High on General Electric

Had occasion to hook up with "The Kid" recently.  

The Kid is my kid brother who came out and stayed with me for a spell in Alberta, back when Neil Young was exhorting everybody to go to Alberta.

So we did.

It mostly sucked.

The Kid came out to stay with me, because I had an apartment in Edmonton, and he just wanted to get out of the house.

I was cool with that. But I was a guy who had to work every day to pay the bills.  If The Kid was gonna hang with me, he'd have to get a job and pitch in.

The Kid's idea of getting a job meant signing up his name and my phone number at the Alberta Agricultural Labour Exchange. Then he sat back and waited for the phone to ring.

A few weeks later, the phone rang, and The Kid was off to a farm job out near Vegreville.

Not a week into the job, he's luxuriating in his farm-worker shack one morning, when the farm owner comes in to give instructions for the day.

The Kid lights a cigarette, and the farm-worker shack explodes.

He ends up in the Vegreville Hospital, along with his boss, who was blown clear across the pasture by the blast.

Long story short, we learned in short order that the farm owner was on the board of trustees for the hospital, and not only that, but he was a big-shot on the local political scene.

Even though the farmer's negligence caused the explosion, and the Vegreville Hospital got my brother addicted to opioids, a lawsuit in that neck of the woods wouldn't go anywhere.

But I digress. We enjoyed some fine times together back in the day, and we're both thrilled and delighted to still be on this earth. Today he was reminiscing about his days at General Electric.

I was a gas-cutter, and I'd often have hours between jobs, so I'd head up to the roof and get high and have a few beers.

Holy shit! I worked in the same joint ten years before he did, and on a slow night, you'd find yourself on top of what they called the "high bay." 

That was high enough off the ground on its own account, but climb up there for a toke and a few beers...

High on General Electric took on a whole new meaning.

The sunsets were spectacular! And the city skyline was just beautiful at night!

There's gotta be a lot more folks than us who got wasted on the roof of a GE plant somewhere.

We should start an alumni association!