business I
think I may have mentioned elsewhere.
Things had gotten pretty desperate, and a friend with some clout in the
park maneuvered me into a job on the maintenance crew. I lasted about a week.
It was a first for me, and quite possibly for the
Teamsters as well. I had never done maintenance work, not even on my
own possessions, much less on someone else’s. I was pushing 40 at the time, and
in not-too-good shape.
The maintenance crew for the park had its work cut
out for it. As the seasons changed, whole communities of workers in the various
concessions came and went, and their housing was put up or dismantled
accordingly.
Many of these temporary workers were accommodated in
dormitories – “Boys’ Town” and “Girls’ Town.” Each roomer was furnished a bed
and a bedside dresser. I learned, on the first day, that we were expected, each
of us, to carry one item to waiting trucks. One man, one piece of furniture.
I could struggle one of the dressers down the stairs
and to the truck (in the time my fellow Teamsters took two or three) but the beds
-- I don’t think there’s anything you
can compare them to today. They were
cast-iron frames holding what must have been lead springs. I never heard an
actual weight value, but they were monsters.
The foreman cheerfully demonstrated the technique. With
the bedframe upended, resting on its side -- you addressed it from your left
side. Bending at the knees, you grasped what was now the bottom rail with your
left hand and the upper rail with your right, which now crossed over your head.
You were now in position for the approved method of lifting, with your legs. Straightening
your knees -- off you walked.
Right.
What our insructor might have
spent a little more time on, for us newcomers to the job, was that if
you didn’t get the bed exactly at the midpoint, the dam’ thing would tilt
forward or backward, and take you with it.
The result in many cases was a series of lurching dance steps, with the
inanimate partner leading.
It was at this point that I discovered that the
dressers weren’t all that bad, and went looking for some. As luck would have
it, all the dressers were already accounted for, but the foreman was looking
for help with the tents.
I didn’t mention the tents, did I? Visitors to the
park who sought the real outdoorsy experience could rent tents down near the
river. Not those little two-man pup tents like you had in the army. Family-size
tents. Big, heavy canvas jobs. Rolled up, they were big enough you could just
get your arms around one. Here again, the one-for-one rule obtained: one set of
arms, one tent.
As I said, I lasted about a week, retiring from the
field before doing myself an injury. The Teamsters collected their dues out of
my first (and only) paycheck and we parted ways.
I don’t say that about the dues grudgingly, by
the way; I’m a union man in spirit even though that’s the only union job I’ve
ever had. I’d be even less use in a steel
mill than I was on that maintenance crew, but these many years later I’m an associate member of the United
Steelworkers. I’d have joined the Wobblies by now if they'd still been around.
