ANOTHER LETTER HOME

BY RAYBURN CASEY HALL


Hello Mama and Daddy

Just a few words to let you know I'm still working at the wastewater treatment plant and everything is fine. I don't think I will get laid off here because of a slow down in business like I did on my last job. My Boss says that Our No.1 business is taking care of everybody else's No.2 business and as long as everybody is eating there will always be a No.1 business to attend to.

Daddy, remember when you decided to quit farming and went to work for the TVA for awhile. I remember you would always come home with a funny story about the people that you worked with. Those people you worked with sure did some funny things but I believe this bunch I work with has them beat. Most of the jokes are funny and in good fun but some of the jokes are a little bit cruel in my opinion. But the things that people do to themselves are the most laughable.

The other day one of the guys was running a little late and he got to work right at work time on the second shift. He came in dressed up in a suit and necktie and his shoes were all shined up. He was wearing a beautiful watch on his wrist and an expensive gold chain around his neck and he had a ring on almost every finger. He looked like he had just left a funeral or a wedding .

Well he jumped out of his car and ran to one of the pump stations and went inside. There was a bunch of us standing there watching him and we were all wondering what was wrong. Well it didn't take us long to find out. Because we heard an awful belt squealing noise and we knew what he had done. He had started a pump without opening the discharge valve. And the pump is a belt driven positive displacement pump. Well Daddy the first thing a wastewater treatment plant operator learns is, YOU DO NOT START A POSITIVE DISPLACEMENT PUMP WITH THE DISCHARGE VALVE CLOSED.

We stood there waiting and in a few minutes he came out of the pump station. Do you remember how Frankenstein walked in those old horror movies? Well he was walking stiff legged and holding his arms out from his side just like the old monster did in the movies only he was covered in sludge from his hair to his shiny shoes. He looked like a walking melting fudge-sicle. We couldn't understand everything he was saying because he had a mouth full of sludge but everything he was saying could have been rated from PG to XXX.

Something happened the other day that you would really get a kick out of if you had been here. There is a guy that works here and he wouldn't weigh 125 pounds soaking wet. And that's just what happened to him the other day. He was going to wash off the primary scum rakes with a big fire hose. He was standing there holding the water hose and he asked one of the other guys to turn it on for him. Well when the guy turned the water on, the pressure from the hose started pushing him backward and he walked backward several feet until he tripped and fell. After he fell he ended up on his back with his feet stuck straight up and holding the water hose up and all the water was falling back down on him. He knew he couldn't turn the hose loose because if he did it would beat him to death before he could get up and get away from it. He was using treated plant effluent water to wash the scum rakes, and if a plant effluent water hydrant has not been turned on in a few days you will get a lot of old black smelly water out of it at first. Well that was what was raining on him while he was laying there on the ground. He was using some rated movie language too.

The guy that turned the water on finally turned the water off but he said he didn't know what was happening for a few minutes and didn't know the water needed to be turned back off. Yea Daddy, I believed him too.

There is one guy that works here that loves to wet people with a water hose. It doesn't matter if it is 95 degrees in the Summer or 25 degrees in the winter he will wet you if you get near him with a water hose. Well the other day an operator saw him standing outside a door with a water hose and he knew he was going to get sprayed with the water hose if he went out the door. Instead he went up on top of the building and was looking down on him and trying to think of something to do to teach the guy a lesson. He said he looked down and over the top of the door there was a big wasp nest. He got a stick and eased it down to the wasp nest and gave it a punch and knocked it down. The nest almost hit the guy on the top of his head. I didn't see it but some of the fellows said that was a sight to behold. They said those wasps got after him and he started running backward and he was trying to swat them with one hand and wet them down with his water hose all at the same time. But in a minute he ran to the end of his water hose and he threw it down and started running as fast as he could. Luckily neither one of the guys got seriously stung by the wasps.

Well Daddy, I told you some of the jokes were kind of cruel but I guess they mean for it to all be in good fun. But there is an old man that works here and he tries to be kind of like a Daddy to all of us operators here. Well two of the guys went to him the other day and one of them asked the old man to loan him some money. The old man didn't think he was serious and told him he didn't have any money to loan him. They went on back to work and the other guy came back to the old man and told him a sad story about the guy that was trying to borrow the money. He told him that he was real depressed because his wife had ran him off from home and he needed money to get a place to stay.

When lunch time came the old man tried every way in the world to loan the man some money. But no matter what the old man said the guy wouldn't take the money. He kept telling the old man he didn't want his money now because he wanted him to loan the money to him because he trusted him and was his friend, not because he felt sorry for him. Well the old man went on back to work but you could tell he felt like a dog.

Well that evening at break the guy's friend started yelling to the old man from a pump building that his friend had committed suicide and he needed help. The old man ran into the pump station and inside there is an opening to pull pumps up from the bottom floor. He looked down into the opening and four floors down below him he seen the other guy lying on the bottom. He was lying on his side with his legs and arms all twisted up and under him.

The old man started yelling, "Oh my God, Oh my God ,call an ambulance". He didn't even take time to get on the elevator and ran all the way to the bottom floor and was yelling, "Oh my God" all the way down. When he got to the bottom floor he ran to where the guy was laying and fell to his knees and picked up one of the guy's hands. When the old man did that the guy jumped up and yelled April Fool.

The old man was kinda sore at him for awhile and cussed him out every time he got near him but he's over it now I think.

Oh, Daddy and Mama, I almost forgot, my Boss said I could go up North to Bowling Green, Kentucky to a meeting in a few weeks. Its where a bunch of Operators, Engineers and Venders get together every year and talk about No.1 and No.2 business. I will write you a letter telling you all about it when I get back.

I will close for now and don't worry about me because life is been good to your oldest son.

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