Jason's rash cure

(Skip to - Underground Mining)

I met Jason in Kalgoorlie while we were working at the Superpit as servicemen for a fairly rough contractor.

Jason was hired as my cross-shift. I got to show him around the huge site for a few days. I soon found out he’s not the shy retiring type. He’s a bit like a cyclone; you never know what he’s going to do next.

The first hour of ‘orientation’ certainly made me nervous. He’s waving at the truck drivers and hitting the horn as the supervisors go past, not a care in the world. I wondered if he was the boss’s son. (At the Superpit people waving at you and blowing the horn meant you’d done something wrong or your truck was on fire. I don't know how much production was lost by truckies stopping to check their tyres before they figured out it was just some mad bastard waving at them. He didn’t care.)

When I finally asked what the hell was he doing, he says, “I’m just being friendly...”. That’s Jason. If you weren’t friends with him after a couple of hours there’s a good chance you never had a friend in your life.

He’d give you his last dollar if you needed it. He’d never ask for it back. I’m against borrowing money from friends as a rule and always paid back my loans but Jason wouldn’t have cared.

He let slip one day that he donates to Greenpeace. He’s covered in grease, hydraulic oil and diesel. The ground around the service truck is almost black with waste oil from the work we do in the yard. He lights a cigarette and says “What?” to our stunned faces. I couldn’t help making a big deal out of it. I tried to convince him he had a conflict of interest here. We destroy the earth for a living.

I said “well Dolphin boy, if they knew your occupation they’d hang you from your balls.” He seemed offended by the thought that the organisation he gave money to might want to kill him. Or maybe he just didn’t like being called Dolphin boy. Nick names are really hard to get rid of. We didn’t call him that much, unless we wanted to be thrown through a window.

He loved to stir people on the common radio channel. He was always concerned someone might be developing a rash. If you annoyed him he’d ask, “How’s that rash going? You need a cream for that?” Half the site would crack up and the supervisors would be looking to have a word with him. I learned to have a reply ready. “That back, crack and sac rash is clearing up, thanks.” Wouldn’t stop him asking again the next day.

Jason was prone to get into trouble with total innocence. The funniest story (I thought) was about a trip he’d taken overseas and how he and a mate got on Thailand’s ‘watch list’. I thought he’d tell me he was a drug smuggler or some bloody thing. You never knew with Jase. But it was a typical Jason story. He and a friend went to Bangkok for a holiday. They get off the plane and instead of following the crowd to customs they take a ‘short cut’ and get lost. Somehow they throw open a door that led outside the airport. They’d totally bypassed customs. Anyone else might worry that this wasn’t right or good but not Jason. He shrugs at his good fortune of missing the long lines, grabs his bag and disappears.

Now it’s time to go home. They go into the airport the conventional way and of course have to go through customs. Their passports have no entry stamps which causes a huge problem. They have to sit in an interrogation room for hours while the very annoyed Thai's try to work out how they got here and what they’ve been doing. He manages to convince the cops they’d accidentally gone the wrong way and they let him go home. Now personally I would never go back to that country but he really liked it there and returned just about every year. He suffers through the special treatment he gets every time with good humour.

(Like it? See - Tanami Desert Diary).

Brock and the monster television

I met Brock while I was working for mining equipment sales and service company. His first day on the job turned bad when the weirdo yardman dropped a crane bonnet on his fingers. I heard a fair bit of swearing and saw Brock holding his hand. He wouldn’t show me the damage although I could see the blood. He wouldn’t go to hospital and never took a day off. They must breed them tough in Victoria because he must have broken at least one of his fingers.

He’s a tough bastard but the nicest bloke you could meet. I worked with him for years and we never had a real argument. We had plenty of fake arguments, especially if one of the mine shift supervisors got on our backs when repairs took too long for their needs. We’d scream at each other and throw tools around until they pissed off and let us finish the job.

We did some long hours together, working around the clock a few times without a break. The Perth office would whinge about the overtime and the illegal hours. They were all talk though. We’d get unofficial pats on the back since they knew sales would suffer if the customers weren’t kept happy.

We learned how to play the system quickly. A lot of mine sites only allowed contractors to work 14 hours. We could stretch that out a few hours if we were almost finished. Then we might have to drive 1000 kilometres to get home. On the way back the mobile would ring. Another site would have a breakdown. Could we come right away? So we would. Some trips would have us mine hopping for up to thirty odd hours straight.

The wife and I lived next door to Brock and his wife Hayley for a while so the wives could look out for each other when we were away. You’d think living and working closely together might get irritating but we’d even go on holidays together. I’m sure our bosses thought we were wife swapping. We never said anything to make them think otherwise.

We had an informal competition going between us to buy the biggest and best stuff. Brock and Hayley bought a big screen TV, (Hitachi of course), which instantly caused me to be dissatisfied with ours. The wife must have picked up on my whinging so, as a surprise anniversary present, she bought the biggest TV available in town.

Plasma's and LCD’s were still around $7000. We weren’t that rich so the wife got a whopping 82cm, rear projection TV. The outer box only just fit into the back of a Hilux ute. She got it home and slid it onto the BBQ, (credit for thinking), to wheel it to the door and then got stuck. She called Brock to help her. He couldn’t believe his eyes at the size of bloody thing. He never got tired of bringing up the fact that he had to lift that huge, heavy TV into my lounge room on his day off. I never got tired of telling him it was bigger than his.

(Like it? See - Friends)

Demolition Darren

We lived in a freezing cold NSW town for a few years. We chose to go there solely because of its proximity to Bathurst. If you don't know why we consider that a bonus you haven’t been paying attention to our love of V8’s and racing.

I started a job at a nearby underground mine since that was what I knew, but I soon changed my mind. A lot of young idiots worked there who’d never had the benefit of older miners pulling them into line. If this is the new breed I didn’t want anything to do with them.

I left the ‘miners’ to their hero work and got a well paying job at a milk distribution depot. It was 5 minutes from home and permanent day shift. Due to the 5am to 2pm working hours I had half the day to myself to do other stuff I wanted. Loved it.

The depot only had about 6 employees. Three freaks were on permanent nights so I never really saw them. Of the other three blokes on day shift, two turned out to be weirdo’s. (They’re everywhere). That kind of knocked the numbers down for people to talk to. Luckily the boss, Darren, was pretty easy to get along with. He loves Holden V8’s, fast bikes and high speed. In the past I’d always made a point of not being overly friendly with bosses. It becomes awkward for them when you screw up and the other workers are going to give you a hard time. I broken my rule here otherwise life would have been very dull.

Darren and I were keen Playstation addicts. The conversations we used to have about playing Grand Theft Auto 3 made other two workers nervous. Especially if they came into the office while we were discussing how to rob banks or do multiple back flips in stolen cars. They were into S & M porn so they had no right to give us strange looks. We left them to it.

Like me, Darren loved to renovate. He had big plans to rip his house apart and modernise it. He’s one of those ultra-rare people who actually turn their plans into action. I spent many hours after work helping him.

We pushed the boundaries of our capabilities with a couple of those projects. I’m still unsure how we managed to raise that pre-assembled 10m X 5m veranda by hand. Even the Egyptians would have been impressed. I fell through the ceiling while putting in the ducted A/C. My balls hitting the joist stopped me going all the way to the floor. He needed a return air duct hole anyway. I did have a few misgivings about gutting and rebuilding the kitchen. Darren was confident and convinced me it would be easy. It wasn’t, but we got it in. Most of the time we had fun and I got a lot of valuable experience out of it. Also I got to drink most of his beer.

By the way leaving huge burnouts up your street when I leave in the afternoon is traditional.

(Like it? See - The oldest can of peas and carrots in the world).

James and the Blair Witch

I met James and Nadine in Kalgoorlie. James worked with me at the Super pit as a Diesel Fitter. Nadine as a Registered Nurse. (Free medical advice from her consisted of, "You'll be right", or "Toughen up.")

I first got to know James on a night shift. At the start of shift I told him about a weird, low budget horror movie I’d just seen. The Blair Witch Project. The film creeped me out you might say. James’ mind busily filed this information to use against me later.

I started my shift fuelling mine equipment while the sun went down. I’d almost forgotten about the movie as I drove back to our busted-arse shed. We used a deserted, dark, back haul road for access. As I neared the gate I saw the fitters ute stopped in the middle of the road. All the lights were on and both doors are wide open. No-one is in sight. The quiet moonlit scene was quite eerie, and the Blair Witch movie quickly came back to me.

I stopped and got out to look for them, wondering what the hell was going on. Mostly I worried they might be setting off explosives without me and I didn’t want to miss that! As I walked to edge of the road, James’ offsider Chris leaped out from behind a bush and let out a scream that took about ten years off me. I’m pretty sure James had something much worse in store. If he’d had the time to arrange it my nerves would still be screwed. I don't know how long they’d waited there for me but I hope it was worth it, you pair of bastards.

One thing James and I, and our wives, have in common is our love of cars. Especially V8 Holdens and Chevs. He had a 454 big block in a HJ ute. His pride and joy. As you’d expect, a a truck engine in a car with no weight over the back wheels will have predictable results. The impressive twin sets of black rubber leading from the ute’s parking spots didn’t surprise me. We were taught ‘Safety First’ in our many inductions, and James considered warming the tyres as an important safety preparation to maintain grip.

James signed the street in front of our house on a few occasions. Never in the troublesome Candy-apple red 400 cube Camaro though. It spent so much time on the back of a tilt tray the owner and James knew each other well.

James and I talked about going to Lake Gairdner for the Dry Lake Racers Speed Week. I was struggling to build a car to race there at a later date but I didn’t want to commit to anything until it was finished.

James said, “Screw waiting, let’s go now”.

To pull this stunt off he had to combine our awesome trip with a marriage proposal to Nadine. I’m assuming the way he explained it to her went something like this:

“How about we go to Adelaide to get married? Before the ceremony Coops and I will bugger off hundreds of kilometres into the desert where you can’t reach us by phone or mail while you organise the wedding. I’ll come back within the barest minimum of time to get fitted for the monkey suit to say “I do” then we can look at all my photos salt lake racers.” She said, “that sounds okay”, so he booked us room at a sheep station near Lake Gairdner, hired a plastic 4X4 and we went.

Some of the dialogue above may not be accurate but, in my opinion, it’s pretty close.

People might think letting the groom disappear days before a wedding might be a mistake. They’d be wrong. Those same people also might think he chose a strange venue for a buck’s night. Wrong again. It suited both of us not to go to strippers and get blind drunk. We could do that anytime. Seeing and hearing cars, trucks and motorcycles being thrashed to their limits seemed a far better use of our time.

(Jokes aside, I am still indebted to Nadine for allowing us to do this while she organised the wedding. I don't know many women who have the confidence and trust in their partner to allow them to drive several hundred kilometres AWAY from the impending stressful day. Especially when the less stable partner has to choose between a suit fitting or sitting on a salt lake watching a twin-turbo Hayabusa achieve 400kph.)

Luckily both our wives are keen on the car scene so we’d take our holidays together at the SummerNats car show in Canberra. Even drunk, virginal kiddies screaming, “show us your tits”, at them couldn’t ruin those awesome three days of horsepower heaven.

James and Nadine aren’t ‘wanna-be’ people. If they say they’re doing something, they’ll be working towards it. Their projects may have the inevitable disasters but they never give up.

Currently two kiddies and resurrecting a 57’ Chev from a stripped shell in a remote mining town are keeping them occupied.

(Like it? See - Friends)

Friends

(Skip to - Chilli and curry - the same thing?)

When selecting your friends ensure you balance your needs. Obviously some friends should be more outgoing than is socially acceptable, for entertainment value. You can live vicariously through their actions even while you’re saying, “I don't think you should be doing that”. A couple of your friends should be slightly saner to prevent the crazed ones going too far. One of these steadfast blokes, (or shelias), will also be on hand to stop you from joining the craziness, without being gay about it.

The dullest tasks become bearable when accompanied by friends. It’s good to have a few mates around to drink your beer and watch you dig that new swimming pool by hand. Their advice on how to hold the shovel and their uncanny ability of spotting any mistake you’ve made is invaluable.

Some of your friends should have specialised skills you lack, and be willing to use those skills for your benefit on the odd occasion. At mates rates. All friends should own different tools and freely lend them to each other. The friend should come with the tool to help if the job requires it. Borrowed tools should be replaced with new tools if damaged, (unless the damage takes place after they returned your mower with smashed blades. It is then acceptable to run over their grinder and return the pieces in a small box).

It’s natural to want to compete with your friends but it is bad form to become an expert at that particular PlayStation racing game so you can kick their arses every time you play.

A true friend helps you hold it together when everything turns to shit. They will make fun of you when you screw up, and praise you when you do something exceptionally dangerous and get away with it. They are there for you, despite your faults and failures. Hopefully everyone has friends with these qualities.

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to find good friends everywhere the wife and I move to. Although circumstances separate us from these excellent people as we move about this huge country, we stay in contact and meet up on the odd occasion. Looking at the map of Oz shows just how spread out they are. Almost every state and territory is covered. If I was paranoid I might think they are trying to get as far away from me as possible.

I value my friends very highly, therefore I’ll be kind enough to keep the really personal stuff to myself. The rest is fair game. Stay tuned for your individual acknowledgment.

(Like it? See - James and the Blair Witch)