Once when I was on a crew

In 1976 the first survey crew I worked on was a 4 man USFS road P-line survey crew. The party chief, “Uncle Doug”, was a bit of a smug tyrant know-it-all. The other two guys on the crew, John and Paul, had this stupid reaction to solo, foraging yellow jackets where they’d swat, flap their arms and run around all crazy like when a bee flew nearby or landed on them. Uncle Doug would criticize the boys for doing this, saying they should stay calm and stand still because otherwise they were going to get HIM stung (I agreed wholeheartedly with Doug, but his condescending delivery was uncalled for). So someone hatched a plan. Probably Paul or John. I forget.

During lunch one day, Uncle Doug grabbed the toilet paper and walked out into the woods to bust a grumpy. He left his metal USFS hard hat behind. Big mistake Doug.

John had a can of peaches in this pack that he opened and then smeared peach juice all the way around the inner rim of Uncle Doug’s hard hat. Doug returned and we went back to work. 15 minutes later Uncle Doug had a dozen yellow jackets crawling on his hard hat. All eyes were on Doug. When he noticed the first 2 or 3 crawling under the rim above his now furrowed brow he stuck to his beliefs, a courageous testament to reason and self control. But when he spied a squadron of them on the top deck make a flanking movement en masse to the below-decks rim Uncle Doug lost his revolve and flung the hard hat like a Frisbee wayyyyy into the woods.

Uncle Doug eventually found humor in our practical joke and lightened up a bit after that, probably because he realized that he had to work the entire rest of the summer with 3 very dangerous dumb a$$e$ who could have gotten him seriously injured with their little prank.

More than Once when I was on a crew

working with a chain around an electric fence ..................:-)

i got into a fist fight with a passing motorist.

i was taking some shots around a centerline intersection when a good old boy in a pick up rolled by. i made eye contact with him and nodded my head and gave him a half handed wave. i noticed out of the corner of my eye he was pulling over. i kept on doing what i was doing as he walked up. i figured he was going to ask what we were doing or if we were hiring or some other usual question. as he walked up he mumbled something about me flipping him off and before i knew it he was swinging at me. he hit a glancing blow on my shoulder as i dodged. quite honestly i lost my mind on him, i started swinging back and he didn't move. i caught him with about 4 god punches before he feel backwards and stumbled off. he ran back to his truck and took off. i dropped my gear and jumped in the truck and chased him. i called 911 on the cell and explained i had just been assaulted and gave them our location and his tag number. they advised i not continue chasing him but return to the site and they would send an officer to me. met the cop, gave a statement and after about 20 minutes to settle down and clear my head i went back to work. about 2 hours later the cops called me and said they thought they had him and were bringing him to me to id. they show up with cooter in the back - ASLEEP! i confirmed that was him. they said he had a couple of good knots on his face. they found meth, some prescriptions and 2 guns in his truck. they said he had to be on something because he feel asleep right after they put him in the car.

Let's see: there was that time we were going to set a pin which was to fall right in the middle of this huge mulch pile. It would have taken us hours to shovel it of the way. Fortunately for us they left the frontend loader there AND the key!!! My partner didn't know how to operate one so I offered to take care of it. About 2 minutes later we were setting said pin.

Then there was that other time when one of those huge a$$ Volvo dumptrucks was in our way. I located one of the road-builder crew to come move it for us. He told me the keys were in it "you can move it. They drive just like a car." So I did. He was right. In fact it was a smoother ride than our Suburbans.

Then there was another time when that road grader lost power and came hurtling backwards right at your's truly who was busy taking copius field notes and not paying attention to everyone yelling at me to run. When I realized they were yelling at me and I jumped up to run, the operator pulled a killer J-turn. It was awesome!
No one was hurt except for me and the operator's heart rates skyrocketting in short order.

Then there was that other time when we got froze out. Not snowed out. The gun wouldn't stay on because of the cold. Then we got stuck on the side the mountain trying to leave and got stuck in the ditch after sliding off. The brought over a bulldozer to pull us out. It also lost traction and began sliding right towards our vehicle. I have pictures of that one. Fortunately we did get stuck in the ditch. If we would have slid off the other side of the road... well, I most likely wouldn't be here to write about it.

I also could tell about a couple of guns pointed at me.
I could tell about the few bear close encouters. Bulls as well.
But those who have worked in remote rural areas already know of these things.

My friend Jacob was working with me and he had been having fun destroying fire ant dens by walking by in his sneakers and kicking them like footballs ... until he kicked the one that was built on top of a brick! It was painful just to watch. He couldn't help laughing through the pain because he knew what a dumb move it was.

I got hit by a car.

I was shooting a manhole in the painted median of a four lane highway when an old man pulled out of a bank drive thru into said painted median and hit me(I was wearing a orange vest). I was knocked up on his hood but was fine other than my head was about to explode and I was in shock from disbelief. I got reeeeeaaaaallllllly pissed off..... and he wanted to stop, apologize, and talk about it. I did not. I told him in a very aggressive manner with many swear words that he may be the nicest S.O.B. in the world but if he sticks around, or even gets out of the car, that I am going to kick his old ass... old man just go and don't come back.

I came with about a foot of getting hit by a big 1970s Cadillac which made a left turn against the red signal and got t-boned by a 1960s Beetle (which had the green). The Cadillac swerved towards me, missed by about a foot then went in between two signal poles on the corner it was head towards. There couldn't have been 6" clearance between that big car and those two poles, didn't touch the poles but inertia carried it into the ice plant alongside a freeway off-ramp. The driver kept her foot on the floor so the car's rear wheels sat there burning in the ice plant with the car not going anywhere until some construction workers ran over and told her to let off the gas.

The cop came, cited her, took care of the accident report then took off and the construction crew pushed the Cadillac out of the ice plant and onto the on-ramp. It drove off hardly phased by the whole incident.

The Beetle driver was not happy that his car was messed up once again by a red light runner.

Traversing through the woods past a logging crew for a couple of days. We could here the foreman yelling from a half mile away, clearly, every word. You can guess what his favorite word was. That was entertaining. He yelled at one member of the crew constantly, his name apparently was YOU LITTLE _____ER!!!

I mean that guy had a set of pipes, LOUD!!!

The crew worked for a Licensed Timber Operator (a Forester told me we aren't supposed to use the common slang term because it is racist-honest I dind't know that).

...we got a lot of work done.

Summer of 1980 I was in Eastern Tennessee between Greenville and Morristown tying into a BM with an HP 3810. We got the last shot so while I was waiting for the rodman to return with the truck, I started pointing the instrument at oncoming traffic. I was just off the shoulder of a divided 4 lane highway. I would turn the instrument to follow each car as they came by. The 3810 was a big box type thing that didn't look like a survey instrument. The last vehicle was an old pickup and the guy driving had on overalls a full beard and weighed about 300 pounds. He slowed down and made a u-turn at the next crossover. The rodman was back by then so we loaded in record time and left before he got back to us.

James

At the end of the day I found a D-8 Cat blocking my car. I had a farm tractor key that I knew would work and had limited experience years before on an IH TD8, about the size of a Cat D3, so I fired it up and moved it. I did not notice until I got off that I had driven over a new manhole. The belly pan cleaned the top right of. I was careful not to back into the hole as I left and never said a word to anyone.

Autumn Ridge, The Hills Subdivision, Bedminster, NJ in 1986, mostly doing stakeout work for rough grading.

Paul in PA

* Once we had a eyeman that loved to sleep in the truck, he would occasionally wake up with stuff drawn on his face or maybe something stuck up his nose.

* Once I left the data collector with a weeks work on the bumper of the truck, drove to the office to download, realized it was missing, drove 20 miles back to job, fell off in the cl of a soft muddy road, wiped it off...no troubles. Age 25

* Once I ran over my Schondstedt the first week on the job, took it to the metal shop and had it un bent, no one ever knew. Age 22

* Once I got put on crew with a guy that was the only suspect in the murder of his wife, he was a pretty nice guy, told me his story about finding her in the hall with a stab wound to the head and then he started crying and seemed authentic but who the hell knows. Age 19

* Once there was about 10 crews where I worked and one day the police pulled into the parking lot, aparantly some fool crew had been flashing passing ladies a giant dildo and had a sign that said "wanna _uck?" they were arrested, idiots

* Once in Tampa Florida a company with 30 crews had the old school vehicle raidos where everyone could hear everyone communicate, well one of the crews were doing cocane in the truck and one of the dummies accidentially had the mic keyed down, the whole company heard it

* Also in Tampa a PC was found dead in the truck from injecting heroin, crew found him ac running, radio on, field book out, needle in his arm....dead as can be.

I had a crew with two other hands working with me. One was married and the other was single. They hung out together after hours. Lots of late-nights and lots of red-eyed mornings in the truck.

Well, the fella that was married wasn't for long. I guess his esposa took exception to his cattin' around. He briefly moved in with my other single field hand but shortly got a place of his own. I think they were a toxic combo when they partied together.

It wasn't long before the single guy started hanging around the other one's ex-wife. But the ex-hubby didn't know it. Lover Boy was "kind" enough to share that info with me. I was pissed because I didn't want in the middle of it all.

It was only a few weeks before everybody found out where everybody had been takin' their boots off. I could tell as soon as the truck door shut that morning that something was up. They were kind enough to wait 'til we got to the job site before they got into it.

There was some screamin' and yellin'..silly little pimp-slappin' and a few punches..that turned into a rasslin' match. I broke it up and told them both to shut up or walk back to the office. The rest of the day was rrreeeeaaaallll quiet, but they still worked good together.

It only took a month or so before Lover Boy quit hoverin' around his buddy's ex. They started talking more and even joked a little bit about their common "friend". By summer the crew was back to normal.

That was an outcome I wouldn't have believed.

A co-worker at West Sacramento told me he worked for the City of Ukiah. They have a street named Helen. He said back then the whole city had one frequency, public works, streets, water, sewers, engineering, everyone, one freek. He said one day one of the water maintenance workers came on the radio and transmitted, "I'm up on Helen and need a [type of water valve]" You can guess what he said.

That reminds me of a situation in our little county seat. The city attorney and city superintendent have an ex-wife in common. When the superintendent first started with the city the attorney was married to the superintendent's ex-wife. One day during a meeting the attorney growled about something his wife had done that created a big problem. The superintendent responded, "That's one of the reasons I divorced her." They had a good laugh. Within six months, she was single again.

During the first week of starting with one company we were driving to a job when I suddenly heard the guy next to me yell, "Slug Bug.", and he punched me in the arm. You might say I was a bit shocked. After demanding to know what the h e double hockeysticks he thought he was doing I learned this was a regular game these guys had been playing for months. Anytime one of them saw a Volkswagen beetle, they would do this to one of the others. In those days, there was a surprising number of Slug Bugs on the road.

I came within about a foot of being hit by a large SUV. I was standing by the instrument (still in the case, about to be set up) on the sidewalk in the parking lot of the Cherokee County, GA courthouse. The SUV swung through and came upon the sidewalk, nearly hitting me, and running over the instrument case. Guy never stopped. Got his tag number, nice black Lincoln Navigator, and watched him park in the lot and walk into the courthouse. Got the authorities involved. The guy was an attorney. He said he didn't even realize there was anyone at the corner and he never felt anything. He did pay for the damage to the instrument though.

Once when I was on a crew, the PC got sick of the heavy equipment operators knocking out control stations so he would write on the basket stakes " DO NOT DISTURB UNDER PENALTY OF CASTRATION", they started being more careful.

Your creek jumping story reminds me

of a time when I had recently started at a company. We were re-conning a property in the afternoon to start the boundary the next day. We arrived at a creek that had minimal flow in it at the time, but the banks were about 6' tall and a pretty straight drop off. I crouched down on the bank and placed a hand on the ground intending to basically drop off the side into the creek.

Unfortunately, one foot got caught in a surprisingly strong vine. That foot decided to stay at the top of the creek bank while the rest of me went on over the side. The physics of such a decision on my foots part meant that there would now be some amount of centrifugal forces in action. So instead of dropping over the side of the bank, I ended up (what seemed like slow motion) diving off the creek bank.

As my full weight ended up on the vine, it broke and I was able to continue my journey across the creek. By that time, I had reached an angle of approach to the other side of the creek such that I ended up looking like a human javelin. I hit the other side of the creek, which was luckily fairly soft mud.

When I had determined that all my parts were still in the correct number of pieces, I stood up. Looking down, I realized that if I had some plaster of paris, I could have made a bust of my should up and around to about 3/4 of my head.