The Foreman by Dr. Juan Harrison
The Foreman
Taking a break from my feed mill job at Farmers Co-Op, I latched onto a construction job building the Glenhaven or Belmore Apartments on Belview and South Moore. This began my fascination with seeing buildings transform from dirt and steel to finished structure. Construction would become a regular part of my schoolteacher summers.
Everything was new to me. I delivered bricks to the brick layers, lumber to the carpenters, tied rebar and smoothed mud for the concrete finishers, and ran wire with yellow goop on it through skinny conduit for the electricians. Not having a car, I was able to get a car friend a job which gave me a way to get there.
A brief shout out to all the guys who helped me get to work at all my jobs and ball practices—Lynn Roberts, Jimmy Goggans, and the rest. To that add guys like Jerry Spencer, Wayne Parker, J-Rod Melton, Joe Brown, Jerry Boatman getting me back and forth to Texas Tech for gas money. And thanks Mom for the use of the 57 Chevy that I filled up with gas and used in a pinch when she wasn’t carrying my four sisters to and fro.
The boss stopped me one day to tell me what a good job I was doing. They promoted me to foreman of the sheetrock crew. My job was to get stacks of compressed chalk through skinny windows without destroying them. The first floor wasn’t so bad. We worked out a system to angle the sheets and did it with a minimum of damage. The second floor with no forklift was a trip. It involved setting some narrow wobbly 2×12’s on scaffolding and getting sheetrock from the ground to the scaffold through the second story windows. The trick was to do this without dropping the sheets, falling between the scaffold flooring or accidentally getting knocked to the ground.
Things were going good. I was being my usually bossy 18-year-old self giving orders and looking up at the windows. I forgot to look down at my feet which ran out of boards. My first experience with flying was semi successful. I fell between boards removing the skin from my arms but fortunately I landed on the ground below on my rear of my 120 lb. frame. There was no sympathy and much laughter. I crawled back up and rejoined the crew much humbler for at least a half hour.
As the job wound up the boss called me into the office with a couple of other veteran foreman. They wanted me to go with them on the next job and learn the construction trade. I thanked em but I told em my mama would be upset if I didn’t become the first in the family to go to college and become a Red Raider. Again, my life is an example of an ordinary guy given opportunities to be blessed by God. With a lot of sweat and a lot of gratitude I hope I haven’t disappointed Him.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
