The Blizzard of '78... I love telling this personal story to anyone to anyone who is willing to listen.

It was my very first year at SOHIO Lima refinery.
I was hired in Sept of '77, after stopping out of college just before my Senior year as a MusEd major. Thank God, I was raised by Af/Am family who stressed the importance of "hustling for that American buck".

My first paying job came to me at the age of 9, when I assisted My Pops and my Great Uncle Babe in hauling pianos & organs for our local music store to rich suburban Whitefolk who'd been sold The American Dream of music in the home as a means to upward mobility. "A piano in every home"- it was a huge '60's thing... and Dave+Mary Porter were on the front lines of that movement. Work was steady during those years, and 3 Aces Moving had the contract with Porter's Music Store. As a result, I was intimately acquainted at an early age with hard, physical work for monetary recompense. When other kids of my age were watching cartoons on Sat mornings, my young azz was on a truck, hauling new musical toys to rich folk who could afford to indulge their privilege. I've often wondered how many of my BGSU classmates hailed from such humble beginnings- and how many would have risked their music-making hands in service to their family's well-being. For me, it was just how the Clems lived their lives. After that, I held a number of gruntwork jobs that taught me the importance of honest work for honest pay.

____________________


I'd just gotten my first placement on a processing unit: Coke Drum Cleaners. My work shift: 7AM-3PM. I was 22 years old.
Living at home with My Parents after stopping out of BG, this was the first full-time job in my life. Welcome to adulthood, Newby.

I'd barely made it home from my first shift job, when the phone rang. All hands on deck.

"We're sending out drivers to bring all employees in to the plant. Be ready to report when they get to your house."
I was off-duty for about an hour before I was called back.

When I reported, I was sent to the Rec Center, just outside the gates. Big, open space (think basketball gymnasium, with adjacent rooms nearby). Lines of army cots arranged in rows across the gymnasium floor. That would be my home for the next 2-3 days.

I found my cot, settled in for the long haul.

At about 2 AM, my unit foreman came to the Rec center, and woke me up.
"We need you to replace 2 FAA beacons on the coke drum towers that have stopped working."
"WTF? Ain't no planes flying in this s#!
"Doesn't matter. We need to stay in compliance. Get yer azz up, and get yer azz to work."

I'd changed one FAA beacon once before- in the fall, early in my stint as a coke cleaner... during good weather conditions. It was a 15 min task, up & back, at best.
The beacons were approx 2 ft tall, and weighed approx 20 lb, as I remember... glass is heavier than s#! I crawled up the catwalk with both beacons in a canvas backpack.

This is what I climbed to do that job (the four drums are 3-4 stories high; the towers extend upward another 2-3 stories from there).

[Linked Image from upload.wikimedia.org]


That job took approx 1.5 hours to complete. Visibility: zero. I had to break icicles the size of a man's forearm to clear the receptacles that allowed me to remove the dead beacons, before I could replace them with the new lights.

I was numb, dumb... and a scant removed from succumbed, when I got back down to Ground Zero. It was, and still remains, the most difficult job I've ever performed in my life.

Dawgs: when I returned to that army cot in the SOHIO refinery Rec Center on Metcalf Avenue, it was the closest thing to My Momma's Womb I ever felt in my life.

__________________

That was the downside.
The upside:

I spent 3 days in that Rec Center during the Blizzard of '78 .. and was paid double time+half for every 24/7 hour I wasn't resting at home.
The next two paychecks I received from Standard Oil Lima Refinery were the fattest skrilla I've ever reaped from having a job of any sort. Easily 1/4 another's yearly pay at that time.


Crawling to the top of an industrial superstructure in an historic blizzard to swap out FFA beacons?
BLINK, BLINK, BLINK...

Who's your DT badass now?