Shipping - 1954, JF

The shipping dock was within sight of the main gate.  I walked with the supervisor, to where the railroad tracks ended, and onto the dock.  The person I was to work with, John, was asked to help me with what I needed to know.  He was a slight man who probably didn’t weigh 135 pounds.  I was a whopping 145 pounds. Does the description “wiry” ring a bell?  He had on a “Duke” T- shirt and dungarees and looked to be in his early 30’s.  The job was simple; fork lift trucks would bring jumbo rolls of Kraft paper and place them in the boxcars.  They weighed tons.   We were to place wooden triangular-shaped blocks called chocks beneath the last two rolls, near the door, to stabilize them for their journey.  The chocks were to be nailed to the floor of the boxcars.  There would be four chocks per car and two nails per chock.

John handed me a hammer and said, “You know we had a college boy last week that couldn’t drive the nails.”  I said something like: he musta been a weakling.  I had spent a lot of time last year in High School helping to put in a new gym floor.  There was plenty of nailing.  I was in pretty good shape.  John smiled and handed me a bucket of nails as the first car was pushed into place.  The nails were huge.  In fact, I now believe they were at least 60-penny (D) nails…6 inches long or more.  I recently looked it up on the internet.  I had never seen or heard of that sized nail.  The expression, “bigger than a ten-penny nail” is used to mean very large.  They are not half grown compared to the nails in that bucket.

The dock board was placed between the dock and the car.  John and I entered the car and each put a chock under the first roll which was lying on its side.  John began hammering on his first nail so I followed suit.  After the first couple of hits, the nail was though the chock; I was encouraged.  The next few hits didn’t bring any progress so I increased the force.  The nail went…”ping”…and it flew out from the chock and hit the wall.  I quickly picked it up and began again.  Maybe I was nailing on a piece of steel or something.  Was the floor of the car made of Ironwood?   I “powered” the nail into the wooden floor about an inch; it bent almost in half.  John had long since finished his two nails.  He said, “Let me show you.”  He squatted down and with three or four hits each - finished.  The next car, I managed to get one nail in while he got three.  He didn’t seem to mind and never said anything.  It remained that way the rest of the night, one to three.  My arm was dead.  It was one of the longest nights of my young life.  My arm was much worse the next day.

I have often since thought of “college boys.”  Funny I never won the coin flip for that job again.