HOM: Interplay II

Randy, who used the rubber-tired Cat forklift to keep the lathes supplied with logs and the core bins emptied, could make life interesting too. Once when I was off the deck for a few minutes he pulled the Cat up tight against the bins with the forks all the way up, grabbed my pic off the deck, climbed up on the forks, stuck my pic into an overhead beam, then drove off. Laughing. Since it was way out of my reach I had to throw chunks of wood at the pic till I was able to knock it loose and then about brained myself trying to catch it. He usually tried to drop the logs off on deck pretty neatly, but if the senior deck hand had peeved him he seemed to get a little careless. I suspect that he was the one that smeared grease on the handle of my pic. Oh well, I MAY have been the one that greased the steering wheel on his Cat! We tried to keep the deck clean, but debris built up all the time. When things were slow one night, I grabbed a broom, swept the deck & dumped all the debris off. Randy saw what I was doing, gathered up a couple of slabs of wood on the Cat forks, slid them along the ground till they were heaped in mud, then came and dumped them on the deck about the time I finished up and was admiring how nice & clean everything was. He didn't get off scot-free on that one -- I grabbed a handful of the slimy mud and tossed it at him and caught him right in the mouth, which was open at the time. He was not pleased with me for a while. One night DJ came up on deck and accused Randy of knocking out a deck support with the Cat. When he said he didn't Don still looked skeptical, so Randy turned to me & asked me to verify what he said. When I asked how much he was willing to pay for my testimony, he got a little red but Don walked off. I guess he knew I was going to back Randy up regardless. And that time Randy really was innocent -- day shift did the damage before we came in. And yes, we are still friends. TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)