Girls weren’t considered strong enough for those positions. Depends on the girl. Some boys weren’t strong enough for those positions.
I was instructed by my shifter, Norm Bernier, when I was still a student, to train another student for another crew. I had my doubts he’d be able to do the job when I saw him. He was small. He had little definition. But, it was a simple enough job. All he had to do was keep the place clean and blow the chutes clean when they built up with muck. I gave him the guided tour of the transfer house and the belts he’d have to care for. We did our pre-check, called the hoistman to give him the all clear, and set to wait. The chute began to choke off, so I stopped the belt and showed him how to blow the chute clean using a blowpipe, giving him hints on how to hold on to it, how to let the pipe do the work. When I was finished, I reset the pull-cord, and we waited for the next plug. I told him to clean the chute, “just like I did.”
He stepped up to the platform, opened the door, and pointed the pipe at the muck. When he turned on the valve, the pressure lifted him off his feet and off the platform. I leapt up behind him, took hold of the pipe and set him back on his feet. I turned the valve off. I tried to show him again, and this time standing directly behind him instructed him to try again. The pressure lifted him off the platform regardless whether he turned the valve on quickly or not. He was too light and not nearly strong enough to control the blowpipe. I had to tell the kid to go sit in the booth and called my shifter on another phone.
“He can’t do the job,” I told him, explaining why. Norm collected the boy and that was the last time I saw him. He was given a job in the yard, mowing the lawn, picking up litter. It was a job better suited for him. Had he been settled on the other crew he’d have been seriously hurt.
So, when girls were assigned to underground crews, they were handed off to Backfill, as if that were an easier job. It wasn’t that easy. There were those same high-pressure blowpipes, high pressure water hoses, and hours of manual labour like shovelling to do.
Karen Chieu joined our crew. She was an engineering student, and although not as strong as a boy, she was capable. And eager to pull her wait. We were of a similar age, the closest I’d ever be in age to a student ever again. And she was cute. If you’ve been keeping up with these missives you may have noticed that I was inclined towards Asian girls. But she was my partner and I thought it a dereliction of decorum to make a pass at her. Besides, she had a boyfriend named Andy, also working in Timmins, if not at Kidd. And I was a little older, my hair thinning. I thought it unlikely that she’d be interested, so I kept my crush to myself. That said, I had a suspicion that over the course of the summer she may have developed feelings for me. Maybe that’s just vanity, but I believe she made a few moves that I only became aware of after the fact. She’d sit close, once with our thighs touching. I harboured fantasies. I didn’t act on them. Maybe I should have. I did ask her out for a beer at the end of afternoon shift once. I thought she might be interested, but I’d met her boyfriend by then, and she declined, saying she ought to get home. I let it slide after that, never presuming to make moves again.
She called me once. Their car had broken down and they were due to leave to a weekend rock festival down south. I was groggy. I’d been awakened from a deep sleep. I told her no, she couldn’t use my car for a road trip I’d have loved to be on (although I didn’t put it that way). I told her that her boyfriend would have to rent one. I apologized, but when I told her I was going back to sleep (I’d just finished my last nightshift, a shift she’d not taken, as they ought to have been on the road all night to get to the festival that morning) she took the hint. That was her one and only summer in Timmins. I’ve no idea what became of her. She most likely married Andy.
The next couple years our student was Mia Sweet. The first summer she worked with Jim Imhoff; I rarely saw her. She did not take to me, nor me to her. But the next year she WAS paired with me. My stomach dropped. I had to work with her? Jesus, I thought, we hate each other. I was premature. Tension was high our first shift together, but I told her to take the booth, and I’d work in the field, explaining that were anything to go wrong, I’d have to walk in to fix it anyway. She was a little surprised at that. She had been the one in the field when she worked with Jim. I told her it wasn’t that hard, and sat with her for a few minutes, writing out the pertinent numbers she’d need, and the step by step instructions on what to do. I also told her that I was on the other end of the pager line if she needed me. In time the animosity cooled, then faded, then disappeared altogether. In time, we were amicable, maybe even friends, but our acquaintance was too short for anything lasting.
Mia was a fast learner. She was also a pretty girl. Half the crew had a crush on her, so much so that one day our shifter, Fern Carriere, found another of our crew who was supposedly working four levels away in the booth with her, and another who also ought to have been working on the phone with her. Fern was furious! He’d been trying to get in touch with us for over an hour. Fern stormed in to give me shit too after laying into the other parties before walking in to where I was.
He began. “Why aren’t you controlling what’s going on in the booth?”
I was perplexed. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked him.
He explained what he’d just walked in on.
“You explain to me how I’m supposed to know what’s going on over there when I’m out here?” I asked. It was my turn to get mad, “Are you going to run a camera out here so I can keep tabs on her? And do you think I can control those dogs when they smell a bitch in heat?”
He cooled down.
“It’s not my fault they all want to get in her pants. Jesus,” I said, “half the goddamned Mine drives to wherever she is to sniff her up! It’s up to her to hose them down!”
Fern never bitched to me about Mia again.
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