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.

Pictures From The Trash - Part 4, The Duds

From 1 Bowater

Don't know why this picture was labeled The Duds. Left to right; M. Rowe; A. Humphrey; S. Naman; T. Low; D. Hunt; J. Wilkerson; B. Prater; J. Frank

Pictures From The Trash - Part 3 - Retirement Parties Were Grand!

It used to be a big deal when someone retired from the company after many years of service. Below are pictures from 1982 - Marvin Perry's retirement.

From 1 Bowater Pi

Pictured Left to right; M. Plaza; Marvin Perry; D. Nichols

From 1 Bowater

Pictured left to right; C. Hornsby; M. Plaza; Marvin Perry; B. Nichols

From 1 Bowater

Front row, left to right; A. Mielkie; D. Richardson; B. Hagner.
Back row, left to right; C. Hornsby; M. Hinson; Marvin Perry; E. Blackmon; B. Nichols; M. Plaza

There were many stories about Marvin. One I remember goes back to the "Good Ole Days" - before we knew all there was to safety. Marvin was picked (probably because he was the smallest) to descend into a pipe to see if a back wash valve was leaking. They tied a rope around his waist, and told him to pull if he got into trouble. Well, Marvin was out of sight, and the group on top thought they felt a pull on the rope - although Marvin didn't actually pull the rope - and they literally pulled Marvin back though the pipe. Needless to say, he gave the pipe a good cleaning by the looks of his clothes.

Paper Mill Pictures From The Trash - Part 2

From 1 Bowater

Start-up of the Pulp Dryer at Catawba. The Flakt air float dryer was the first of its type in North American and the 5th installed in the world. The dryer still operates today and is the oldest Flakt air float dryer still in service. The pulp appears to be either very low brite semi-bleach or unbleached.

From 1 Bowater

A picture of the Pulp Dryer wet end operator.

From 1 Bowater

An overhead picture of the Pulp Dryer wet end showing two presses and a steam pre-dryer. A third press was added some years later and the pre-dryer was removed about 10 years ago.

Paper Mill Pictures From The Trash - Part 1

This will start a series of pictures that were pulled from the trash. They were taken during a time when paper mills were proud of their achievements and employees.

From 1 Bowater

These folks are planting pine trees with a hoedad. The forestry folks used to say, "They were people with a love for the land" - but I suspect they were people who couldn't do anything else.

From 1 Bowater

This is a picture of wood being loaded on to a log truck.

From 1 Bowater

This is a picture of a pine seed orchard. Pollination was controlled and seeds were harvested.

The Screen Room, by JF

I was sitting in the extra board waiting room while a tune ran through my head … “The Tennessee Waltz”.  It was New Years Eve 1953.  The last several years  I had always attended a dance at the Legion hut on this night, but not  tonight.  Now I was sitting here, meeting the 4-12 shift at the “pulp mill”, trying to get work.  A friend of my father’s, Mr Crawford, walked in and told me to “come on.”  Years later, my father married Mr. Crawford’s widow after my mother died.  Well, it is a small town and getting smaller.

We walked to the back side of the mill and I followed him into “the screen room”.  He showed me what I was to do and took off.  I don’t think I ever saw him again, certainly not that night.

The screen room was located in a two-floor building near the woodyard.  The building smelled of pine, a very pleasant odor, and was warm with high humidity. The purpose was to separate good usable chips for the process although I had no idea that night what was going on.  There were conveyer belts going every which way and in the process there were pine chips and sawdust flying off the belts and landing on the floor, usually in piles.  My job was to shovel up the chips and sawdust and put them back on the belts.  It was an easy job and only lasted about a half an hour every hour.  The rest of the time was mine so to speak.  The noise was not too bad and best of all, I earned another $9.50 per shift (8 hours).

I figured out about the screens; there were several of them, each about as big as a small car.  The chips from somewhere were fed at the top of a vibrating screen that was on an angle of about 30 degrees.  The chips that fell through the top screen went onto another screen that had small openings where the good chips went on a different belt than did the too small chips.   Years later I found out that the too large chips were chipped again and sent back to the screens; the good chips were sent to the digesters and the too small chips and sawdust were burned to make steam…try writing that.  One thing I would say now is don’t get caught in a moving belt…it would be sundown!

Since I never saw another person in the screen room all night, I spent about half a shift looking out of a small window on the side of the building which overlooked a wet road and the side of a building housing a paper machine.  I thought of the song again: “I was waltzing with my darlin’ to the Tennessee Waltz, when an old friend I happened to see. I introduced him to my loved one and while they were waltzing, my friend stole my sweetheart from me.”  In those days, you could understand the words in a song and many sweethearts were lost.  Patty Page sang the song, published in 1950, and many others by her were enjoyed in the 50’s. “I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz.  Now I know just how much I have lost.”

I wouldn’t be waltzing that night, I thought.

JF

A Story About Two Managers

The paper industry has always had a "spotty" record when it comes to safety. I don't really know why, but I suspect it is probably no different than most. You'll be going along with good safety performance and then hit a period of time with a lot of injuries. This is how two different managers handled it.

Manager One. After a rash of injuries, this manager called in an consultant and all the department heads for a long day meeting. They went through the causes of injuries and ways management could change to improve workforce performance.

Manager Two. Again after a rash of injuries, this manager called in all the department heads and announced that every mill supervisor would work 12 hour days, and give round the clock coverage for the next ten days. He reported that he would be checking on their progress from his vacation and if there were any injuries during that time, the long hours would continue until their was improvement (The Ole Sea Gull Management Style).

So, which one was better? Well, if you practice MBO (management by objectives), they both saw a reduction in injuries reported and got the results desired by the manager. Which brings to mind whether they were using the correct measurement to gage success?