Date: 2009-08-04
From: Katahdin - K Stream Campground

To: Abol Bridge
Miles today: 9.9
Weather: clear sky

III. Report: Physically, I¢m off the trail and at home. This report is for July 22. I'll also be uploading photos daily.In order to try to keep up with the youngsters, I tried to get up early and be the first out hiking. For the record, if you add FB and TNT¢s ages together, I still have almost 10 years on them. Or in another comparison, I¢m 3x FB and almost 2x TNT in age. Also, the northern latitude affords a lot of summer sun in that one could safely hike from about 0430 until 9:00 pm if one desired. The day¢s plan was to hike 9.9 miles to Abol Bridge and have dinner there at the store. I left early and was soon caught up by FB and TNT. We hiked together for awhile and took some photos at a rather unimpressive dam. Just before leaving Baxter State Park, we had our first of two fordings that day. Technically, the first was only a stream crossing. This was my first meeting (of what was to eventually be three) with Bugsy and Burly Girl. They were at the stream just before us and had started to ford the stream. Bugsy was video recording BG and I took some stills of BG from a posterior view. Being the gentleman that I am, these images will not be posted. FB didn¢t have camp shoes, so she just hiked thru the knee deep water. TNT tried to rock hop across the stream and almost made it half way before slipping into the water. I changed into my Crocs and crossed without incident. Down the trail a bit, the five of us came to the 2nd stream crossing. This one was slightly more challenging. I was almost across when I pulled a header nearly into the water. I heard a clank and tried to figure out the noise ¢ I knew it wasn¢t my head hitting the rocks. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a red flash pass by and said aloud that it was my fuel bottle. FB reared into action and recovered my bottle downstream. We hiked to the Abol Bridge and arrived mid-afternoon. The store had cold beer and ice cream, which is always a plus in my books. The sandwiches were pre-packaged and I¢ll be charitable and say that I¢ve had worse before; just don¢t ask me where or when. There was a pay phone at the store that was being repaired. It had started to rain ¢ again ¢ and we decided to stay overnight at the adjacent state campground. The rain stopped, we fixed dinner and FB went to check out the phone. She returned just before 7 pm to report that the pay phone was operating, took coins only ($1 for 3 mins), no credit card or collect calls and no incoming calls. I had 2 quarters, borrowed another two and headed up to the store before it¢s 7:00 closing. I got there late and the store was closed, but there was a lady still there and she gave me several $$ in quarters. I called home and left a message; but didn¢t have my cell phone on me and therefore had no access to other numbers I would want to call. And I now have several dollars in heavy change.The Abol bridge is the northern edge of the ¢100 mile wilderness¢. The southern boundary is Monson, ME. My handbook stated that my planned lodging stay in Monson did not accept credit cards and that there were no ATMs in town. So, on one hand the civilization is not all that civilized and the wilderness will later prove not to be totally wild.IV. QOD: How deep is the frog pond?   Answer: knee deepV. POD One of my summer jobs was working as a roustabout at the oil field plant. The hierarchy was something like this: Plant Manager ¢ Squeak; Engineers: Vince, Weldon, and C.V.; Chemist: Bert or Carl maybe; production records: Dad, Roy, Mary Nell,   and Lela at the switchboard. These were typical 8-5 office jobs, (actually 7:15-4:30). The workers in the plant included the operators (Uncle Floyd) who were the only ones on shift work, 24/7 . The ¢Skilled¢ workers included the warehouse man Mayo, welder: Rainwater, carpenter: ?, electrician: Frank (although I don¢t remember Frank ever getting dirty very much and also spending most of his time in the air conditioned office). Next were the roustabouts, which to my disappointment were defined as ¢unskilled oil field workers¢ at the Texas History Museum. The gang pusher was JD, deputy gang pusher: Blackie, and a number of roustabouts, including Clyde the Cajun. Squeak would hire a number of employees¢ sons for summer employment jobs.POD: Jefferson Davis Hightower.   JD never called us by name, it was always ¢Son¢ or ¢Schoolboy¢. He had three rules on the job: don¢t mess with anyone¢s timecard, don¢t mess with anyone¢s lunch, and don¢t talk about anyone¢s family. Other than that, it was anything goes and it usually did. Clyde showed us one day how to bend 60-penny nails, and we must have bent 2 or 3 boxes before JD found out it. He wasn¢t too pleased with us; but he really got into Clyde. Another time, the engineers determined a generator shaft was out of tolerance, and that we would need to significantly shut down plant production to replace the generator stand. The roustabouts would work 24/7 until it was repaired. JD split the roustabouts into groups: he and us schoolboys had the 7am-7pm day shift,;Blackie and the regulars had the 7-7 night shift. JD told us to meet him at his truck at 0645. He had an old beat up pickem up truck, which was usually parked right next to the fence across from the blockhouse. This morning, he was parked at the far opposite end of the lot. After meeting him there, he pulled out a bottle of cheap whiskey, took a good swig and passed the bottle around. Then told us it was going to be a real long day. And he was right. We were on 90-lb jackhammers all day chipping out a reinforced concrete platform. At the end of the day, we met again at his pickup and he passed the bottle around again. This time, our hands were shaking so badly, most of the whiskey ran down our front. One of our first jobs he had for us was chopping weeds in the gravel yards. This was very hot work, getting blisters and very tiring, boring, and extremely hot. Days passed into weeks. And after completing the plant yard, we would have to go back to where we had started and begin all over again. During one particularly hot afternoon, us schoolboys took a break and were resting in the shade under one of the large gas storage tanks. Then we saw JD driving up in the company truck. We got up quickly and started furiously working, chopping weeds out in the hot sun. JD just stopped there. After awhile, he got out and walked around his pickup and then got back inside. We continued chopping like robots. After about a half hour, he called us in and told us: Schoolboys, if you ever get caught doing something you shouldn¢t be doing , don¢t try to hide it, stand up, admit it and move on.¢   After that, he let us use chemicals to kill the weeds and we didn¢t have to do this work any more that summer. At JD¢s funeral, it was clearly remembered how well he helped turn so many of us ¢schoolboys¢ into young men.