Hauling Secrets

So we were clearing out the house of a man who had collected vinyl.  Instead of using shelves, the guy had stacked records on top of each other in six-foot-high piles along every wall in just about every room. There must have been a few thousand records.  The collection gravitated heavily towards folk, bluegrass, and, somewhat unusually, Hawaiian.  Think of every novelty “Hawaiian” record you’ve ever seen in the dollar bin at the record store – this guy had them all.  I noticed in some of the pictures on the walls a woman – probably his wife – who looked Hawaiian. All of the Hawaiian records were well-worn, like they’d been played many times.  All except for one, which was in pristine condition:

The guy must have seen “Hawaiian” in the title, bought it on a whim, listened to it once, realized it was rap, thrown it into a pile and never looked at it again.  Here’s a detail of the record’s back cover:

Had he looked at it again, he might have noticed that the figure crouching in back there is none other than a young (about 19 years old) Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z.  The guy in front is Jay-Z’s “mentor” Jaz.  Sound confusing?  It is.  Sound like the perfect setup for a saucy hip-hop feud?  Yes, it’s that too.

I haven’t been able to confirm this, but someone told me that this record is actually Jay-Z’s first time ever on wax. Wikipedia has the rest, much of which is merely “reported” or “claimed” or “known” or simply “stated” to be true: Jaz (also known as Big Jaz and Jaz-O) discovered young Shawn Carter, brought him in as a sidekick, let him do background stuff and then some verses on some of his songs, and then faded into obscurity.  His young protege went on to become what even some people besides Jay-Z himself call the “greatest MC alive”.

And somewhere in there, the relationship soured, to the point that each rapper has made a point to “diss” the other on many of their recordings.  Apparently it has sweetened enough that the two have joined each other on a few recordings, but as of November 18th, 2008, it’s back to sour.  The relationship has even helped fuel another more well-known hip-hop fued by being an important subject in Nas’s diss track “Ether“.

Yet look how comfortable they are with each other as Jay-Z mysteriously parachutes into the background of the set in the video for “Hawaiian Sophie”, which has elicited many vituperative comments, one of my favorites being: “A black man should never wear a Hawaiin shirt.  Period.”

[youtube]rrKyEh8e-SM[/youtube]

And I couldn’t resist sharing another one with you, which harkens back to those days in the late 80s-early 90s when dignified Afrocentrism was the cool thing to do in hip-hop, when everyone was “Nubian” and Salt-N-Pepa could still utter “No we ain’t tryin to be sexy!” and be taken somewhat seriously.

[youtube]K1thvEtGM5M[/youtube]

But I digress.  The point here is, well, the point is…sometimes it’s nice to be distracted from the point.  Normal experience and human traffic patterns have a way of censoring what kinds of objects (not to mention people, perspectives, ideas, etc.) we come into contact with. Haulers have constant access to a steady stream – steady waste stream – of objects from all eras of history and strata of society.  And if you have any curiosity, some of these objects require explanation.  Which is dangerous if you have a point to make, or more ‘important’ work to do, because these objects can suck you in and make you spend an evening researching obscure hip-hop feuds.  I could be writing something more useful or relevant right now.  But sometimes some hip-hop needle in a haystack of folk and bluegrass just begs to be examined, and I get to remind myself that the world is full of little digressions, objects with rich backstories just waiting to be discovered.

Sunday, June 8, 1980
Dear Lee Chin,
Sorry I haven’t written in a while.  But I’m writing now, so there.  Tomorrow Linda, Billy, James and I are going to see Genesis at the Ampitheater.  I can’t wait.  That’s gonna be so fun!  I haven’t seen Jeff [the "foxy" gymnastics coach from Dear Lee Chin #5] in a while.  We have so many coaches now, I guess they don’t need him so much any more.  We have this one new coach from Othertown, and I guess he’s pretty nice I mean I like him but he’s so gay looking.  He’s got an ass like a woman and he always wears his pants really tight and he’s got volcanic acne.  His name is Jeff.  Speaking of volcanoes, last night the sunset was so pretty.  It was like these purple clouds set against a dark pink sky and it was so pretty.  The sky was so pink that when I looked out my window the street looked pink.  Then I went out to look at it.  I wish I was an artist or a poet or something so I could have captured it (I know that sounds corny).  I at least wish I had a camera or something.  It was so beautiful!  Springfield was really a blast.  I danced a slow dance with Chris.  He’s a doll.  I don’t know why, but George Harrison reminds me of him.  Any road up I’ll write again later.
Till then, Mary

Oh, if only young Mary knew that she is a poet.  The poet who gave us the term “any road” (and the new variation “any road up”).  A poet still being read today.  And at the bottom of the page, we see that she is an artist, too, as she’s drawn some smoke rising and lava pouring from the top of one of the mountains in the diary page’s decorative borders and labeled it “Mt. St. Hellen”.  (Speaking of volcanoes.)

Just below that entry the diary continues:

Dear Lee Chin,
I decided to write again though why I don’t know why, I really don’t have anything to write.  Martha and I have a debate due on Friday and we’ve got shit now, I know we’ll never get it done.  We shoulda worked on it today but I forgot.  I’m so pissed!  Any road, seein’ as how I have nothing to say, I reckon I’ll by mosyin’ on.  Catch y’all later!  (That reminds me of in Springfield Cynthia was always saying “y’all”.  I guess she’s always said it but I never noticed, any way it bugs the shit out of me!)
Mary!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep writing, Mary.  Your nothing is better than a lot of people’s somethings.

So I turned 30 the other day.  I hauled all day.  A long, tiring day.

Around the middle of the day, I pulled up to the little shed at the Recycle Station where people hauling recyclables pay their fees and fill out paperwork.  I did what I sometimes do when no one is waiting in line behind me and I cut my engine to relax for a minute and talk to the person in the shed.  That way the person inside doesn’t have to smell my truck’s diesel fumes, and we can hear each other better.  The way my work day is (when we’re not in a mad rush) you really get to treasure these little interactions with familiar faces, even if it’s just a minute of small talk. Both of us are doing what amounts to customer service all day, and when you see someone you know, you can have a little break from being ‘on’ all the time.

Most of the time, and this time, the person working the shed is Shirley.  Even though she’s been working there longer than anyone, she always has some kind of trouble with the cash machine.  It’s cute. This time was no exception.  So as she fumbles with the machine, apologizing, I decide to share with her that I’m turning thirty today.  She stops what she’s doing to turn to me and say “Congratulations” in a way that doesn’t seem more significant than anyone else registering my big two-number-change that day.  “Thanks,” I say, putting my fists up in a little mock celebration: “I made it!”

She asks me why I’m working on my birthday and I say that I don’t really care enough to think to take the day off ahead of time.  As we exchange the rest of the usual chit-chat, she laboriously punches keys on the machine and finally gets it to print out a receipt for me to sign.  “Sorry,” she says as she hands it to me, rubbing her glazed-over eyes.  “It’s one of those mornings.”

So I sign the receipt and go on my way, and it’s only after I go through the warehouse and finish dropping off my stuff that I realize what a profound mistake I’ve just made talking to Shirley.  I’d completely forgotten what I’d heard a few months earlier – that Shirley’s son had recently committed suicide.

He was about to turn 30.  I realize now that Shirley might have been forcing back tears when she rubbed her eyes, that it wasn’t just the usual fumbling that had slowed her down just then.

So I pull the truck back around, get out, and walk up to the window of the shed.  Shirley’s inside, sitting, smoking a cigarette.

“I’m an asshole” is all I can think to offer.  She returns me a dazed look.  “Your son,” I clarify.  She puts out the cigarette and comes to the window. I stammer some kind of apology about saying “I made it” when not everyone does, while she listens and shakes her head, telling me that it’s okay.  After a minute we’re both crying.  Then she takes both my hands, squeezes them, leans forward and says, “Let me tell you something.  You have so much ahead of you.”

That’s probably what she didn’t have a chance to tell her son.

I didn’t really know what to say except “Thank you.”  She squeezed my hands again and thanked me back, and we froze there for a second until a truck pulled up to the shed and interrupted our moment.  We pulled away from each other and I got back into my truck and went on my way.

And now every time I pull up to the Recycle shed, the small talk never seems quite as small as it used to.

I just realized two things:

1. I skipped Pornface #11.
2. Pornface #13 was posted almost a year ago.

I had to get a physical to renew the license I need to drive the hauling trucks. As I sat in the waiting room, it occurred to me to actually read the fine print on the form they handed me.  Under the heading “Physical Qualifications for Drivers”, there was a section called “The Driver’s Role” which did a nice summary of some of the physical as well as the emotional stresses truck drivers face.  I’m reprinting it here for your reading pleasure:

Responsibilities, work schedules, physical and emotional demands, and lifestyles among commercial drivers vary by the type of driving that they do. Some of the main types of drivers include the following: turn around or short relay (drivers return to their home base each evening), long relay (drivers drive 8-10 hours and then have an 8-hour off-duty period), straight through haul (cross country drivers); and team drivers (drivers share the driving by alternating their 4-hour driving periods and 4-hour rest periods). The following factors may be involved in a driver’s performance of duties: abrupt schedule changes and rotating work schedules, which may result in irregular sleep patterns and a driver beginning a trip in a fatigued condition; long hours; extended time away from family and friends, which may result in lack of social support; tight pickup and delivery schedules, with irregularity in work, rest, and eating patterns, adverse road, weather and traffic conditions, which may cause delays and lead to hurriedly loading or unloading cargo in order to compensate for the lost drive time; and environmental conditions such as excessive vibration, noise, and extremes in temperature. Transporting passengers or hazardous materials may add to the demands on the commercial driver. There may be duties in addition to the driving task for which a driver is responsible and needs to be fit. Some of these responsibilities are: coupling and uncoupling trailer(s) from the tractor, loading and unloading trailer(s) (sometimes a driver may lift a heavy load or unload as much as 50,000 lbs. of freight after sitting for a long period of time without any stretching period); inspecting the operating condition of tractor and trailer(s) before, during, and after delivery of cargo; lifting, installing, and removing heavy tire chains; and, lifting heavy tarpaulins to cover open top trailers. The above tasks demand agility, the ability to bend and stoop, the ability to maintain a crouching position to inspect the underside of the vehicle, frequent entering and exiting of the cab, and the ability to climb ladders on the tractor and/or trailer(s). In addition, a driver must have the perceptual skills to monitor a sometimes complex driving situation, the judgment skills to make quick decisions, when necessary, and the manipulative skills to control an oversize steering wheel, shift gears using a manual transmission, and maneuver a vehicle in crowded areas.

So next time you see a truck with its blinker on, give it some room to merge. The person driving it has probably had a rough day. Watch after they merge and you just might see a ‘thank you’ flash from its tail lights.

Wonder Boy and I did a job the other day for this old guy with a trailer full of stuff.  The guy said he was having carpet installed, and you could tell that he had put the things that had been scattered on the floor up onto every possible countertop or surface in order to “clear” the area.  It smelled, too, a smell I don’t think new carpet could have remedied.  The man seemed slightly embarrassed about it, but in a strange way, as if he was too tired of being embarrassed to really care anymore.

At one point the man was standing there supervising my bundling of some things he had laying in a pile against a wall.  Among the things were about fifteen back-of-door hanging mirrors, on which he noted there had been a “really good sale”.  I thought he was just being funny, but then, as I grabbed a handful of things, he stated matter-of-factly: “Agent Orange.”

At first I thought he was referring to something in the pile, so I pointed to something or other and asked “You mean that?”  No reply.  I pointed out something else, and again no reply.  Finally I said “What, you mean the whole pile?”  And finally he explained:

“Yup, Agent Orange.  Makes you crazy.”

Not knowing quite how to respond, and my hands now full with the bundle of mirrors or whatever I had been gathering, I headed over to load it into the truck.  On my way I noticed some old camo fatigues in a closet and a calendar with an ‘X’ on every Thursday of the month.  Next to each ‘X’ were the words “NO SHOT.”
I assumed this meant that he recieved a shot on every day not marked – meaning almost every single day.

According to Wikipedia’s Agent Orange entry, when some US veterans obtained a settlement from the US government for its use of this highly toxic herbicide and defoliant, most affected veterans received a one-time lump sum of $1200.  Yep, $1200.  Enough to buy a whole store full of mirrors.

As we were wrapping up the job, closing our truck doors and pushing in our ramp, the man called out from the deck of his trailer and echoed what veterans groups whose government “is just waiting for us all to die” have been saying for at least 25 years.  He said:

“Now you know what happens to vets.  They just sit at home making rat’s nests.”

Again, sorry it’s been so long since the last post.  Business has finally picked up enough for Bossman to announce, a few days ago, that I could finally get more days in the schedule. So to celebrate my official re-entry into the world of hauling, and to mentally prepare for the busy season, I decided to write something that would remind me why I love what I do and reaffirm some little pledges I give to myself. Now that I read over it, I realize a couple things.  One, I’m a big dork.  And two, I’m incredibly lucky. (To have a job I actually like.)    Anyway, here it is:

Today will be special.  Today I will haul things from one place to another.

I will handle things that are too heavy or too messy for someone else.  I will use some knowledge and some creativity to sort these things and take them to the appropriate places so they can be reused, recycled, or buried most efficiently.

I will resist being overwhelmed by large piles. I will swiftly tackle jobs that many people see as undoable.  I will figure out how to get bulky or awkward items out of cramped spaces and around tight corners safely.

Today I will get some exercise.

Today I will get to travel to many different places. I will see little corners of the world that many people do not get to see. I will learn about how people live by studying what they discard.  I will get to know the city better by navigating its streets and actually entering homes and talking with residents in all of its neighborhoods. And I will witness a little bit of history in every piece of ephemera that passes before me.

I will spend much of today outside, feeling the sun on my face.

And then I will be let into people’s homes and trusted to see things even their own families may not be allowed to see.  I will help them deal with difficult changes in their lives, like death, divorce, and moving, with sensitivity and respect.

I will do all this unsupervised and unsurveilled by management, in the good company of a partner who I like and trust. I will be friendly and foster solidarity with any others I come into contact with working to transport and process waste.

I will make some mistakes, and I will keep learning how to do my job better.

I will do the same things today that I do every day, and that is why today will be special.  Because every day is special when you’re a hauler.

Maybe it’s ridiculous to be so invested in wage labor.  Maybe my happiness serves the capitalist machine by keeping me docile.  But another thing I could add to what I wrote is that every day, the difference I make – in making sure things get reused and recycled, etc. – is very tangible, even measurable in weight or volume of actual items/materials.  That feels good, even if what I’m doing is only a sort of damage control and does little to change the system.  I’ll try to effect change in other ways when I’m not hauling.  But I’ll also resist the tendency to go through life stubbornly dis-identifying with what I spend a huge part of my time doing, like some day-job waiter going on 40 who still thinks of himself as “really a musician”. When I haul, I’ll haul with pride.  And I’ll post about it here more regularly, I promise.  Thanks for reading.

What do haulers do when our trucks break down?

Haul them to the scrapyard with another truck, of course.

The City recently put in a dog park on a big tract of land close to an intersection that’s right on our usual route to the MRF.  It’s an interesting location for a dog park, because people who bring their dogs there – perhaps inspired by thoughts of their dogs running free or catching frisbees or something – are reduced to watching their beloved pets run up and down along the fence barking rabidly at passing vehicles.  Especially big, loud vehicles like our truck.

Today as I was stopped at the light, I got to witness the precise moment when a dog set its sights on the truck.  It had been barking without focus in the general direction of the intersection, but when I pulled up, its barking quickened and I saw its muscles tense as it did a little pirouette in anticipation of the upcoming chase.  And there was its owner, leash in hand, watching helplessly in the distance.  When the light turned green I took off slowly, keeping my eyes on the dog.  It ran at breakneck speed straight along the dog park fence, somehow managing to turn its head and bark every few strides.  As I reached the speed limit and the dog reached the limits of its physical abilities, we proceeded neck and neck for a short while.  Looking over at the dog, the way it ran with such single-minded abandon, I felt for a second like a woolly mammoth or something must have felt millions of years ago being pursued this way by an ancestor of this dog.  I have no idea if dogs were around at the same time as woolly mammoths, but you get what I’m saying, don’t you?  How beautiful pure instinct can be?

Anyway.

And then there’s learning.  Environment.  Suddenly the dog stopped dead in its tracks, and I realized that what neither I nor a dog going 40 miles per hour could  actually see – the precise location of the end of the roadside section of the dog park fence – was indelibly etched into its memory from so many of these chases.   It stayed there in the corner jumping and barking until I couldn’t see it anymore in my side mirror.

Usually having to use elevators is a pain for a hauler. Sure, they make things easier, but they also slow things down. But the other day was different. Handyman and I were entrusted with unsupervised operation of the oldest working elevator in the state. You know, the kind you can get to stop between floors. I took this video with my cell phone, to share the experience with you, Dear Readers:

[youtube]sSNcvHYJ91I[/youtube]