stories from the jobsite.

i worked this week in belle plaine, half an hour from my house.
were building a new 150 million litre a year ethanol plant.
so right now, theres not a lot going on.
drilling piles, and forming grade beams.
they say when the job is in full swing, there will be 200+ people out there working.
right now we have a dozen guys.
i was talking to one guy there this week, he started his apprenticeship in the 70's sometime.
i dont remember how, but we ended up talking about construction accidents.
particularly severed fingers.
he told me a story about an 60 something year old german man he worked with.
said the guy was cutting some stakes out of 2x4s.
the skilsaw slipped on him and took off the pinky finger of his left hand.
he threw the saw on the ground swearing in german.
then in english he started yelling "fingers! fingers huh! its fingers you want?"
and he picked up the saw and proceeded to cut off each of the rest of the fingers on his left hand.

so thought about this for a while, trying to decide whether it was a shock/spur of the moment rage type of scenario, or if it was a crazy crazy man who just had the last straw break.
i laughed a bit at garths story, and went on my way working for the day -35 something with the wind.
2nd day, -40 with the wind. 5 guys went home.
3rd day, -42. it just kept getting colder.
4th day, same thing...and then i realized, that after 40 more years of working the trade in this country.
with 80 some degrees of temperature change, ill probably be just as crazy as the 5 fingered german man.