We began working far ahead of the gang on two hand-pulled machines. Pete and I were on the lead machine, and Whiney Brian and his cousin operated the trailing machine.They were three wheeled and had a long arm that was a power takeoff with a socket. One machine was configured to handle the north rail, the other the south. The socket fit the large nuts that tightened the bolts that held the angle bars and hence rails together. At every angle bar, we hoped to find two tight nuts on Pete's side and two on mine. If they were loose, either one of us would pull and dip the arm into position, couple the socket and nut, and engage the drive. Sometimes bolts were missing. Sometimes the act of tightening a nut would strip or fracture the nut or bolt. Sometimes the angle bar would be cracked and we would have to remove all four bolts to put a new one in. We usually ruined some nuts/bolts taking the cracked angle bar off. Sometimes the hole through the rail was slightly too small, or the rail hole and angle bar hole didn't quite line up. This would require us to insert a round tapered steel bit into the hole and pound and pound on it with a sledge hammer. Yes Virginia, you can make the hole bigger. In some respects, it was a great job. Whenever you had a problem, you beat on it with a sledge hammer until you were tired.

Migrant workers had for years sown marijuana seeds along and just off the railroad right of way. One day while Joe was off somewhere scouting in the motor car Pete and I happened to spy some ten foot tall pot plants. We pulled out four or five and jammed them into various places on our machine to give it a dopey "camouflaged" look. We waited for Joe to return. He pulled up, saw what we had done, and very excitedly told us to "get rid of that stuff - 'common guys". Joe was a small tough nervous man who was 55 and had worked on the Milwaukee Road since he was 16. One day when we had switched to being the Dinger Gang, I looked up from some tough labor and said to no one in particular, "Man, I couln't do this job all my life". What I meant was I wasn't tough enough to do this all my life. Joe overheard me and must have thought I was insulting him, since he had done this job all his life. He didn't talk much to any of us for a week: I guess he was pretty upset.

One morning Joe told us about a foreman he once had that would fall asleep at lunch (we generally ate 11:00 am). When he did, Joe and his fellow workers just let him sleep so they didn't have to go back to work. That very day Joe fell asleep at lunch and we didn't wake him until about 1:00 pm. He was hopping mad at us for not waking him. Go figure.

Joe's heart was being on the Section. The Section Gang is responsible for all track repairs in a giving railroad territory. Anytime we found something wrong we would stop and fix it. One day we found a broken rail. Well, we couldn't permanetly fix it with the tools we had, but we could fix it good enough for that days' train to get over it. If you work outdoors in summer you get to realize that you usually get a week or two of colder mornings. We scouted up a rail pile (a cache of rails left out in the middle of nowhere to facilitate track repair). As we went to grab a rail about ten pissed off wasps came out of the rail pile. But, due to the unseasonably cold morning, the little beasts could only walk angrily, not fly. We stomped on them and were grateful for the cold.

We took our replacement rail to where it was needed, but it was too big. So how do you cut a rail to size? Nearly 40 years of railroad knack showed us how. First notches were cut in the lips of the new rail at the right length for replacement. Then the new rail was placed diagonally between the tracks on its side. One end rested on a fixed rail. The other didn't, but was held in place by us driving down spikes as it rested against the other fixed rail. Next a track jack was layed on its side against the rail that had the spiked down diagonal rail against it. A track jack is much like a car jack, only it weighs about 40 pounds. The track jack was extended and it began to bend the rail. The rail was held in place by the spikes. When Joe judged that enough tension existed, he had one fellow (NOT ME!) hold a rail chisel against one of the notches while he took a sledge hammer and hit the rail chisel once sharply The rail split into two pieces exactly where the notches were. We couldn't put two of the bolts thru the angle bars on one end of the new rail, since it didn't have holes for the bolts. But we spiked it up good so the train could get over.

The railroad foremen used some funny terms. Most of it was swear-word related. If someone had trouble thrusting a claw bar under a tie, Virgil used to tell him to "stab it in like it's your woman". To get a group of men to yank on something at the same time, Joe would say, "Ready, yo heave." Like we were pirates or something. Mostly everything was swearing. I think I could swear for five minutes straight and not repeat myself.

Before we were recalled to Alden the final time, we got up as far as the town of Deleven. It was our lunch hour and we were near the town park. In little towns, sometimes the community park is built around the water tower. I climbed up the water tower ladder and looked around. For some stupid reason I took a dime out of my pocket and flipped it up into the air. It disappeared out of site. Next I heard Pete yell "ouch". I climbed down and saw Pete had the dime in his hand. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and thought a bee had stung him on the shoulder. He slapped what he thought was the bee, looked in his hand, and saw a dime. Until I made my descent, he couldn't figure out where the dime came from. The stupid stuff you remember.