Heavy Machinery

One of the best experiences with my best friend growing up, Jeremy Lasser, before we learned to become political enemies, was getting the chance to operate heavy machinery.

Before I finally quit and eventually became a teacher, Jeremy Lasser took me down to the crushing pit and yard, Lasser Land, as Sherry called it.

There it sat, a big front end loader, yellow and beautiful, growling diesel smiles at me. Jeremy showed me how to raise and lower and scoop with the bucket. How to dump the load in the back of a bobtail dump truck, hopefully without wrecking the sideboards. Those were two 6ft sections of 8 by 2 inch that sat on top of either side and protected the metal walls of the truck from the destructive heavy bucket.

I spent that afternoon loading trucks with gravel. The guys couldn’t help but smile when they saw it was me. Arturo, his arm out the window and a big grin on his face was like, “Chingale! aye! How many sideboards have you broken today?”

“Just one.”

And off he went laughing in a growl of dust. It was true. All day long and just one sideboard, busted by one heavy touch with that bucket crushed it to smithereens. Tom was real sweet about it. He just jumped out and hammered in a new one.

“Don’t worry about it, kid.” He said with a smile.