Showing posts with label Budd Automotive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Budd Automotive. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2022
Manopause
Me and Kipling met at the Budd Automotive plant in Kitchener round about '73 or so. Budd was a going concern at the time, and you could make more money, coming in off the street with no skills, than the teachers at the high school you'd dropped out of.
And come in off the streets we did. The day I got hired there was a line at least 100 yards long out the door of the employment office. They came in and they went out just as fast. Most of the new hires quit within the first two weeks. If you had zero skills you started your career on one of the press lines. You stood between two 500 ton presses all day feeding parts from one to the next. It was a dirty, stinking, physically exausting, oil-soaked, steel-sliver inducing job, but if you could handle the pace, you took home a pretty fine paycheque.
It was always disconcerting when you came in and one of those presses had amputated the arm of some poor putz who miscalculated his timing when pulling a oily piece of metal out of it.
It was even more disoncerting to come in the next day and see the same press up and running with a fresh recruit who still had two arms.
Today me and Kipling met at the Teviotdale truck stop. He pulls in behind the wheel of a 58 year old Pontiac sedan, straight six and three on the tree. It was a bargain basement full-size sedan in its day. The folks in the factory that built it could have readily afforded it.
We get together periodically to trade notes on aging, and to marvel at the fact we've made it this far. Ya, things get a little dicey, and moreso the further you go. Eye surgery or hand surgery is a pain, but beats the hell out of dropping dead from a heart attack, or even worse, being diagnosed with a terminal disease that'll let you linger incapacitated for months or even years.
Naturally, we reflect on how our lives have unfolded. Free Trade was the dagger through the heart of Southern Ontario's industrial economy and the working class who made their living in it.
NAFTA hasn't been the only challenge in the last 50 years. It's only with the life experience of decades that you realize the role testosterone had in your life. Once you're crowding 70, let's face it; you're not making all that much of it anymore.
What a relief!
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Enjoy those winter driving blues, Parker
My nephew Parker is about to set out on his first cross-country solo drive. Good on ya, kid! I repost this "Winter Blues" missive from a few years ago in your honour!
Winter Blues
Back when I toiled in the Budd plant in Kitchener there was a shorthand used to refer to your co-workers.
We worked among Rastamen and Polskies and Ukes and Newfs and Frenchies and Krauts.
Every Portugese guy was known as Goose or Magellan or Vasco de Gamma.
One night after second shift let out we headed for the all-night liquor store in Stratford. A couple of home boys and a couple of Rastas in Frenchy's Javelin, with Frenchy driving.
I don't know to this day whether there actually was an all-night liquor store in Stratford, but we almost died trying to find out.
I do recall there was a 24 hour beer store in Toronto. We did make it there one night.
But Frenchy's Javelin ended up in the ditch on its roof that winter night, with five thirsty guys just getting thirstier.
Winter blues.
There's something about winter that makes desperation more desperate.
Me and Kipling headed out west to make our fortune in the dead of one winter. Went in the ditch 50 miles east of Winnipeg. Went in the ditch at a high rate of speed while I was both napping and driving simultaneously.
Winter blues.
If you're watching this at home, kids, don't drive and nap simultaneously.
It's not a happy thing.
There was a Neil Young song popular at the time that glorified going to Alberta. I think most of us were just going to Alberta because Neil Young had sung a song about it...
Years later me and Terry ran out to Calgary in the dead of winter. Lost a wheel bearing somewhere around Bumfuck Manitoba in the middle of the night when it was -40 degrees outside.
You can't fix a wheel bearing without going outside.
-40 is really fucking cold!
Winter blues.
Winter adventures.
The Kid still swears that the best day of his life, and he's had an awful pile of great ones, was the day I picked him up at the hospital in Vegreville, in the dead of winter, and we toured all the way into the foothills and beyond, all the way to Mount Robson, him with his bottle of pills and me with my case of beer, and we ended up in Edmonton totally fucked up and just in time for a Triumph concert.
In the dead of winter.
Winter blues.
********
Happy trails, Parker!
Friday, August 2, 2019
Burning rubber on Memory Lane
I was 18 years old. Budd Automotive in Kitchener hired me on my 18th birthday. No skills to speak of, and no high-school diploma, but back in the pre-NAFTA days, factory jobs like that paid a decent wage.
Decent enough that I considered buying a house. I even had my eye on one, a little bungalow in Guelph, available for a mere $20,000. I also had my eye on a 1973 Trans Am 455 SD at Weiland Motors. This was a few years before they snagged a Ford dealership and became Weiland Ford.
The Trans Am had a mere 6,000 miles on it. She was a beauty; red exterior, white interior, four speed. It didn't have that ugly bird plastered on the hood. Insofar as a red Super Duty Trans Am could be subtle, it was. A good solid example today will run you well into six numbers.
The payments on the Trans Am were approximately the same as the payments on that bungalow. I was 18. Of course I went for the car.
And it was a beast! That motor made tons of torque. It could literally break the tires loose in any gear anytime you stood on the gas too hard, which was most of the time.
It wasn't all that impressive on the top end, though. That beastly motor ran out of wind pretty quick once you passed 5,000 rpm, and with the 3:42s in the back that meant your top speed wasn't going to be much more than about 120 mph. But it sure got there in a hurry!
I used to cruise around the high school I'd dropped out of the year before. Girls who'd never noticed me when I was a student clamoured for a ride in the Trans Am. At 18, I was more than happy to oblige.
I'm 18, making good money, driving a red Trans Am... life was very good indeed!
Then disaster struck. After the 1973 Arab-Israel war, the Arabs got together and unleashed an oil boycott. That eventually trickled down to seriously crimping the market for the big cars Budd built the frames for. Six months after I bought the Trans Am, I got a lay-off notice.
Looking back, I think that oil boycott is what triggered my interest in geopolitics.
The oil boycott also crimped the market for cars that only got 10 mpg. Without a job, I couldn't afford to put gas in the car, nor could I afford the payments. I eventually traded it to a dealer in Toronto for a somewhat ratty 1969 Dart GTS 340 and two thousand dollars cash. The money got me through to the next job, but the girls weren't nearly as keen on the Dart.
But I made the best of things, and I got by...
That bungalow I passed up for the Trans Am recently sold for over half a million.
Decent enough that I considered buying a house. I even had my eye on one, a little bungalow in Guelph, available for a mere $20,000. I also had my eye on a 1973 Trans Am 455 SD at Weiland Motors. This was a few years before they snagged a Ford dealership and became Weiland Ford.
The Trans Am had a mere 6,000 miles on it. She was a beauty; red exterior, white interior, four speed. It didn't have that ugly bird plastered on the hood. Insofar as a red Super Duty Trans Am could be subtle, it was. A good solid example today will run you well into six numbers.
The payments on the Trans Am were approximately the same as the payments on that bungalow. I was 18. Of course I went for the car.
And it was a beast! That motor made tons of torque. It could literally break the tires loose in any gear anytime you stood on the gas too hard, which was most of the time.
It wasn't all that impressive on the top end, though. That beastly motor ran out of wind pretty quick once you passed 5,000 rpm, and with the 3:42s in the back that meant your top speed wasn't going to be much more than about 120 mph. But it sure got there in a hurry!
I used to cruise around the high school I'd dropped out of the year before. Girls who'd never noticed me when I was a student clamoured for a ride in the Trans Am. At 18, I was more than happy to oblige.
I'm 18, making good money, driving a red Trans Am... life was very good indeed!
Then disaster struck. After the 1973 Arab-Israel war, the Arabs got together and unleashed an oil boycott. That eventually trickled down to seriously crimping the market for the big cars Budd built the frames for. Six months after I bought the Trans Am, I got a lay-off notice.
Looking back, I think that oil boycott is what triggered my interest in geopolitics.
The oil boycott also crimped the market for cars that only got 10 mpg. Without a job, I couldn't afford to put gas in the car, nor could I afford the payments. I eventually traded it to a dealer in Toronto for a somewhat ratty 1969 Dart GTS 340 and two thousand dollars cash. The money got me through to the next job, but the girls weren't nearly as keen on the Dart.
But I made the best of things, and I got by...
That bungalow I passed up for the Trans Am recently sold for over half a million.
Friday, July 28, 2017
Shop floor realities; yes, there's always been a black working class
The Farm Manager has been watching the doc "13th" all afternoon on Netflix, while I was putting way too much effort into the previous blog-post.
(What? Unfettered capitalism immiserates the working class? Who knew?...)
Anyway, she's watching it and I'm hearing the soundtrack, and from time to time I have to add a "PS."
At some point, I offered "PS, there used to be a black working class."
Which got me going down memory lane...
Back when I dropped out of high-school, the highest paying gig around for high-school drop-outs was Budd Automotive a fifteen minute drive away in Kitchener. Before that I'd toiled at Dayton Steel, which was just a very short step up from the bottom of the ladder.
The very bottom at the time belonged to Frank Hassenfratz's Linamar Machine out near Ariss.
Mind you, a lot of those high-school drop-outs at Frank's place got the last laugh. When Linamar was going public Frank had offered the old hands pre-IPO shares, and there were high-school drop-outs who had taken a job at the very bottom of the high-school drop-out employment ladder who are millionaires today thanks to that.
Anyway, I successfully dodged that bullet, and found myself at the apex of the employment ladder. I'd applied there before, and was rebuffed due to my age. UAW rules demanded that a new hire be at least eighteen years of age. So on my 18th birthday, I stood in line at the Budd hiring office again, amongst all manner of Jamaicans and Poles and Bulgarians and plain old working class Canadians.
Point being, you couldn't lift your eyes without seeing a black dude on the shop floor. Ergo, there WAS a black working class.
Not only that, but the Jamaicans were absolutely great guys and, not that I want to indulge stereotypes, always had a line on way-above-average weed.
Lot's of black guys on the shop floor when I worked at Frankel Steel too. Frankel was one of the biggest structural steel fab shops in Canada at the time, and it was a well-paying gig. The black guys and the white guys bought homes in the same middle class neighbourhoods and we felt the same sting when we were handed our lay-off notices.
Out in New Brunswick, at Irving's Shipyard, I worked alongside black dudes who could trace their family tree back to the days of the Loyalists that you heard about in history class. There was two hundred years of black working-class culture in New Brunswick!
Anyway, if you listen to the news today, you hear quite a lot about the white working class.
The black working class seems to have disappeared from the news.
There's a lot of realities about the lives of ordinary black folks that seem to have disappeared from mainstream consciousness. That's why I think, going by what I heard, that watching 13th would be a good way to spend an afternoon.
(What? Unfettered capitalism immiserates the working class? Who knew?...)
Anyway, she's watching it and I'm hearing the soundtrack, and from time to time I have to add a "PS."
At some point, I offered "PS, there used to be a black working class."
Which got me going down memory lane...
Back when I dropped out of high-school, the highest paying gig around for high-school drop-outs was Budd Automotive a fifteen minute drive away in Kitchener. Before that I'd toiled at Dayton Steel, which was just a very short step up from the bottom of the ladder.
The very bottom at the time belonged to Frank Hassenfratz's Linamar Machine out near Ariss.
Mind you, a lot of those high-school drop-outs at Frank's place got the last laugh. When Linamar was going public Frank had offered the old hands pre-IPO shares, and there were high-school drop-outs who had taken a job at the very bottom of the high-school drop-out employment ladder who are millionaires today thanks to that.
Anyway, I successfully dodged that bullet, and found myself at the apex of the employment ladder. I'd applied there before, and was rebuffed due to my age. UAW rules demanded that a new hire be at least eighteen years of age. So on my 18th birthday, I stood in line at the Budd hiring office again, amongst all manner of Jamaicans and Poles and Bulgarians and plain old working class Canadians.
Point being, you couldn't lift your eyes without seeing a black dude on the shop floor. Ergo, there WAS a black working class.
Not only that, but the Jamaicans were absolutely great guys and, not that I want to indulge stereotypes, always had a line on way-above-average weed.
Lot's of black guys on the shop floor when I worked at Frankel Steel too. Frankel was one of the biggest structural steel fab shops in Canada at the time, and it was a well-paying gig. The black guys and the white guys bought homes in the same middle class neighbourhoods and we felt the same sting when we were handed our lay-off notices.
Out in New Brunswick, at Irving's Shipyard, I worked alongside black dudes who could trace their family tree back to the days of the Loyalists that you heard about in history class. There was two hundred years of black working-class culture in New Brunswick!
Anyway, if you listen to the news today, you hear quite a lot about the white working class.
The black working class seems to have disappeared from the news.
There's a lot of realities about the lives of ordinary black folks that seem to have disappeared from mainstream consciousness. That's why I think, going by what I heard, that watching 13th would be a good way to spend an afternoon.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
TRIGGER ALERT; If you suffer from an infection of political correctitude please skip to next story
When our mainstream media outlets refer again and again to the fiction that Donald Trump's support base is found in the disgruntled white working class, I always wonder, what has become of the black working class?
Are they are still working?
They never existed?
They're not working but still insist on supporting the free trade agenda?
Where exactly have they gone? The reason I wonder is because when I was a pre-NAFTA foot-soldier of the working class, I had black dudes around me all the time. I know they existed.
Where have they gone?
It's a popular conceit among the mainly white intelligentsia and journalsim elites that "working class" means white folks with less than a college education. That substantial quotient of the working class that didn't have white skin just got disappeared to somewhere...
But where?
When I was at Budd Automotive back in the '70's, there were black dudes everywhere on the shop floor. I know for a fact they lost their jobs just like the white dudes when the plant closed.
Ditto for the black dudes at Frankel Steel.
Ditto for the black dudes at Saint John Shipbuilding, where, by the way, I worked alongside black guys who could trace their family's heritage in North America at least 150 years further back than I could mine.
But the black working class is just GONE!
Nope, it's just the white working class that is so fed up with "the system" that they're stooping to supporting Donald Trump.
It's a mystery alright...
Truth is, the unemployed auto-industry black dude, the unemployed steel-fab black dude, and the unemployed black shipyard worker all have way more in common with their unemployed white working class brothers than they do with DeRay Mckesson.
Are they are still working?
They never existed?
They're not working but still insist on supporting the free trade agenda?
Where exactly have they gone? The reason I wonder is because when I was a pre-NAFTA foot-soldier of the working class, I had black dudes around me all the time. I know they existed.
Where have they gone?
It's a popular conceit among the mainly white intelligentsia and journalsim elites that "working class" means white folks with less than a college education. That substantial quotient of the working class that didn't have white skin just got disappeared to somewhere...
But where?
When I was at Budd Automotive back in the '70's, there were black dudes everywhere on the shop floor. I know for a fact they lost their jobs just like the white dudes when the plant closed.
Ditto for the black dudes at Frankel Steel.
Ditto for the black dudes at Saint John Shipbuilding, where, by the way, I worked alongside black guys who could trace their family's heritage in North America at least 150 years further back than I could mine.
But the black working class is just GONE!
Nope, it's just the white working class that is so fed up with "the system" that they're stooping to supporting Donald Trump.
It's a mystery alright...
Truth is, the unemployed auto-industry black dude, the unemployed steel-fab black dude, and the unemployed black shipyard worker all have way more in common with their unemployed white working class brothers than they do with DeRay Mckesson.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Beer and loathing in the twilight of Western civilization
Spent the last few days consuming the weekend papers, celebrating Canada's birthday, and driving six hundred kilometres to attend a wedding.
First things first. Canada's birthday. This is, all things considered, a pretty cool country to be a part of. I'm an immigrant, and even though I'm male and white and European, it wasn't always an easy gig blending in. There were play pals at Elora Public School who could not let me play at their place because I was German.
After all, in those days we still had guys with no legs sitting on mechanic's creepers outside the Iroquois Hotel. Yup, it was the Germans who made their legs go away..
That hatred is understandable when you're sixty; not so much when you're six.
But I survived, and I might add that I survived without sensitivity counselling and all that other fashionable politically correct bullshit that hogs the airwaves today.
Back in the day, it was suck it up and ride it out.
Or die.
Now it's let's see who we can sue for the latest assault on your dignity. And damned near everything can be construed as an assault on your dignity these days. Even though nobody anywhere at anytime has ever insulted you about anything, you could very well be the victim of "micro-aggression."
We all knew instinctively that when "micro-aggression" was invented, the pendulum had swung too far.
The weekend papers were of course trumpeting the 149th birthday of our nation, and also bemoaning the triumph of something called "populism." Apparently that is where your lesser educated and therefore stupid white folks embrace the siren song of a Trump or a Brexit campaign. Yup, those stupid white folks are a problem alright...
No, it couldn't possibly be the education system that has manifestly short-changed them, it couldn't be the "free trade" agreements that have off-shored their jobs... they're just really stupid, and, of course, racist to the core. This so-called working class, which has destroyed itself with its addictions to indolence and video games and beer, now wants to engage the democratic process by shaking off it's beer-induced stupor to vote for Trump, vote for Brexit, vote for... change?
What the fuck is wrong with those people?
One thing I never could figure out was how all this working class discontent was in any way "racist." When I worked at Budd Automotive in Kitchener a vast swath of the union brothers were black. Same at Frankel Steel. When NAFTA took our jobs away, it wasn't just white working class jobs. It was ALL working class jobs.
Period.
But the mainstream media fucks who only ever meet the "working class" when they stop off at Timmies on the drive to work wouldn't know anything about that, would they?
Then there was that wedding. It was a classic Italian deal, but judging from the abundance of Audi and BMW and Mercedes vehicles in the parking lot you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The Italians know how to put on a wedding, that's for sure!
And they know who makes the best cars.
The German victory over Italy at the Euro Cup hung over the festivities like a wet blanket.
But all of us were immigrants not that long ago.
First things first. Canada's birthday. This is, all things considered, a pretty cool country to be a part of. I'm an immigrant, and even though I'm male and white and European, it wasn't always an easy gig blending in. There were play pals at Elora Public School who could not let me play at their place because I was German.
After all, in those days we still had guys with no legs sitting on mechanic's creepers outside the Iroquois Hotel. Yup, it was the Germans who made their legs go away..
That hatred is understandable when you're sixty; not so much when you're six.
But I survived, and I might add that I survived without sensitivity counselling and all that other fashionable politically correct bullshit that hogs the airwaves today.
Back in the day, it was suck it up and ride it out.
Or die.
Now it's let's see who we can sue for the latest assault on your dignity. And damned near everything can be construed as an assault on your dignity these days. Even though nobody anywhere at anytime has ever insulted you about anything, you could very well be the victim of "micro-aggression."
We all knew instinctively that when "micro-aggression" was invented, the pendulum had swung too far.
The weekend papers were of course trumpeting the 149th birthday of our nation, and also bemoaning the triumph of something called "populism." Apparently that is where your lesser educated and therefore stupid white folks embrace the siren song of a Trump or a Brexit campaign. Yup, those stupid white folks are a problem alright...
No, it couldn't possibly be the education system that has manifestly short-changed them, it couldn't be the "free trade" agreements that have off-shored their jobs... they're just really stupid, and, of course, racist to the core. This so-called working class, which has destroyed itself with its addictions to indolence and video games and beer, now wants to engage the democratic process by shaking off it's beer-induced stupor to vote for Trump, vote for Brexit, vote for... change?
What the fuck is wrong with those people?
One thing I never could figure out was how all this working class discontent was in any way "racist." When I worked at Budd Automotive in Kitchener a vast swath of the union brothers were black. Same at Frankel Steel. When NAFTA took our jobs away, it wasn't just white working class jobs. It was ALL working class jobs.
Period.
But the mainstream media fucks who only ever meet the "working class" when they stop off at Timmies on the drive to work wouldn't know anything about that, would they?
Then there was that wedding. It was a classic Italian deal, but judging from the abundance of Audi and BMW and Mercedes vehicles in the parking lot you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The Italians know how to put on a wedding, that's for sure!
And they know who makes the best cars.
The German victory over Italy at the Euro Cup hung over the festivities like a wet blanket.
But all of us were immigrants not that long ago.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Does smarty-pants liberalism alienate the working classes?
That title in itself raises a number of questions.
Does America still have a working class? Are there a multiplicity of working classes? Are all "working" Americans just the working poor?
Guess it's gonna depend a lot on how you define "working."
"Class."
"Poor."
Bill Clinton showed us a lot about the importance of definitions back in the Lewinski era.
I'm a regular reader of Counterpunch.
Some of the stuff I read there is utterly invaluable.
Much of the stuff I read there is utter crap.
For example, Mateo Pimental, a Counterpunch regular, has figured out that Donald Trump is a racist.
Well, no shit!
Hey dude, we're all racists at some level. Acknowledging race is racism when you get down to the nitty gritty of it.
And how does one go about the business of social commentary without acknowledging race?
I've long thought that classism casts a bigger shadow than racism. When the black guys and the white guys stumbled out of Frankel Steel with their lay-off notices in hand one night in the 1980s, we had everything in common. In fact, at that moment, we had way more in common than we had to divide us.
Black and white alike are gonna miss our payments and maybe lose our homes.
I had black workmates at Budd Automotive and Frankel Steel and at Saint John Shipbuilding and at pretty much every other place I ever worked.
We might have had different skin-tones, but we all worked the same gig.
In that "classless society" that America has ostensibly become, maybe a few folks could turn their sights on what's really going on in the debasement of America's working classes.
I'm guessing Donald Trump will get there well before Mateo Pimental.
Does America still have a working class? Are there a multiplicity of working classes? Are all "working" Americans just the working poor?
Guess it's gonna depend a lot on how you define "working."
"Class."
"Poor."
Bill Clinton showed us a lot about the importance of definitions back in the Lewinski era.
I'm a regular reader of Counterpunch.
Some of the stuff I read there is utterly invaluable.
Much of the stuff I read there is utter crap.
For example, Mateo Pimental, a Counterpunch regular, has figured out that Donald Trump is a racist.
Well, no shit!
Hey dude, we're all racists at some level. Acknowledging race is racism when you get down to the nitty gritty of it.
And how does one go about the business of social commentary without acknowledging race?
I've long thought that classism casts a bigger shadow than racism. When the black guys and the white guys stumbled out of Frankel Steel with their lay-off notices in hand one night in the 1980s, we had everything in common. In fact, at that moment, we had way more in common than we had to divide us.
Black and white alike are gonna miss our payments and maybe lose our homes.
I had black workmates at Budd Automotive and Frankel Steel and at Saint John Shipbuilding and at pretty much every other place I ever worked.
We might have had different skin-tones, but we all worked the same gig.
In that "classless society" that America has ostensibly become, maybe a few folks could turn their sights on what's really going on in the debasement of America's working classes.
I'm guessing Donald Trump will get there well before Mateo Pimental.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Racist terminology for folks from Portugal
The Falling Downs website had more hits from Portugal today than ever before. Last time I looked there were 25 or something.
While it is never widely acknowledged, that country had wildly sympatico goals vis a vis Canada when it came to fish processing and cement finishing.
We'll do your cement finishing.
You do our fish processing.
Back in the Budd days everybody used to call every Portuguese guy Magellan.
Hey Magellan, got anything on ya?
That's not entirely true; I remember the Vasco di Gamma shtick too...
Hey di Gamma ...
There was a Portugese guy at the shipyard who barely spoke English. Oddly enough, he was a welder rather than a cement guy. Used to go home to Portugal for a couple months every summer. Great guy!
It made a certain amount of sense. The Portugese fishing fleet has travelled across the Atlantic for centuries, probably pre-Columbus. They didn't land because there wasn't any fish on the land...
What are ya, stupid?
But I'm thrilled to see that more people from Portugal than ever before have found the Falling Downs blog.
While it is never widely acknowledged, that country had wildly sympatico goals vis a vis Canada when it came to fish processing and cement finishing.
We'll do your cement finishing.
You do our fish processing.
Back in the Budd days everybody used to call every Portuguese guy Magellan.
Hey Magellan, got anything on ya?
That's not entirely true; I remember the Vasco di Gamma shtick too...
Hey di Gamma ...
There was a Portugese guy at the shipyard who barely spoke English. Oddly enough, he was a welder rather than a cement guy. Used to go home to Portugal for a couple months every summer. Great guy!
It made a certain amount of sense. The Portugese fishing fleet has travelled across the Atlantic for centuries, probably pre-Columbus. They didn't land because there wasn't any fish on the land...
What are ya, stupid?
But I'm thrilled to see that more people from Portugal than ever before have found the Falling Downs blog.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
The six mile piss
Can't really remember the first time I met Kipling.
I think it was the night he ran his Chevy ll SS into a tree outside my parent's place out on the 86 dragway... or just about a half mile south of the 86 dragway to be precise.
I was the second person to come upon the accident scene, whereupon the first person informed me that the guy driving the Chevy ll was bleeding all over the interior of his new Deville.
So young Kipling plows his car into a tree at 100 mph, and a life-long friendship started.
A year later we both turned up at Budd Automotive, which was at that time the primary employer of niggers of all skin tones, including white, in the entire region.
That's where we really bonded.
I'd pull hilarious pranks like "borrowing" his 340 Duster from Budd's parking lot while he was on the night shift. The cops would be looking for that lime green Duster for months, and he got pulled over relentlessly.
But I always made up for it by returning that car to the Budd parking lot before the end of his shift with a case of beer under the hood. I'd unplug the distributor to make sure he had to open the hood to find that case of beer!
Oh, those were fun times!
There were a lot of real characters at the Budd plant back in the day. The Jamaicans, and there were tons of them, always had a line to really good weed.
That pretty much made them our best buddies.
There was a Polish guy who always showed up in a three piece suit. He didn't want his neighbours to know he worked in a factory. He'd change into work clothes when he got to work. Drove a 'Cuda.
Then there was Frenchie, who rolled his Javelin into the ditch with five brothers inside while trying to make it to the beer store before closing time.
Lotsa characters and lotsa fun! Who has jobs like that anymore?
Anyway, Kipling's dear daddy had a scrapyard in nearby Guelph, and holy shit, was he ever a character!
He was Fred to Kipling's Lamont... through that scrapyard Kipling got to know all sorts of interesting characters.
Like bikers.
This one guy in particular was to leave a lasting impression on me. Married to a native woman, and living on a reservation, he had a finger in pretty much any pie in the local economy, whether that pie was legal or illegal or in that grey zone between.
Used to be a big cheese in the Satan's Choice before they morphed into a Hells Angels franchise in the great patch-over.
So one day me and Kipling are sitting in the diner at the Woodstock Truckstop, and this guy happens along, and before you can say "no thanks, maybe some other time..." we're in Buddy's Peterbilt heading west at 70 mph, jug of Jack Daniels and a hash pipe going round on a too regular basis for my tastes.
An hour later we're on the 403 heading Sarnia way. I'm fucked, and I really really really have to have a piss.
Dude, can ya pull over so I can have a piss?
Buddy looks at me like I'm the most retarded retard he's ever seen in his life.
Ten minutes later; Dude, can you pull over so I can have a piss?
By now I'm practically exploding and having major bladder leakage...
Dude and Kipling are busting out laughing... nobody's going to pull an 18 wheeler over so some dumbfuck passenger can take a piss...
So I did what I had to do. Opened the passenger door, stood on the side-tank, pulled out my wang, and had a six mile long piss along the 403 at seventy miles an hour.
Best piss I ever had.
I think it was the night he ran his Chevy ll SS into a tree outside my parent's place out on the 86 dragway... or just about a half mile south of the 86 dragway to be precise.
I was the second person to come upon the accident scene, whereupon the first person informed me that the guy driving the Chevy ll was bleeding all over the interior of his new Deville.
So young Kipling plows his car into a tree at 100 mph, and a life-long friendship started.
A year later we both turned up at Budd Automotive, which was at that time the primary employer of niggers of all skin tones, including white, in the entire region.
That's where we really bonded.
I'd pull hilarious pranks like "borrowing" his 340 Duster from Budd's parking lot while he was on the night shift. The cops would be looking for that lime green Duster for months, and he got pulled over relentlessly.
But I always made up for it by returning that car to the Budd parking lot before the end of his shift with a case of beer under the hood. I'd unplug the distributor to make sure he had to open the hood to find that case of beer!
Oh, those were fun times!
There were a lot of real characters at the Budd plant back in the day. The Jamaicans, and there were tons of them, always had a line to really good weed.
That pretty much made them our best buddies.
There was a Polish guy who always showed up in a three piece suit. He didn't want his neighbours to know he worked in a factory. He'd change into work clothes when he got to work. Drove a 'Cuda.
Then there was Frenchie, who rolled his Javelin into the ditch with five brothers inside while trying to make it to the beer store before closing time.
Lotsa characters and lotsa fun! Who has jobs like that anymore?
Anyway, Kipling's dear daddy had a scrapyard in nearby Guelph, and holy shit, was he ever a character!
He was Fred to Kipling's Lamont... through that scrapyard Kipling got to know all sorts of interesting characters.
Like bikers.
This one guy in particular was to leave a lasting impression on me. Married to a native woman, and living on a reservation, he had a finger in pretty much any pie in the local economy, whether that pie was legal or illegal or in that grey zone between.
Used to be a big cheese in the Satan's Choice before they morphed into a Hells Angels franchise in the great patch-over.
So one day me and Kipling are sitting in the diner at the Woodstock Truckstop, and this guy happens along, and before you can say "no thanks, maybe some other time..." we're in Buddy's Peterbilt heading west at 70 mph, jug of Jack Daniels and a hash pipe going round on a too regular basis for my tastes.
An hour later we're on the 403 heading Sarnia way. I'm fucked, and I really really really have to have a piss.
Dude, can ya pull over so I can have a piss?
Buddy looks at me like I'm the most retarded retard he's ever seen in his life.
Ten minutes later; Dude, can you pull over so I can have a piss?
By now I'm practically exploding and having major bladder leakage...
Dude and Kipling are busting out laughing... nobody's going to pull an 18 wheeler over so some dumbfuck passenger can take a piss...
So I did what I had to do. Opened the passenger door, stood on the side-tank, pulled out my wang, and had a six mile long piss along the 403 at seventy miles an hour.
Best piss I ever had.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Winter blues
Back when I toiled in the Budd plant in Kitchener there was a shorthand used to refer to your co-workers.
We worked among Rastamen and Polskies and Ukes and Newfs and Frenchies and Krauts.
Every Portugese guy was known as Goose or Magellan or Vasco de Gamma.
One night after second shift let out we headed for the all-night liquor store in Stratford. A couple of home boys and a couple of Rastas in Frenchy's Javelin, with Frenchy driving.
I don't know to this day whether there actually was an all-night liquor store in Stratford, but we almost died trying to find out.
I do recall there was a 24 hour beer store in Toronto. We did make it there one night.
But Frenchy's Javelin ended up in the ditch on its roof that winter night, with five thirsty guys just getting thirstier.
Winter blues.
There's something about winter that makes desperation more desperate.
Me and Kipling headed out west to make our fortune in the dead of one winter. Went in the ditch 50 miles east of Winnipeg. Went in the ditch at a high rate of speed while I was both napping and driving simultaneously.
Winter blues.
If you're watching this at home, kids, don't drive and nap simultaneously.
It's not a happy thing.
There was a Neil Young song popular at the time that glorified going to Alberta. I think most of us were just going to Alberta because Neil Young had sung a song about it...
Years later me and Terry ran out to Calgary in the dead of winter. Lost a wheel bearing somewhere around Bumfuck Manitoba in the middle of the night when it was -40 degrees outside.
You can't fix a wheel bearing without going outside.
-40 is really fucking cold!
Winter blues.
Winter adventures.
The Kid still swears that the best day of his life, and he's had an awful pile of great ones, was the day I picked him up at the hospital in Vegreville, in the dead of winter, and we toured all the way into the foothills and beyond, all the way to Mount Robson, him with his bottle of pills and me with my case of beer, and we ended up in Edmonton totally fucked up and just in time for a Triumph concert.
In the dead of winter.
Winter blues.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Banksy of the Frankel Steel shithouse
Pepe Escobar has a great "Free Trade" story on view at Counterpunch.
Escobar is one of the few tell-it-like-it-is guys to find face-time on something approaching the mainstream.
But I'd like to add a few personal observations to Pepe's take-down of free trade agreements.
I remember the debate that went on when Mulroney was campaigning for free trade. It was gonna be a bonanza! Jobs jobs jobs!...
American capital, Mexican labour, Canadian resources... what could go wrong?
Job Jobs Jobs!!!...
I was working at Frankel Steel in Milton at the time, where we fabbed up the structural steel for 7 World Trade Center. I tried to stir up a bit of shit about the free trade agreement. I had a great cartoon that graced the walls of virtually every shithouse cubicle on the premises; Brian Mulroney with his drawers around his ankles, and a fully erect appendage on view, with the caption, "I said jobs jobs jobs... you can start with a blow-job!"
Banksy of the Frankel Steel Shithouse.
Those Frankel days were around the middle of my welding career, which went from the early seventies into the nineties. In the course of that career I plied my trade at over two dozen shops from coast to coast, from huge factories like Budd Automotive to 12 man shops like Harjim in Victoria BC or B&M Engineering in Waterloo Ontario.
With one or two possible exceptions, every place I ever worked has gone out of business after NAFTA came in.
The jobs went to Mexico or even farther afield.
None of these "free trade" deals benefit workers. They're not intended to.
Escobar is one of the few tell-it-like-it-is guys to find face-time on something approaching the mainstream.
But I'd like to add a few personal observations to Pepe's take-down of free trade agreements.
I remember the debate that went on when Mulroney was campaigning for free trade. It was gonna be a bonanza! Jobs jobs jobs!...
American capital, Mexican labour, Canadian resources... what could go wrong?
Job Jobs Jobs!!!...
I was working at Frankel Steel in Milton at the time, where we fabbed up the structural steel for 7 World Trade Center. I tried to stir up a bit of shit about the free trade agreement. I had a great cartoon that graced the walls of virtually every shithouse cubicle on the premises; Brian Mulroney with his drawers around his ankles, and a fully erect appendage on view, with the caption, "I said jobs jobs jobs... you can start with a blow-job!"
Banksy of the Frankel Steel Shithouse.
Those Frankel days were around the middle of my welding career, which went from the early seventies into the nineties. In the course of that career I plied my trade at over two dozen shops from coast to coast, from huge factories like Budd Automotive to 12 man shops like Harjim in Victoria BC or B&M Engineering in Waterloo Ontario.
With one or two possible exceptions, every place I ever worked has gone out of business after NAFTA came in.
The jobs went to Mexico or even farther afield.
None of these "free trade" deals benefit workers. They're not intended to.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Working class
"I've never... dealt with such an unethical, immoral, disrespectful, highly profitable company like Caterpillar."
That was CAW chief Ken Lewenza when Caterpillar was busy turning $30/hr. jobs in London Ontario into $15/hr. jobs in one of the "right-to-work-for-less" states.
And what happened then?
Nothing.
Ken did the best he could to salvage whatever severance crumbs he could from the situation. The overall Caterpillar strategy of playing workers in one jurisdiction off against those in another was never remotely challenged.
Why not?
Workers in China have made huge gains in recent years. They have made such gains that within a few years Chinese wages will catch up to North American wages.
Why?
Because workers in China are not averse to tossing a factory manager from the plant roof from time to time just to let the management side know that they're serious.
Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we need to toss managers from the factory roof, but where all of the unions in North America have failed is in letting the other side know that they're serious. Back in the day, folks like Reuther and Hoffa were willing to go to jail.
That can happen when you're willing to assert yourself.
That can happen when you're prepared to say "no thanks, we're not ready to settle for crumbs."
A large part of the problem originates in the rank and file. I remember when I worked at Budd Automotive, where I was hired on my 18th birthday, guys would show up in dress shirts and blazers because they didn't want their neighbours to know they worked in a factory.
These were generally the same guys who, once they'd worked there a few months, would conclude that the union was holding them back.
Yup! They were slamming blanks into a press and pulling them out for five bucks an hour when the minimum wage was $1.50. The training for their job took about five minutes. But they hated the fact that they had union dues deducted from their pay!
There's still an awful lot of that going on. Well into the 1960's Newfoundland was happy to employ grade eight graduates to teach the grade one class. Now you need two university degrees to teach a grade one class. And you'll find teachers who truly believe that without their teacher union they could do better for themselves!
Yes! The government will happily double your salary if it wasn't for that damned union!
The truth of the matter is that there is no teaching job anywhere in North America that couldn't be done and done well by some eager recent graduate who is working at the mall for minimum wage and would see a $30 thousand annual salary with benefits as the pot 'o gold at the end of their rainbow.
Once we're in a mindset that accepts the logic of moving a job or replacing a worker just because somebody is willing to do that job for less, we're screwed.
And it is on this point that organized labour has failed us.
That was CAW chief Ken Lewenza when Caterpillar was busy turning $30/hr. jobs in London Ontario into $15/hr. jobs in one of the "right-to-work-for-less" states.
And what happened then?
Nothing.
Ken did the best he could to salvage whatever severance crumbs he could from the situation. The overall Caterpillar strategy of playing workers in one jurisdiction off against those in another was never remotely challenged.
Why not?
Workers in China have made huge gains in recent years. They have made such gains that within a few years Chinese wages will catch up to North American wages.
Why?
Because workers in China are not averse to tossing a factory manager from the plant roof from time to time just to let the management side know that they're serious.
Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we need to toss managers from the factory roof, but where all of the unions in North America have failed is in letting the other side know that they're serious. Back in the day, folks like Reuther and Hoffa were willing to go to jail.
That can happen when you're willing to assert yourself.
That can happen when you're prepared to say "no thanks, we're not ready to settle for crumbs."
A large part of the problem originates in the rank and file. I remember when I worked at Budd Automotive, where I was hired on my 18th birthday, guys would show up in dress shirts and blazers because they didn't want their neighbours to know they worked in a factory.
These were generally the same guys who, once they'd worked there a few months, would conclude that the union was holding them back.
Yup! They were slamming blanks into a press and pulling them out for five bucks an hour when the minimum wage was $1.50. The training for their job took about five minutes. But they hated the fact that they had union dues deducted from their pay!
There's still an awful lot of that going on. Well into the 1960's Newfoundland was happy to employ grade eight graduates to teach the grade one class. Now you need two university degrees to teach a grade one class. And you'll find teachers who truly believe that without their teacher union they could do better for themselves!
Yes! The government will happily double your salary if it wasn't for that damned union!
The truth of the matter is that there is no teaching job anywhere in North America that couldn't be done and done well by some eager recent graduate who is working at the mall for minimum wage and would see a $30 thousand annual salary with benefits as the pot 'o gold at the end of their rainbow.
Once we're in a mindset that accepts the logic of moving a job or replacing a worker just because somebody is willing to do that job for less, we're screwed.
And it is on this point that organized labour has failed us.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Squirrel hunting
Got hired at Budd Automotive on my eighteenth birthday. It was a UAW shop. Union rules. I'd been a dues-paying member of the USWA for awhile before that, when I worked at the Black Lung Foundry. The Steelworkers didn't mind having sixteen year olds on the roster. At the UAW shops you had to be 18. That was quite a few years before Bob White took the Canadian autoworkers out of the UAW and started the CAW.
Budd was the biggest employer in the Kitchener area at the time. Paid good too. Made car and truck frames for all the major manufacturers. Budd is long gone now. Either cars and trucks don't have frames anymore or the work went somewhere else. I'm guessing Mexico, but that's just a hunch.
Got my first lay-off notice just a few months after I started. Helpful Herb offered to let me stay at his place. He was heading off on a holiday. Needed a house-sitter. Herb had a nice place nestled on the crest of a hill on the edge of town. House sitting there was going to be a sweet gig.
That was an era when you couldn't open a paper without reading about racial tension and racial this and that. The Detroit riots and the Watts riots were a pretty recent memory. All I can tell you is this; when the black brothers and the white brothers and even a few Chinese brothers walked out of Budd with their lay-off notices, we were all brothers in unemployment.
Herb and Mrs. Herb were off to Europe or the Caribean or someplace. All I had to do was water the plants and keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder. I know! There's a gift from heaven just when you get a lay-off notice.
The deal with the squirrels was that they ate all the bird food and if they got a chance they'd eat the birds too. So Helpful Herb left me the keys to his gun cabinet and I went at it. Must have plinked off half a dozen the first day.
Bob White was probably the greatest union leader since C.S.Jackson. No nonsense guy. When Bob was negotiating for the UAW, or later the CAW, nobody ever made the mistake of thinking that the bosses and the workers were going to be sitting around the campfire singing Kum-by-ya together anytime soon.
So I dispatch the first round of feeder-raiding squirrels, and I realize that other squirrels, just waiting in the shadows, come zooming in to take their place. I take care of them, and there's another wave. And another.
The first act of working class resistance that I personally witnessed, I witnessed at Budd Automotive. There were eight welders working at an assembly station, two at each corner of a frame. The bumboys, unskilled labourers like me, would slap the frame parts in the jig, automated clamps would grab everything and hold it together, and these welders would weld it all up.
The automated clamps were all run off hydraulics. At each clamping cycle, which lasted about thirty seconds, one of the welders would stick the end of his mig gun into a hydraulic hose. Next cycle, the guy beside him would do the same. Enough cycles, and eventually the hydraulic hose would spring a leak and the station would be down for an hour or two. Eight welders, be they black or white or Chinese, would get a two hour break. It was a beautiful thing.
So eventually I got the squirrel problem winnowed down to one super-smart squirrel. Darwin's theory in action. But this guy is good. If you miss him on the first shot he's running zig-zag patterns to avoid the next shot. I swear he turns around and gives me the finger while he's zig-zagging away.
So I figure fuck Darwin, I'm gonna kill the furry fuck. I climb up on the roof, where I've got a downward shot at the birdfeeder. I'm peering through the scope, waiting for him to put his head up, and he's moments away from going to that big birdfeeder in the sky. Then, HOLYSHIT!!! A cross-country skier comes a-gliding through my field of vision! Then another one. And another...
Just lucky I had the scope. Without it I wouldn't have even seen the skiers! Can you imagine the newspaper headlines the next day? CARELESS HUNTER BAGS CROSS-COUNTRY SKIERS. Ya right. As if that woulda been my fault.
I eventually got the fucker with the twelve gauge, but I had to buy Herb a new bird-feeder.
Budd was the biggest employer in the Kitchener area at the time. Paid good too. Made car and truck frames for all the major manufacturers. Budd is long gone now. Either cars and trucks don't have frames anymore or the work went somewhere else. I'm guessing Mexico, but that's just a hunch.
Got my first lay-off notice just a few months after I started. Helpful Herb offered to let me stay at his place. He was heading off on a holiday. Needed a house-sitter. Herb had a nice place nestled on the crest of a hill on the edge of town. House sitting there was going to be a sweet gig.
That was an era when you couldn't open a paper without reading about racial tension and racial this and that. The Detroit riots and the Watts riots were a pretty recent memory. All I can tell you is this; when the black brothers and the white brothers and even a few Chinese brothers walked out of Budd with their lay-off notices, we were all brothers in unemployment.
Herb and Mrs. Herb were off to Europe or the Caribean or someplace. All I had to do was water the plants and keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder. I know! There's a gift from heaven just when you get a lay-off notice.
The deal with the squirrels was that they ate all the bird food and if they got a chance they'd eat the birds too. So Helpful Herb left me the keys to his gun cabinet and I went at it. Must have plinked off half a dozen the first day.
Bob White was probably the greatest union leader since C.S.Jackson. No nonsense guy. When Bob was negotiating for the UAW, or later the CAW, nobody ever made the mistake of thinking that the bosses and the workers were going to be sitting around the campfire singing Kum-by-ya together anytime soon.
So I dispatch the first round of feeder-raiding squirrels, and I realize that other squirrels, just waiting in the shadows, come zooming in to take their place. I take care of them, and there's another wave. And another.
The first act of working class resistance that I personally witnessed, I witnessed at Budd Automotive. There were eight welders working at an assembly station, two at each corner of a frame. The bumboys, unskilled labourers like me, would slap the frame parts in the jig, automated clamps would grab everything and hold it together, and these welders would weld it all up.
The automated clamps were all run off hydraulics. At each clamping cycle, which lasted about thirty seconds, one of the welders would stick the end of his mig gun into a hydraulic hose. Next cycle, the guy beside him would do the same. Enough cycles, and eventually the hydraulic hose would spring a leak and the station would be down for an hour or two. Eight welders, be they black or white or Chinese, would get a two hour break. It was a beautiful thing.
So eventually I got the squirrel problem winnowed down to one super-smart squirrel. Darwin's theory in action. But this guy is good. If you miss him on the first shot he's running zig-zag patterns to avoid the next shot. I swear he turns around and gives me the finger while he's zig-zagging away.
So I figure fuck Darwin, I'm gonna kill the furry fuck. I climb up on the roof, where I've got a downward shot at the birdfeeder. I'm peering through the scope, waiting for him to put his head up, and he's moments away from going to that big birdfeeder in the sky. Then, HOLYSHIT!!! A cross-country skier comes a-gliding through my field of vision! Then another one. And another...
Just lucky I had the scope. Without it I wouldn't have even seen the skiers! Can you imagine the newspaper headlines the next day? CARELESS HUNTER BAGS CROSS-COUNTRY SKIERS. Ya right. As if that woulda been my fault.
I eventually got the fucker with the twelve gauge, but I had to buy Herb a new bird-feeder.
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