Green Star Setting

Posted on April 20, 2013 by fsdthreshold

Get the double meaning there? About a year ago, I wrote a post called “Green Star Rising,” telling you all about my new job. That star is “setting” now, serenely and with lovely grace, as I count down my last little while at the plant. And “setting” is also the place where a story happens. Yes, here is a look at the setting — a glimpse behind the “Green Curtain.”

My position: the mouth of the big chute on Belt 19

My position: the mouth of the big chute on Belt 19

The photo above shows where I’ve stood for most work days of the past year. My place is between that wheeled trash bin and the orange-rimmed chute. Ralph used to stand right across the belt from me. You can see the coding instructions on the sign: “comingle” is what comes at us, but it’s also the chute down which we throw all cans and bottles, regardless of the material they’re made of. They go on from there to guys who sort them more specifically. Because there’s not a red “trash” chute near me, I have to put my trash into the bin and dump it whenever it gets full into a red chute farther back along the line. You’d be amazed at how quickly even this large bin fills up.

Belt 19 on the paper line

Belt 19 on the paper line

Here, you can see my gloves on the handle of my trash bin. There are inner wool gloves (probably synthetic wool) and outer, tough gloves capable of withstanding the jagged edges of broken glass and torn metal. But these are still the lightweight gloves of the plant. The guys who handle the stuff as it first comes in from outside wear gloves that are actually armored. Those are the men who might face engine blocks, decomposing deer, unexploded contact bombs from the war, alien spacecraft . . .

Looking across Belt 19 at the chute of Belt 21

Looking across Belt 19 at the chute of Belt 21

So Ralph used to work on the far side of this near belt. Behind him, back-to-back with him, Punkin used to stand at the far belt in the position corresponding to mine. Yum-Yum stands there now.

It appears to be snowing in these photos. That’s the camera’s flash reflecting off dust-motes in the air. You can’t normally see them. I was rather startled when I saw these pictures. This is what we’re breathing at the best of times. This was before the work day started, when the machinery wasn’t moving, when tons of comingle weren’t roaring through the system, bouncing and kicking up clouds, bags and containers rupturing open, spewing stenches and powders into the air. Sometimes a cloud envelops us, and we simply hold our breath for awhile; sometimes it’s so thick and prolonged that we have to step away from the belt until it dissipates, and we take little breaths from the direction away from the cloud source. Most clouds, however, don’t have a clear “source” . . .

Me at my post on Belt 19

So here I am, waiting for the belt to start up. Spider is checking his list and seeing if it matches up with who’s present. He’s counting guys on our deck and sending more up if we need them. It’s four men to a belt, eight on our deck.

Me at my post on Belt 19

Me at my post on Belt 19

Our required gear: hardhat, high-reflectivity shirt or vest, gloves, plastic eye-protecting glasses, and ear plugs.

Jeff and a "book"

Jeff and a “book”

Here, my friend and co-worker Jeff displays a magazine gleaned from the comingle. As Ralph always said, “The line provides.” Many of the guys typically refer to such magazines as “books,” as in, “Hand me that book!” It’s a good euphemism, I guess. But I do wonder what they think, knowing that I write books. Hmm . . .

My personal catwalk

My personal catwalk

Ralph called them “catwalks”; Gizmo called them “landings”; I’ve also heard them called “balconies”: they are the access ways that traverse the plant’s depths two, three stories and more above the main floor. When the machines go down, when we’re sent for cleanup at odd times, I generally start by climbing over my railing and cleaning off this catwalk (visible here at the bottom of this red ladder). It’s quite clean in this photo. I must have been down there! At the far end of this one and up a ladder to the left, you can reach The High Place.

Below my railing

Below my railing

This is just to the left of where I stand. If I look down over my railing, this is the view. I also frequently stand on those girders and sweep them off. A lot of the cleanup involves tugging shreds of plastic and paper out of tight places where it lodges as it floats downward. This debris accumulates like this because it spills over the edges of the belt on its journey up to us. The main area I always clean up at the day’s end is this floor here, beneath our deck.

The cardboard shaft: a possible entrance to the Underworld

The cardboard shaft: a possible entrance to the Underworld

This is my favorite chute in the plant. This is where the boxes go: corrugated cardboard, cereal boxes, beer boxes, paper egg cartons, and all such like. It’s open on the east somewhere far below, and sometimes early sunlight slants into it from the side, lighting up the depths of it with a glow that’s rosy at first, then orange, like the paint on its rim. If one went far enough down this shaft, I suppose one would eventually come to the River Styx, where Charon poles his boat eternally through the mists, taking cardboard to the land of the dead.

Yum and me

Yum and me

Here’s my line leader, Yum-Yum, a good-hearted man. He often announces his arrival on the deck by singing a sustained, operatic note that echoes through the cavernous spaces. His nickname comes from his bag of edible provisions, which he generously gives to hungry souls. On the rare occasions when Yummy is away, some guys don’t eat. Lord, bless Yum-Yum!

Jeff and Yum-Yum

Jeff and Yum-Yum

That’s a grape drink Yum is holding. Here, you can see the difference in garb between a temp worker (left) and a full-time employee of the company (right).

Large metal scrap

Large metal scrap

Here’s what we do with the large pieces of (mostly) metal that come crashing down at us — the lawnmower blades, license plates, Giant Eagle swords, car parts, bases of fans, etc. If we can locate the thing that hit the belt, we drag it off the belt and drop it here, from where the line leader eventually takes it downstairs. The plant can sell such items as scrap metal. You can see why I keep my hardhat on, working in the point position. All of this scrap you see here is stuff that has come rumbling over the apex of the belt above me and down onto our belt — sometimes beneath the protective hood, sometimes outside it. When we hear a crash, it’s sometimes impossible to find what made the sound, since it might be buried under the other comingle on the belt.

Bales of mixed paper

Bales of mixed paper

And here’s our product: here’s what comes out of the mighty baler. These are stacked blocks of mixed paper with all the junk and other recyclables sorted out of them.

Looking toward the tipping floor

Looking toward the tipping floor

See the large space at the back of the building, beyond the bales? This is the tipping floor, where the payloaders and trucks bring in the comingle. High as the mountains of it are, back under the old management, we would occasionally run out; now, as I understand it, there are more contracts for it, and an inexhaustible supply. This is the capital city of My Man the Rat.

A river of cans

A river of cans

So there you have it: a look inside. It’s been a great year. As my college friend David M. once told me: “Great adventures are not always easy; but they are always worth it.” Wise words.

The main floor

The main floor

This is looking down from our paper line toward the office — the cubicle in about the middle of the picture. The dumpster in the top left is for wire. And the dust rains forever down on the just and the unjust alike . . . or else those are orbs, and this is a very haunted plant — haunted by the ghosts of a thousand temporary workers and legendary old full-timers, all wandering the floors and catwalks in search of a rake or broom, waiting for the call to break time or lunch, or best of all, the shift’s end. Dona eis requiem. Their voices echo, telling of exploits, swapping stories to outdo one another . . . joking, laughing, singing long notes . . . and ever, the engines growl and the trucks bring more comingle, always more; and the rats in their deep cities find what they can find.

 

 

Adventures in Third Hollow

Posted on April 15, 2013 by fsdthreshold

The Saturday before last, April 6, Julie and I ventured into the rugged bluffs overlooking the Beaver River — and thence into the wooded ravine known as Third Hollow. We were partly in quest of Skull Cave, which Julie had explored as a young teenager . . . but mostly in quest of a good hike on a day of burgeoning early spring.

April 6, 2013

April 6, 2013

I experienced at once how different much of western Pennsylvania is from most of the Midwest, especially when one is off the beaten track. There’s a lot more vertical out here! After a pleasant meander along the bluff-top, the path plummeted over the edge, into the Hollow. Yes, Julie assured me, this was the way down she remembered. So over the brink we went . . .

The Beaver River at Beaver Falls / New Brighton, PA

The Beaver River at Beaver Falls / New Brighton, PA

We descended from the far wall of the ravine in this picture, followed the stream along its bottom, climbed that same wall, traversed its top (and discovered some intriguing “standing stones” — the concrete remains of long-abandoned bridges?), went to the bottom again, and scrambled up this wall, from the top of which this photo above was taken.

The stream in Third Hollow

The stream in Third Hollow

Water and stone, soil and wood, birds and sky . . . green life peeking through the winter-worn carpet . . . the chatter of water careening toward the river, giddy with spring.

Waterfall

Waterfall

You know how Alan Lee uses those watercolors to bring Middle-earth to life in the genuine tones of the Earth? This hike was like walking through an Alan Lee painting.

P1050463I did not realize until I crossed the stream and looked back that I’d been sitting on such a cantilever perch!

P1050456I don’t know how many miles we covered, but they were all good ones, and a great many of them were steeply pitched. (No, we did not precisely find Skull Cave . . . this time. Later, from across the river, we gazed at the stretch of rock face where it must be, based on expert testimony, and I think I must have been standing at one point on a ledge just above it. But it was hiding. Appropriate, for the object of a quest. But I’m thinking of one message of Shadowlands, the movie about C. S. Lewis: one doesn’t have to come completely before the goal to attain the fulfillment of all that the goal means. By grace, our quest for Skull Cave was in every way a success.)

P1050446One true highlight was this picnic above the waterfall.

Waterfall in Third Hollow

Waterfall in Third Hollow

Such days are far too short . . . yet they’re the sort we remember throughout our lives.

P1050450

Bilbo wrote: “For still there are so many things that I have never seen; /

In every wood, in every spring, there is a different green.”

In the words of Psalm 145:10: “All Your works shall praise You, O Lord . . .”

 

 

 

 

Whan That Aprille

Posted on April 4, 2013 by fsdthreshold

Spring is here now! I declare it! The winter that would not let go has at last slid howling and clawing into the frigid abyss, and warmer air is astir. The crocus shoots in my backyard have a chance. The cherry blossoms will open. And folk will “longen to go on pilgrimages.” Writing is in the air. I’ve been making some progress again on my book. And when one isn’t frozen and miserable, the recycling plant becomes weirdly fun again. (My days there, though, are drawing swiftly to a close. I’m ready to move on — but I’d be lying if I said that I won’t miss it.)

We really made the most of Holy Week. Highlights were:

* special choir ensembles (ad hoc choirs) on Palm Sunday and Easter — I got to sing tenor, and Julie accompanies such choirs on the piano — newly tuned for Easter!

* Maundy Thursday worship

* attending the three-hour Good Friday service at Grace Anglican Church on Mt. Washington — my second year, but done this year at Julie’s suggestion. She got to meet my Anglican brethren there, and vice-versa. (That was my regular church for a good while after moving to Pittsburgh.) In my experience, no one does Good Friday like the Anglicans!

* driving around late on Saturday night looking for a church doing an Easter vigil, and failing to find one — but admiring an empty-but-beautiful Greek Catholic church in the moonlight.

* playing trombone on a couple Easter hymns.

But anyway, now we’re in the season of Easter, aglow with Resurrection light, and I have to tell you about this remarkable day.

I left the house as usual in the pre-dawn darkness, swung by the post office to mail a birthday card (you know who you are, o friend of this blog!), and headed for Neville Island. But even as I started out from the post office, I wondered, “Were my headlights always this dim?” As I entered the Stowe Tunnel, I noticed a red “Service” light on my dashboard, which shouldn’t have been on. Uh-oh.

About the time I came out of the tunnel, all heck was breaking loose. Every light on the dashboard was winking on and off at random. I’d just had a turn signal flasher replaced, so at this point I was thinking, “Okay, the wiring is messed up. The engine seems fine, so I’ll have to take the car in again right away and get to the bottom of this.”

But things got worse and worse as I crossed the bridge onto the island. The headlights cut out. The turn signals wouldn’t work. The speedometer showed I was going zero miles per hour, though I was doing about 35. The gas gauge showed empty, though I knew the tank was half full. In short, no electricity at all was now getting to the dashboard. Then the car started losing power. I was halfway between home and work — too far to walk in either direction.

As the engine quit altogether, I was just able to turn into a parking lot (no power steering) and glide to a neat stop where I was out of the way of the parking spaces and quite visible to tow truck drivers — and off the road. By God’s grace, that was the perfect place for the car to have died. The parking lot belonged to a business where lights were on; through a large front window, I could see a girl in an office starting her day.

Now, here’s the thing: because the plant is a dusty environment that requires maximum freedom of movement, I hardly ever take my wallet or phone out there. Every morning, I stick my driver’s license and my car keys into my pockets, and that’s it. On days when I’m meeting someone (that is, Julie) right after work, yes, I’ll take along my phone and some bus fare, just in case the car won’t start — I do think of these things. But this wasn’t such a day.

So you see what a blessing it was that my car shut down at a place where there was a human presence and a phone! There are long stretches of the drive that have neither. If it hadn’t been perfectly timed — if I hadn’t gone by the post office — things might have been much more inconvenient. So thank you, friend with the birthday! And thanks, God!

I tapped on the window glass, and though the office girl looked uncomfortable at having to deal with this scruffy guy in filthy clothes and a bandana, she allowed me into the vestibule, let me use the phone through a sliding window, and was very helpful in providing her company’s name, address, and phone number for me, so I could call Triple A. Again, I was thankful that I’d stalled out at a business with an actual address — much easier than describing to Triple A the approximate location on some road. She even found the number of my staffing agency so that I could call Frank, my boss. He was very kind and understanding.

So Triple A came, ran a test, and determined that I just needed a new battery (exactly as Frank predicted!). They had one on the truck. It was installed in five minutes. The driver followed me back to my place so I could pay him. That’ll teach me to have my wallet with me! Called Frank again to consult, and he said the bosses out at the plant would very likely let me work today if I just went there and explained — so I did, and all was cool. I started my work day at 8:30 instead of 7:00.

One other nice thing — because I’d come in late, another, new temp was manning my usual place. Daniel, the acting line leader today, had me come over and take the counterpart spot on Belt 21, which I’d never worked before. We worked about an hour until the morning’s first break. At that break, the awesome line boss Dan motioned me into the office and asked me why I wasn’t at my usual spot. I filled him in. He immediately got Spider’s okay for me to get back to Belt 19 where I belonged. He said too much junk was getting through without me there. Well, he didn’t say “junk.” He said “blue sh**,” which refers to the predominant color of the plastic bags in the comingle. So that was encouraging. My absence on Belt 19 makes a difference!

I really like the guy working across from me now. There’ll never be another Ralph, but this guy is funny and has great common sense, and we work well together. We’re each grabbing a lot, but we both know how to check ourselves. (You’d be amazed at how many guys just don’t get this principle!) What’s important is that one guy or the other should apprehend a given piece of non-paper. If one guy has it or is going to get it, the other guy should go for something else. There’s more than enough for both. Ralph and I did this well. And this new guy is the first one since Ralph who is also doing it. Yay!

He cracked me up today when, during a rare, slower moment, when we were exhausted from the company’s corporate greed, he exclaimed, “Aw, f*** it!” and “threw” himself onto the belt as if driven over the edge and deciding to end it all. I rescued his hard hat, which was on its way toward the falls. He actually rode the belt for a few feet. I’m sure he broke quite a few safety regulations, but he was in no danger, and it was funny.

And finally, I had another brush with dramatic danger. In the late afternoon, there came a slammity-bangity-bang-clanggg, and a giant, shiny metal blade whirled toward me and ended up just in front of me, as if presenting itself and wanting to be thanked for sparing my life. I lifted the thing off the belt and measured its size. With one end on the floor, it came up to my waist — that was the length. The width was the same as from the heel of my hand to my fingertips. One of my co-workers asked, “What’s that?!” and another said, “That could take someone’s head off!” One edge was sharpened. The whole thing was shiny, and someone had written “Giant Eagle” on it, which is the name of a major supermarket chain out here. So I was narrowly spared today from the sword of Giant Eagle.

I was narrowly spared from many things. As we all are, every day.

Thanks be to our risen Lord! Thanks, Lord, for spring!

 

March Snow: Two Wonders

Posted on March 6, 2013 by fsdthreshold

We’re into March, but winter won’t quite let go of us yet. The forecast, however, is for temperatures that look like the arrival of the cavalry . . . like the coming of Gandalf with reinforcements to the battle of Helm’s Deep.

I awoke during the night and glanced out the window to see a swirl of white flakes. I was glad I’d pulled my car into the alley from the other direction and parked it facing downhill; that can be of critical importance when the alley gets snowy and icy. Waking during the night is nice. I enjoy knowing I have another few hours to sleep. One finds luxury where one can.

Well, it wasn’t a big snow. It was just a soft, wet blanket an inch or so deep. But it was enough to transform the landscape this morning into something otherworldly. In the gray half-light when I emerged from the short Stowe Tunnel, I couldn’t help but bask in the sight of the trunks, limbs, and branches, all limned in white, all feathery and ghostly against the twilight of the wooded hills. That was the first wonder.

The second came at lunch break. We trooped down from our work decks and exited the plant. Just across the narrow courtyard, behind the break trailer, is a huge building of corrugated metal, now unused — the relic of some former era of the recycling operation. In the morning when I arrive, I nearly always peer into it as I pass. There are gaping doorways, jagged holes, a “Keep Out” sign, and the just-visible shapes of stairways and platforms illuminated by shafts of light from the dilapidated roof. It’s a vast, dim cave where the rats might exercise their freedom of assembly and whisper together in nefarious rat-claves . . . a place where anything might happen. It’s the Moria of Greenstar — perhaps orcs are spawned there — who knows? Perhaps the lords of the plant delved too deeply there in their quest for aluminum and awoke things that ought not to be disturbed.

At any rate, as we came out of our newer plant for lunch, the snow — beyond sight on the high roof of this abandoned building — was melting. The sun was out, the sky was brilliant blue, and all the walkways were an ooze of mud and puddles. And from the edge of the corrugated roof poured cascades of water! Imagine it — the great wall, the face of this ruin, had become a tremendous waterfall! I stopped in my tracks for a long moment to admire it. The water flowed on and on in a seemingly endless sheet, a curtain of diamonds as long as a city block, dazzling in the sun, splashing in the mire, making a susurrus like a heavy rain out of a clear sky!

To get to the break room (different from the trailer), we all have to pass between pillars under one edge of this same roof, where it forms an open bay that can be driven through. (The plant owns, for hauling comingle, a behemoth of a truck that would never pass inspection for the road. It spews billowing clouds of oily exhaust and makes a frightful racket as it growls through this bay. Gizmo used to drive it, though he’s been gone for awhile. Yet he may be back — guys come and go, and many treat this place as a haven where you can always find work at the drop of a hat. I’ve heard that Gizmo is doing well.)

So, to enter this shadowy bay, we had to forge right through the waterfall. I stepped up to its foot, took a breath, and plunged ahead. If the water-gems pinged off my helmet, I hardly felt them — and somehow, I didn’t get wet.

And — further wonder — inside the murky drive-through cave, with the depths of the neglected building looming beyond the fissures in the far wall, melt-water was also streaming down through rusted holes in the roof — falling water in shafts. It was very much like being in some grand cavern admitting a river . . . quite a breathtaking sight!

Man makes buildings for his purposes. Time erodes them. Forests grow up through the bricks and cracked foundations of old Pittsburgh. Then come the light and the snow and the water to create extraordinary effects, momentary visions of the sublime. By the end of lunch break, the waterfall was over. But it had been there! I beheld it and walked through its shining gate.

These Snowy Hills

Posted on February 23, 2013 by fsdthreshold

There is an austere beauty to the wintry hills of western Pennsylvania.

Just west of Pittsburgh, February 2013

 

Pine Hollow Road

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m letting  pictures do nearly all the talking this time. Life is busy — good and full of blessings, but busy.

There are stories in these hills, among these trees. I can hear the tales whispering together, a deep carpet of them long in the accumulation, like fallen leaves.

The latest news is that Greenstar has been bought by Waste Management, so technically I no longer work for Greenstar, though it will be a while before all the old logos are phased out. And there are no immediate changes for us temporary workers.

A stream flows beside Pine Hollow Road. We may be looking at the pine and the hollow here!

The foreman, Spider, did something very nice for me last week while sending me out on a special assignment to clean all the scrap paper and plastic out of the long back fencerow. He pulled me off the paper line to do this, which meant it was important, not just a time-killing cleanup chore such as we sometimes have to do when the machines are down or there’s no comingle. (They’re doing all they can to spruce up the place to make a good impression on the new management.) “I know if I send you,” he told me, “I won’t have to keep checking on you.” Then suddenly he asked me, “What are we paying you for? Seven and a half hours, or eight?” I answered seven and a half. “I’ll try to get you eight from now on,” he said — and so he did. The company now calls my days eight hours. They’re essentially paying me for my lunch break, too. It amounts to about eighteen more dollars per week. Very kind of them — good to be acknowledged.

See the little frozen waterfalls (icicles) under the ledge?

I keep wishing there were caves around here. There are a few in Pennsylvania, but it’s not much of a cave state.

And one more:

My boss Frank told me a hilarious story this week. It seems there was a time not too long ago at Greenstar when some of the guys would carry cans of spray paint to work with them, a different color for each guy. When they’d encounter a rat at close range, they’d shoot a cloud of paint at it — so each guy could identify his own rat when he saw it again later. Wow, huh? I’m guessing the rats weren’t too thrilled . . . or maybe they were . . .

 

 

She Said “Yes”!

Posted on February 8, 2013 by fsdthreshold

Back in about 1985, Dr. Henry L. Lettermann told his Understanding Literature students (of whom I was one): “Find the Reader — the one who reads what you write before anyone else does. Find the Reader and marry it. That’s what I did, and it’s wonderful.” By grace, I’ve found a girl who, on our first date, said, “I’ve ordered Dragonfly.” And then she proceeded to read it, despite her unbelievably busy schedule. And then we had a deep discussion of it.

It is with inexpressible joy and with trembling before the Lord that I announce to you here that my dear one, Julie, said “Yes” in reply to my proposal this week! (Well, actually she said an emphatic “Yeah!” and then formalized it to “Yes!”) So, by God’s infinite grace, I can now type, for the very first time, that I have a fiancee. We are engaged!

Fred & Julie, Self-Portrait, Frick Park, Fall 2012

We started dating last July. She lives a little less than an hour away from me, but we’ve proven (by grace) that interposing miles are not such a great obstacle.

Like me, Julie has been a missionary overseas for many years. She’s been back in the States a little longer than I have, and she’s a lot farther along in her education.

February 2013

She’s working on her PhD in Intercultural Studies, particularly focusing on worship in her mission field. She teaches at three different colleges/community colleges. And last semester, she actually had her students reading this blog and doing writing assignments based on it! (Which is why I waited to say anything about us here . . . had to wait for the fulness of time . . . had to wait for that semester to end!) She speaks at least three languages, plays piano and guitar, and sings like an angel! I absolutely love her family, too — it’s been delightful getting to know them, and they’ve been so warm, accepting, and supportive!

the ring

You know, I’d never thought much about diamonds in my life. I always wondered what all the fuss was about, when you could make something many-faceted and shiny out of plastic. But shopping for this ring, I understood. I began to feel a bit Dwarvish, enchanted with the sparkle of precious stones. Diamonds are pretty. And you can’t get the same effect with plastic! Of all the rings I looked at, this simple, elegant round band with the single round-cut stone kept calling to me and whispering Julie’s name. I couldn’t help making all sorts of connections to The Lord of the Rings, of course, throughout the process. Fortunately for all concerned, I kept them (mostly) to myself. This rather looks like one of the three rings for the Elves, doesn’t it? I’m thinking Nenya, the Ring of Waters, crafted by Celebrimbor — and the only one of the three to remain with its original owner for the duration! (Bodes well for an engagement ring, don’t you think?) Celebrimbor himself gave it to the Lady Galadriel, and she used it to bring healing to Middle-earth. This one of Julie’s is white gold, probably the closest metal we’ve got to mithril. And a white stone, too, just like Nenya’s! On the night of our engagement, Julie agreed that she was very lucky indeed that the hand of Sauron never touched or sullied any of the three rings. Sigh . . . ours will be a very nerdy and adventuresome marriage!

(I think on the morning of the wedding, I’m going to have to imitate Bilbo. I’ll dash toward the church, and I’ll have my Best Man yell out, “Mr. Frederic! Where are you going?” And I’ll wildly shout back, “I’m going on an Adventure!”)

Christmas Eve 2012

We complement each other very well. We laugh at the same things. Our beliefs line up. She’s more academic/non-fiction to my fantasist/fiction, but we each respect and appreciate each other’s disciplines, and we’re both writers and teachers. (I can spill the beans now — it’s her college classes I’ve been substitute teaching for, when she’s been on academic/learning trips.) One of the really nice aspects of a relationship, I’ve noticed, is the joy of introducing each other to favorite stories, be they books or movies. Also music! Julie recently showed me the movie Babette’s Feast, which belongs on the small shelf of your ten favorite films of all time. If you haven’t seen it, do so. Trust me. It has unforgettable things to say about art, love, sacrifice, and life.

Anyway, “Find the reader and marry it.” Remember my summer office, the writing space in Frick Park? This greeted me there one afternoon:

Frick Park

I am complete. All glory, honor, praise, and thanks be to God!

 

Summer Days in January

Posted on January 30, 2013 by fsdthreshold

Well, now I’ve heard everything. Today at work we actually ran out of trash to be sorted, so they let us go at 11:00 a.m.! We ran out — in the kingdom of trash! The enormous bay where they keep the incoming was totally empty. I’ve never seen it in that state. It looked like Whoville after the Grinch stole Christmas! There was not so much as a crumb for my-man-the-rat! I’m sure they’ll be getting more in tonight, though, so we’ll be up and running tomorrow. They’re probably calling emergency trash delivery services all over the eastern U.S.

Except we mustn’t call it “trash” — Gizmo corrected me today. It’s properly called “comingle,” spelled that way, and pronounced with a long o. Comingle is the wondrously-varied material we process, which is a pretty good name for it. The rivers that flow into Greenstar are the melting-pots of the world. When we’re done with it, then it’s “trash.” Trash is what I throw into my bin and empty into the trash shaft. Trash is what we pull out of the comingle. But I guess in the world of professional recycling, calling comingle “trash” is like being in the service and calling your piece a “gun.” Heh, heh! Good thing the boss didn’t hear me!

Ah, comingle . . . in the trailer today, guys were swapping stories about the worst things that have landed on them and the worst smells they’ve encountered. Spider had the ultimate tale, involving a dead raccoon, though I won’t describe exactly what the encounter left all over him. Apparently they’ve seen dead sheep, too, and a bunch of dead turkeys all at once. I’ve heard tales of deer. Yes, recycling dead farm and forest animals is a really great idea. More people should do it. I’ve found that a good many people treat recycling bins as magical portals into which to throw anything you want to disappear from your life.

So . . . sad to report it, but yesterday, for the first time, I had my own first dead animal experience on the line. In the bottom of my field of vision, I glimpsed what I thought was a wad of rags. I had just laid hold of it when I saw it clearly: a very large, shiny black dead rat. (Rest its soul!) I exhibited the typical human reaction — I let go of it quickly. It went on down the line, and I watched the reaction of the guy backing me up. You could see the process of him seeing it, the split-second of the sight sinking in, and then he jumped backwards about two feet. Then he started excitedly telling everyone within earshot and looking to me for confirmation.

My-poor-man-the-rat drifted on down the line with the river of paper and went over the falls. I suppose that’s a good and fitting funeral for a Greenstar rat. Like Boromir at Rauros.

But anyway, these last two days have been balmy — up in the fifties and sixties, after a terrible week in the teens — and it’s been wonderful wearing jeans again, not being encumbered with a bulky coat, not having frozen gloves . . . some of the summer fun of Greenstar has come back, and I’ve been enjoying it for all it’s worth.

Yesterday morning was foggy — so foggy in the pre-dawn dark that I could see very little around the car but curtains of white as I drove to work. Even when the sun rose, the world was all veiled and vaporous beyond the open doors of the plant. At the first break, I always enjoy looking up at the mountain across the Ohio River (“I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from where does my help come?”) — I like seeing how the trees look, and watching the birds wheel in the sky. I like being reminded of the world of nature all around our circles of human endeavor. Out there is where my book seems to be rooted, this novel I peck away at. Even when they’re set indoors, like this one mostly is, they’re rooted out there. That’s where they draw their life from.

Since I had the half-day off today, I wrote. One must use gifts. 753 words today — not spectacular, but great for a couple hours on a free afternoon — terrific for a day on which I’d never dreamed in the morning that I’d be writing! Gross total: 124,661. It’s going to be a hefty book, even after the shortening of editing. Oh, for three weeks to do nothing but write!

But back to the strangely magical world of the recycling plant . . .

Cleanup is an endless process there. Cans, bottles, shreds of plastic, and other bits of detritus rain constantly from the seams and over the walls of the thundering belts. Some of these things snag on the machinery and on the support girders, some accumulate on the catwalks, and some make it all the way down to the floor. My area of specialty lately has become the catwalks, simply because I’m the guy who likes to do it. Today, after about half an hour of regular work in the morning, we had to keep ourselves busy finding stuff to clean up. Even though there was no comingle, there was plenty of other material going through the plant — cans, bottles, cardboard . . . I could see other guys in other distant perches sorting away on their belts. I just kept making a circuit, my three catwalks, the High Place, the main floor, around the baler, under the paper line, back to the catwalks . . . I cleaned them off three or four times.

There’s a cool little place I think of as the Shrine of the Saint. It’s a place where short flights of metal stairs go down in two directions from a landing that accesses one of the lower belts; it’s a tight, dark little corner that can get frightfully full of trash and that often needs cleaning out. Well, the guys who labor at the plant have a sense of reverence for certain objects, which is nice to see. In the Shrine, someone found a plastic figure of one of the Wise Men from a Nativity scene. It’s about two feet high, molded plastic, full color; without the other two Wise Men to compare it to, I’m not sure which gift this one is bringing. Anyway, someone found it, and no one wants to throw it away, so it’s been set up in a little niche in the wall there. I like how it represents some sort of respect, some bowing of the head to holiness, and thus brings a blessing to that little corner of the dirty, rumbling world. Long may the Saint kneel with his gift atop the pillar of concrete!

Tomorrow, it’s back to winter. The temperature is supposed to plummet to about freezing, and on down past that for Friday. But it’s been a good little respite here in the wintry Uncanny City.

 

Dragon-Hoards and Caves of Ice

Posted on January 26, 2013 by fsdthreshold

A few days ago, when we all looked down from our paper-line balcony at work, the machine operators had amassed a vast pile of flattened aluminum cans. It was perhaps a dozen feet high, thirty feet across, and the cans were all of different colors. We were seeing it from above and at some distance. Away across the floor of Greenstar’s grand central cavern, it looked a lot like a pile of treasure, precious gems all a-glitter — a dragon’s hoard!

So we’ve come through a week of winter’s deep-freeze here in Pittsburgh. For a few days, temperatures were down in the teens (before wind chill); then it warmed up just enough to make snow possible. So we received a few more inches of that. There were cancellations and early school dismissals right and left.

“How cold was it?” you ask. Well, since the opening of the new break room at work, which is beside the front entrance gate, I’ve been leaving my lunch in my car; I pick it up there on the way to lunch break. This past week, my mini-carrots were all frozen by lunch time.

Also, when we take breaks, we typically leave our gloves on the handles of our trash bins up on the line. I came back after the fifteen-minute break on that first really cold day, and my reinforced outer gloves were stiff. I could hardly bend the fingers!

So, as you can imagine, I’ve been bundling up. I went to a thrift store and bought a heavy secondhand coat that can get as dirty as it wants to. I wear my seven layers with that on top as the eighth (I know this sounds like a fairy tale) — and Carol at Triad (my staffing agency) found me a bigger safety vest that will fit over all that. My summer bandana is now a knit hat, which the hardhat fits over. I’m wearing the insulated overalls I bought back in Taylorville. It’s frustrating how wearing all that cuts down on mobility. It’s a lot harder to bend to the floor to pick things up, and with stiff gloves, I can’t do nearly the fine snatching on the line that I could in warmer times. I think the plant should just shut down until a more reasonable season.

The authorities of Greenstar, though, have been quite decent and humane toward us workers. On the coldest days, they extended our break times a little, so that we could spend more time in the heated trailer. One day they ordered us pizzas for lunch! And they’ve let us know that, if we get too cold on the line, we can go down to the trailer one by one and warm up for ten minutes. I haven’t had to resort to that yet, but some of the guys do. Also, the bosses sometimes give out hand-warmers, those chemical baggies that emit heat when exposed to air. Having those inside the gloves helps a little, as does shoving some down into the toes of our boots. We stand on scraps of rug; we stand on pieces of cardboard if we have no rugs. Gizmo taught me the technique of nylon dress socks: wear a pair of those under two pairs of regular socks, and the toes don’t get quite as cold.

I had the privilege of substitute teaching once more on Thursday this past week, this time for a three-hour intensive writing class at the other school, the Community College of Allegheny County. I had even more fun with this class!

Okay, then . . . nothing spectacular this time around . . . just letting you all know I’m still here, still thrashing.