Barging – In and Out
The yoke of the crane was hovering about two feet over my head. It looked like it weighed ten tons but probably only weighed six (a joke but probably a ton?). One slip of a lever, or button, or whatever, by the operator and I was toast - and so was my workmate on the other side. We were lying flat on top of a jumbo roll of kraft linerboard trying to hook up the cables to the roll core. This required us to lean half our body length over the side of the roll and insert a device into the core and hold it until the crane tightened up the cable and hopefully didn’t catch any fingers; never mind that we were thirty feet in the air. After hook-up, when we scrambled as far away as we could (maybe four feet or so), the crane operator had to make sure the three ton roll of paper didn’t swing and trap us against the wall of the warehouse.
The operators were permanent employees while we were temporary. Most crane operators really knew their stuff in handing the rolls safely, but there’s always at least one. Our “one” got cussed out frequently by the guys I worked with after we stared death in the face. I never learned the operator’s name, unless it was S.O.B., but I won’t forget his face. Of course, that was 55 years ago and maybe he’s changed some.
After the huge roll was airborne, it went swinging toward the end of the warehouse where the ocean-going barge was waiting patiently. The unloading guys in the barge had different problems. First the roll came in swinging, many times directly overhead as it was being lowered. If it didn’t actually fall, there was no room to maneuver; the barge walls were close. Everything depended on the faith we had to put in the crane operator’s skill and a lot of luck. When the barge was fully loaded and no one was hurt, we all were thankful and also grateful for the $9.50 take-home pay we would receive. The barge and tugboat went chugging down the not so pristine river toward New Jersey …a welcome sight.
The plant no longer makes kraft board so I’m sure these barge loading dangers no longer exist…thank goodness.
JF
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