Sometimes you don't put out the fires

Curry County commissioners recently voted to replace a road department tractor that had been totaled in a fire.

It brought back a memory from some years ago when I was mildly reprimanded for putting out a fire on a piece of heavy equipment I was operating.

That’s right, the foreman wanted me to let it burn.

I had a job working for a company that went around with heavy equipment tearing down trees, ripping up the land and such in advance of creating housing subdivisions.

I wanted the job because it got me outside, out of an office, into the sunshine and fresh air.

The pay was pretty good too.

There were guys who operated bulldozers, backhoes, graders, dump trucks, front-end loaders, scrapers and whatever else was called for.

I was a scraper operator.

When I was a kid we called scrapers “earth movers.” The machine was a big ol’ piece of heavy equipment that moved over the land scooping up dirt.

As a “professional heavy equipment operator” I called it a “pan” or Caterpillar 623C.

This Florida company did not have top-notch equipment.

The pans had no windshields and no brakes. If you really needed to stop the thing, lower the bowl of the pan and drag yourself to a stop.

Overall the bosses were pretty straightforward and decent.

One time my machine broke down and it looked like I’d be going home for the day early in the shift.

Don the foreman came slowly driving up to where I was.

He rolled down his window.

“Broke down, huh?” he said.

“Yes sir,” I said.

Don reached around and handed me a yardstick and clipboard.

“Just walk around the site for the rest of the day. If you see a big boss drive up, act like you’re doing something. I don’t see any sense in sending someone home because these junkers break down,” he said.

Later on, one of the other pan operators pulled his rig up to where I was.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Don said to look like I’m busy for the rest of the day,” I said.

“Dang, I’d rather wrestle a bear than do nothing at work,” the guy said and drove off.

One day my Caterpillar 623C caught fire.

I saw it all happen.

A hydraulic line sprung a leak and sprayed a fine mist of hydraulic fluid over the hood of the rig.

WHOOSH!

There were flames.

And there was a fire extinguisher in my cab.

So I grabbed it, pulled its pin and sprayed fire extinguisher goop all over the place.

It wasn’t very long before Don came driving up slowly in his pickup.

He rolled down his window.

“What’d you do that for?” he said loudly.

“I didn’t start it. It’s a busted hydraulic line,” I said.

“I ain’t talking about starting the fire, I’m asking why’d you put out the fire,” he said.

“Ah … um … because I was supposed to?”

“If you’d let the thing burn we coulda gotten another pan here, maybe a new one,” Don said.

I just stared at him and started to laugh.

“I’m serious. If it happens to you again, let it burn. They really don’t want fires put out anyway. You might get burned,” he said.

Don rolled up his window and drove away.

Just another life experience where there’s things you are taught as you grow up that are different than how things actually are in the real world.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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