Peko Mine
The fan was running in the swamp color on the roof. Just the sound of the fan had a cooling effect as JB came into his cabin. . It was another hot day. It was 110 degrees in the shade, not as hot as it gets on a really hot day in January, but still, it had been a warm walk coming back from the air-conditioned mess hall.
The camp at Peko Mine was laid out in rows. . There were six rows of cabins, each row had about a dozen identical 12x12 wood-framed cabins. . They were all built up on four-foot stilts, letting the cooling air run under the floor.
JB took his paycheck out of the back pocket of his jeans. . He threw it in the bed and sat down at his makeshift desk with the Olivetti typewriter. . The duct from the swamp cooler came in right over his head raining cool air down on him.
For the next forty-five minutes, he was bent over his portable typewriter, telling a story about the fixed wing gliding he had been doing. He had constructed the story in his mind as he worked in the mines. So it was easy for him to just sit down, and in as long as it took him to type it, tell about the thrills of being pulled up in to the sky in the two-seater no-engine aircraft. . He told of the counterclockwise corkscrew effect as they climbed up on the column of hot air coming off the black till field of mine tailings.
As he took the sixth page out of the Olivetti, he thought about reading what he had written, but then he looked over on the bed and saw his still unopened pay check. . He put the pages in an envelope that had about a quarter of a ream of pages in it, sealed it up and put a sticker on the front of it with his father’s address in the States. With his paycheck, he would have enough to mail the package of writings off. In it was all the writing he had done since he got to the mines a month ago.
He cut open the envelope with his penknife and took out the pay slip. The dollar amount was a pleasant surprise. The pay slip was for $1,212.42. That was Australian dollars, they were worth about $.82 US dollars, but that was still a pretty nice little paycheck. The pay stub said that in two weeks he had worked 104 hours. He had been paid bonus for “deep work”, bonus for shift work, and a earned tally on the tonnage of 1,786 tons. He was charged $356.23 for his Mine Store bill, and the Det Room had charged him another $298.99 for the explosives, dets and drill steels he had bought. . His base pay before bonuses was $2.34 per hour. After all was taken out, he was left with over $1,200. That was pretty good wage for two weeks work! He reflected- that was pretty good. His rent was free in the mining camp. His meals were all free in the mess hall, four meals a day, not bad at all. He wondered weather he might have enough for a cheep car, or better yet, a motorbike.
The sun was right down at the horizon, a big red ball setting on the shrub-covered desert. It would cool off as soon as the sun had set. The Mine Store was open until eight, JB decided to take a walk down there and cash in his payslip. He took his writing envelope and headed down to the bottom end of the camp, away from the mess hall where the Mine Store was in the corner of the camp compound furthest from the smelter.
The smoke and steam were going straight up off the smelter. All the lights were on in the fading light. They were running three shifts a day these days. The Peko Mine smelter processed not only the ore from Peko Mine, but from Juno Mine as well, where JB worked. The two mines were 9 miles apart on the surface, but underground, it was said that the two were connected. Peko mine was a shallow mine, less then two miles deep.
JB had never been down in Peko mine. He tried to imagine it in his mind’s eye. It was a sloped shaft, not vertical and horizontal like the Juno Mine was. There were trains that brought the ore to the surface from the Peko mine. There was no mineshaft, it was just a drift that started at the surface and went down into the earth at the slope that the trains could manage. The trains had the third rail that had holes in the rail. A cogged wheel ran in that rail. The rails going down into the Peko mine where standard gauge, the rails were 4’6” apart. That was considerably bigger then the little 2’ gauge that JB worked with down in Juno mine. At Peko, the trains were wide and low. He had seen the railcars going down the descending drift. . He had been offered work in Peko, but the pay was not as good. . JB had asked the man he had hitched into town with “I have never worked in the mines, what job should I ask for?”
The driver of the Ute had said, “You want to earn a lot of money in a short time do you?” He was talking to JB as he piloted the Ute up the Stewart highway, a 40-foot wide swath of smoothed gravel. He had picked JB up at Wauchope.
“I am not sure what job I can do.”
“Well, why don’t you just ask for the highest paying job they’ve got?” That was just what JB had said when he was asked by the man at personnel. “I want the highest paying job you’ve got!”
The recruiter for the mines had laughed and said. “You can’t have my job, but I will give you the next best thing.”
That was how JB had landed the job he had now, Powder Monkey for Juno Mine. He was thinking as he felt the envelope in his back pocket, he was earning pretty good money. Working six and a half miles down, was no different from working forty feet down, he had been told. Once you leave the earth’s surface and start down underground, it really doesn’t matter how far down you go. It makes a lot more difference how hard the rock is. Juno was good solid rock. Working in a drift in hard rock can be compared to drilling a hole in a two by four. The sides and back won’t fall in. In soft rock, it is like drilling a hole in a pile of sand, you have to support the sides and back everywhere. The further down you go, the more weight there is on those supports. Even though Juno was one of the deepest mines in the world, it was still just as safe as working in a shallow mine like Peko. Working in the mines was not SAFE work. Two men had gotten killed over at the smelter two days ago. They had gotten up on a pile of ore that was being fed through a grizzly. They had been trying to free up the flow so the ore would run down through the grill of the grizzly. They had freed it up all right, not only the ore went down through the bars, they had been swallowed up as well. Both men had been killed before there had been time to even go for help.
Red had lost three fingers in Juno. He had been bogging, and got too far into a drift that intersected with a shaft. A rock had fallen down the shaft and hit his hand as it rested on the controls of the bogger. Sort of like being caught between a rock and a hard place, only the rock had reached terminal velocity in it’s descent down the shaft.
Then there was the Powder Monkey who JB was there to replace. He had not been injured or killed, he had quit after the rookie he was training, had been killed. They had been hauling some ladder sections up to the head of the drift. They had been lying over four rail cars. The rookie had been on the inside of a curve when the train came by. The Powder Monkey was operating the train from the Loco that is always on the downhill end of the train. The Rookie had been told that whenever a train had to pass him while he was in a drift, he was to lie down in the piss trench. There, there was enough room for the train to go by without hurting him. The rookie had hugged the wall, still standing. When the ladder sections came around the curve, they sliced him in two. (“That will teach him to lay down in the piss trench when a train has to pass him in a drift!”)
But the money was good. JB had $1,200 and he had all his meals paid for and a place to live. All he had to do for that money was work getting rock out of a hole six and half miles deep.
The Mine Store was a corrugated tin building with a big swamp cooler on the roof. It was a long building; perhaps 120’ long and 40’ from front to back. It was in the corner of the compound furthest from the dust, smoke and sulfur smells of the smelter. Above the door was a sign, “No money. No problem, Sign for it” This mine owned store was the only place to get anything short of taking the mine van into Tennant Ccreek, 22 miles to the east. They had a variety. They had one of the best assortment of gloves of any store anywhere. They had clothes, guns, ammo, alcohol free beer, snack food, a limited selection of groceries. If the mine didn’t raise it, all food had to either be flown in, or come in via the Stewart Highway from either Alice Springs to the south or Darwin to the North. The railhead was over a hundred miles to the west, not a lot got to Peko mine from the railway.
JB picked up a six-pound box of pellets, and took it and his envelope up to the counter. The pellets were for pistol club. Two nights a week the club would meet at the indoor range at Juno Mine. They would do target practice. JB found it cheaper to buy the pellets then to buy a gun. He had worked a deal with the shop foreman, if JB supplied the ammo, he would share his target pistol with JB. The rule in the Mine Store was that you couldn’t cash your check there unless you made a purchase. JB didn’t think the postage for his writing would be enough of a purchase, and he needed the pellets for pistol club. He hated to buy anything at the Mine Store. It seemed like that was just giving your money right back to the mine. If you bought enough there, you could work for nothing. They would let you buy on credit, then it would be taken out of your check before you saw it.
He was given a hefty stack of twenty-dollar bills.
The next day was Saturday. JB had worked the last two Saturdays, and he wanted to work this one as well. The way it worked was if you went down standing in front of the Mess Hall, all breakfasted and ready for a day’s work at half past six, they would then bring the mine van around and they would say how many men they wanted.
Well, this Saturday, JB was there, all fed and ready to go, but when the van came, they only wanted seven men, there were ten standing there. The driver asked, “Anyone want the day off?” JB looked at the others, no one was saying anything. He decided to take it. “I can take the day off, is there a van going to town later?” “Yep, I’ll be running in about eight, after I get all the men straightened around?”
“Be standing here at eight.”
JB was sort of elated as he walked back to his cabin. He had a day off, he had not had many, just Sundays. It was hard to get work on Sundays, but he had worked all the Saturdays except one since he had started. He was going to go to town and see what he could see.
The van let him off in front of the centrally located saloon. JB had no desire for the saloon. He needed to keep his wits about him. He didn’t need to go spending money on beer and girls.
There was a used car dealer up on the north edge of town. The Van driver had told him he might be able to pick up a cheap car there. JB walked down the gravel sidewalk, if you could call it that, along the front of the shops. The last place on the way out of town was the car dealer. He had a sorry collection. Some had flat tires, some had dust on them so you could hardly see the color of them. The ones in the front row were all clean and spiffy. On the far end of the front row was something that caught JB’s eye right off. It was a fire engine red, Holden Convertible. JB could just see himself tooling around in that with the top down. He went over to look at it.
“How much you looking to spend?”, came the thick Australian accent from behind him.
“Not a lot. How much you want for this car? Does it run?” JB looked at the dealer, wrinkled straw hat and pants tucked into his boots.
“Son, every vehicle in this lot runs, they all got here didn’t they. I don’t have a tow truck. They all drive in here on their own steam. Now, how much you looking to spend? How much you got?”
JB looked around the lot. He could see that the dealer was right. They had all been driven here. Each one made it this far and then was sold. Some took the bus the rest of the way, no doubt, some were lucky and flew out. But the vehicles all stayed here to find new owners. It was a 750-mile dirt road to the nearest city of any size. That was the northern port of Darwin. Most of these cars would have come up the Stewart Highway from the south. That was a 1,400-mile trip, and about 900 of that, was on gravel roads. All these cars, vans truck and bikes had made that trip.
“You want that convertible? It will cost you four grand. That, my friend, is the steal of the day. You could take that car up to Darwin today and get twice your money back.”
JB looked around the lot for something he could better afford. “You got any motorbikes?”
“I think I might have just the unit to fit your budget. It just came screaming in here last week. It has been through our shop and has had everything on it checked, tightened, and filled. She is ready to ride out of here. What do you think, a thousand dollars and she is yours!” He was now standing over a 750 cc Suzuki motorbike. It had a yellow tank and was more streamlined then any bike JB had ridden.
“Does it run?” The dealer reached down and hit the start button. The engine came to life. He quickly turned it off. “This would be quite a ride!”
“I can give you five hundred for it.”
“If you can come up with six hundred in cash, I will let you have it.”
JB bought the bike and the dealer was good enough to throw in the helmet the rider had worn into the lot and left behind. It was one of those helmets you climb in to rather then put on. It came right down to his chest.
As he was riding the bike out of the lot, he noticed that it was a bit unwieldy. It wanted to go straight. It was not too good at turning. It went right up through the gears and JB looked down at the south end of Main Street and saw he was doing just 75 mph. This was no dirt bike. This was a street bike. There was no pavement closer then Katherine to the north. That was the start of the paved road running into Darwin. It was two hundred miles to the north. Then the pavement coming out of Alice Springs was just a day’s ride to the south. He was going to have to ride on the gravel mining roads and the Stewart Highway. JB headed south out of town. The Stewart Highway is the only north-south road coming up from the populated areas of the south and going into to Darwin to the north. There was traffic on it. JB would scoot right along on the quick to accelerate bike. When he saw oncoming cars or trucks, he would slow right down. There was a shower of dust and chunks each time he passed a truck. Even the cars had a plume of dust in their wakes. About the third time a truck passed him, he decided to turn around and head back into town. He would take the less traveled road out to Peko.
He noticed on the odometer as he came back in to town that he had already put 50 miles on the bike. He was getting the feel of the bike. It felt good as the day warmed to have the breeze as he rode along. The bike did not like sharp turns, but at a good clip, it would handle quite well. It was designed for riding at highway speeds, only they had not thought of the Stewart Highway when they made highway speeds. Going through town, he slowed right down and ran through some of the back alleys of the town, behind the main street. The bike didn’t like being in the tight quarters of the alleys. He got out on the road to Peko Mine and opened it up. He shot up to 110 mph in no time.
Having never owned a car or any vehicle in the area, he didn’t know the road very well. JB was cruising along when he saw the road had a sharp bend in it. He leaned into it, and pulled that bike for all he was worth, the gravel was good and tight, and he was just able to hold it all together around the bend. He noticed that he could corner better if he let it have a bit of throttle in the curves. If he was slowing, it was hard to get her to come around. He could see the smelter at Peko off in the distance. He was still ten miles from home. He came to the turnoff got and onto the gliding strip. He decided to go out there and ride around the strip. Maybe someone would be out there gliding. The strip was almost paved, it was fine mill dust that had been cemented together somehow so it was like a seamless concrete runway. It was a great surface for the big Ute to pull the plane up along. The Ute would start slow, then as quick as he could he would accelerate up the strip. When the cable to the glider got to a certain angle, the cable would drop. If they wanted, the pilot could manually drop the cable before that, about the best was to bring theo nose right up and climb for all you can while you have the power of the Ute pulling you up. It is like a kid running with a kite.
No one was out there. JB stopped at the hanger, and the strip went off to the east from there. It was all a nice smooth surface. JB accelerated down the strip just as fast as he could. He found he had no room to jump into third gear. He was already at the end of the strip. He slowed as quickly as he could. At the end of the strip was a turn around area, then the desert beyond. It was quite a feeling to be barreling into a hazard as fast as that three cylindered bike could take you.
The rest of the way back to Peko, JB whet slower, just sort of let the bike idle along. . He got back to his cabin and got off the bike for the first time since he had gotten on it at the dealer’s yard. He parked it right in front of his cabin and went in to write all about his new toy.
He was writing when some of the others who had not worked today came around to have a look at it. . JB went out to bask in the glory of his new toy. . Someone asked him how much gas it took and how many miles to the gallon he got. JB had not looked in the tank. . The dealer had said that everything was filled. He opened the fuel fill and saw the bottom of the tank. It wasn’t dry, but there was not much fuel left. He had done less the 80 miles. The only place to get fuel at the mine was at the mine store. They charged four dollars a gallon. . (Hey, it had to get there somehow, and trucking fuel on dirt desert roads is no picnic!)

I see that the spacing errors and typos I corrected came out as new errors, sorry about that. I still have some work to do on this one.

I just want to let each of you know that God has Blessings with your name on them. Wishing you and yours( lovedones, friends and family) a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

JB Working
JB was working, standing on the side of the bogger, left hand forward, towards the ore pile. The bogger runs forward and back at the command of his right hand. Right hand towards the ore, takes the bogger back. Right hand back, brings the bogger towards the ore. The left hand controls the bucket. Left hand back and the bucket comes up, over the bogger and empties into the rail car behind. Put the left hand forward and the bucket comes back down to the scooping position. The bogger runs on a short track, at 90 degrees to the working rail line. JB works the machine into the ore with the right hand, gets a good scoop full, then raises the bucket with the left hand as he backs out with his right. As he backs, the bucket comes up. The airlines bend as the bogger moves back. The bucket passes over in front of JB's face, and as the bogger gets back to the waiting rail car, comes into position to dump over the back of the machine. A quick jerk of the right hand, stops the backward motion of the bogger and the scoop empties into the rail car.
The ore is coming down through a shaft, and JB is mucking it out as it comes down. The ore comes in various sizes and shapes, the bogger can pick up a two-foot square rock, but it is not good strategy to load a rock that big. All of the ore has to go through the grizzly, a grid of heavy steel, one-foot squares. The rock can be bigger then a foot in one direction, but it has to be able to go through the grizzly. The rocks too big for the grizzly can be popped up here where JB is working. If they get down to the grizzly, it is a sledgehammer and crowbar to get them down through the grizzly, no explosives down there. There is an electric light over the grizzly, and any popping done there would put out the lights. Up here in the working area there is no light other then the light on his helmet, without the helmet light there is total darkness, a darkness no one ever sees on the surface.
So JB mucks all the finer dirt out, filling one car, moving the train down, and filling another car, until a fresh charge or ore comes down, with it several large rocks. The bigger boulders will have to be drilled and set, the medium sized ones, still too big to go through the grizzly will be plastered with plastic explosives. So starting with the biggest of the new rocks, JB starts drilling, setting up the airline from the bogger on the air drill. The weight of the drill does most of the work. JB just has to hold it so it will drill downward. If the rock where too big to be drilled downward then the “airleg” would have to be used, a piston, with compressed air from the air line which will push the drill into the rock. But for the most part gravity will do the pushing, with a lot less effort. Drill two holes in the biggest rock. Anything bigger then a refrigerator gets two holes, bigger then a VW and it gets three, bigger then that and it won't fit down the shaft to get to him and it will have to be broken up above, before he ever sees it.
The fresh boulders take five holes, two in the two biggest ones, and one in a smaller big one. Each hole is about 18" deep, or into the center of the rock
whichever is more. To make an 18" hole the 2-foot bit will do the whole job.
To go deeper, start with the 2-footer, get it in there good, then take it out and put on the three-footer. There are four and five-footers there as well, but better not to use them if you don't have to, they get stuck and bent very easy when they are that long and are that far into the rock.
Charge the holes first. One stick for each, the smallest might do with less. JB has to pay for the explosives he uses, but he also has to work any too big ones down the grizzly, so better to use enough than to have to fight with them, or have to come back after a pop and have to reset and pop again. Having the hole in the correct place so the charge is in the center of the mass of the rock helps to ensure the resulting chunks will be small enough. The pay is by the amount of ore making it to the surface. The more you get out the more everyone gets paid. So, a stick for each hole, then the dets, and the mud. The fine silt mud in the trench is just the thing to be sure the bang stays in the hole. Then set up the plastered ones. A det in each; wired in series. The electrical charge going from one to the next to the next, never in parallel. If you put both the pos and neg to one charge, and again to another, there would be no way of telling if one charge had gone off or if you had a det still live in a piece of rock you are whaling away on with the sledge hammer. So, the dets are in series, the pos to one charge, to the neg of the next until you have a loop going around with each charge in the loop. Now if one goes off, they all do. The pos and neg you end up with are then connected to the det main wire, a wire running on the far side of the drift, along with the airlines, running back down the line to where the popping generator is. Both lines connected securely with a twist. A check to be sure everything it out of the way of the blast, the bogger is left with the bucket all the way up to keep any rock from getting behind it on the track.
Everything all set, get on the train, the loco, and head down to the popping
generator. The popping station is where the popping generator is located. This is at the switch in the tracks, about 400 feet from the work site and around two curves.
Up the other line is where the other work site is, about 500 feet away.
Stopping the train up above the switch, (keep the train between you and the
blast; it will stop a lot of the percussion from getting to you.) JB goes to
the detonation generator. Overhead in the airline there is a quarter-turn valve. Making sure his ear protection is on, good and snug, he turns the quarter turn valve. A train whistle sounds, 200 pounds per square inch in a four-inch airline, there is a two-inch whistle. It is loud enough that anyone close enough to be effected by the explosion should be able to hear the whistle. With the shrill blast of the horn continuously going, JB hooks the neg wire to the generator, then starts cranking on the handle as fast as he can. The little green light on the end of the box lights, still cranking away as fast as he can, JB touches the Pos wire to the terminal and quickly puts booth hands up over his ears and pushes at the muffs to his head. There is a dim flash as he touches the terminal, then a thud and then the wind. Just a sort breeze, and reach up and turn off the whistle. (If ever the whistle kept going after a pop, it would tell others there was something wrong. The one setting off the charge was not able to turn off the horn.)
After a pop, it is a good idea to go down to the grizzly and dump the cars, the gases in the area after a pop will give one a screaming headache. Better to go down and dump the cars and let the ventilation pull the air through and clear out the area.
It is a ten-minute train ride down to the grizzly. The grizzly is the first
light you come to as you come down the line. Until then the light on the helmet is all the light you have. The cars dump best when they are filled to the top, so they are a bit top-heavy. There is a trigger on the far side of the car, one foot goes on that, then rocking back and forth, the tip car is tipped over and the ore goes down on to, and hopefully through, the grizzly. Any pieces too big to go through have to be worked by hand, hit with the sledge and maneuvered with the crowbar, until they go down through the grizzly.
When the four cars are empty, it is time to go back and see how the popping went. The loco pushes on the way back up. The cars are light and will jump the track if you get going too fast, but it is up hill going back, and you get to know where you have to slow down a bit, at the switch by the popping generator is one place to slow a bit. Hit that switch at full speed and you'll have a derailed train to put back on.
Getting back up to the work site is a good idea to stop a bit short, you have four cars in front of you, and you can't see very well. If something was blown out on to the tracks, it is better to stop and get it off the track them to run into it or over it.
Hook the airlines to the bogger, and put it back up near the ore. Bring the train up and put the car closest to the loco just behind the bogger and you are ready to start mucking again.
The shifts come and go this way, popping and mucking, dumping tip cars and working the material down through the grizzly, four trains before break, and maybe three after is a good day, (there are a lot of days where something goes wrong and less then that happens.) Last thing of every shift you pop, this gives the on-coming shift a fresh start, and it gives the air, time to clear.
One thing about this practice of popping last thing, every shift you come on, you are coming into a work area where someone else has popped. Did they all go off? Where did they leave the extra sticks?

Good morning everyone. Hope you all had a pretty good weekend.


Wow, JB you have been busy writing.

Welcome Jazzie, thanks for stopping by.

ABC's of Friendship

(A)ccepts you as you are
(B)elieves in "you"
(C)alls you just to say "HI"
(D)oesn't give up on you
(E)nvisions the whole of you (even the unfinished parts)
(F)orgives your mistakes
(G)ives unconditionally
(H)elps you
(I)nvites you over
(J)ust "be" with you
(K)eeps you close at heart
(L)oves you for who you are
(M)akes a difference in your life
(N)ever Judges
(O)ffers support
(P)icks you up
(Q)uiets your fears
(R)aises your spirits
(S)ays nice things about you
(T)ells you the truth when you need to hear it
(U)nderstands you
(V)alues you
(W)alks beside you
(X)-plains things you don't understand
(Y)ells when you won't listen and
(Z)aps you back to reality

Hope everyone likes the ABC's of friendship. The author is unknown, something a friend shared with me.

JB,
I enjoyed your articles! Just recently, I was studying Australia, and I think the country is very interesting. I'd like to visit there someday.
Thanks for sharing these stories!
God bless.

C Angel

“I really believe that God can speak to us through any version we prefer to read, so it shouldn't be a matter that would cause divisions among believers"
Help me to be understanding. Help me to be forgiving. I have the King James. I guess I should be happy I have it and can find the verses for all the other versions. If you feel I am dividing a group, please, turn away and do not read anything I say.

NO, NO, NO!!!!!
Oh, no, JB, I didn't mean to imply that YOU were causing divisions!!! I just meant that some people might become so set on one version that they may cut themselves off from people who use other versions, or think that other versions aren't truthful, and the people who read them can't be real Christians.

I am so sorry you took that the way you did!! I didn't catch that comment till I has posted my comment about your stories. I didn't make it on here yesterday, (Sunday) because after church I went to my son's, then to my granddaughter's Girl Scout dinner, and then to evening church! Busy, but very nice day!

I love Earl Gray, too!!

Jazzie,
Thank you! Sometimes we need to be reminded of God's blessings!

I am new here and wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Welcome all the newcomers.

Hope everyone is enjoying their day. Also just a reminder when this thread hits 50 pages it will be closed. So I will make sure to have another up and running before that happens...

God Bless

Debbie
Christian Coffee House
Owner




P.S. Britty I might need your help on this one....If you see it getting close please let me know so we can keep this beautiful coffee house up and running.


P.S.S.

Please also people if you have a Teen Challenge in your area to support them. It's an amazing program. Once again I bonded with a few of the gals. And told them to stay strong and that I would pray for them. So overall prayer for all Teen Challenge program across the world....

Greetings to Kitty
Weclocome to our own little corner of Just Say Hi. Feel free to share.

Welcome Kitty - great to see a new member here.

Debs:
"Mon 12/10/07 08:34 AM
Welcome all the newcomers.

P.S. Britty I might need your help on this one....If you see it getting close please let me know so we can keep this beautiful coffee house up and running. "

You bet Debs - it's just what I hoped it would be from the start. I was under the impression that these would automatically start a new thread when they reached max - I thought I noticed some kind of note in the general section - I shall pop out of here and take a peek.

see you later...

Hi Debs - found it in the Games section - a little note from Mike about autolock and how the feature works when a thread gets to 50 pages. I did not repost as they want duplicate posts to a minimum - one reason why I try not to quote the whole section from another poster - just the important point, unless its a real short post.

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.

In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.

Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.

Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

'What are you doing?' I asked without fear,
'Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!'

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said 'Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.'
'It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,'
Then he sighed, 'That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers.'
My dad stood his watch in the jun! gles of ' Nam ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.

I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.

I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.'

'So go back inside,' he said, 'harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right.'

'But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
'Give you money,' I asked, 'or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son.'

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
'Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.'


LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum , Iraq.

Wow!

Hi JB, did that leave YOU speechless?

A friend emailed it to me today. I thought it was a nice thing to share.

talk to you later.

Good Evening, brothers and sisters.

JB.!!! Good read, I'll read more later. I like the third person narrative. Very interesting. I can already see that you have been living life in living color!!! Cool!

(The boy's name is Richard)
****ey Lamb
JB and ****ey Lamb were riding their bikes, on the way home from seventh grade. The school was in West Concord, and the boys lived in Canatum. It was a mild fall day. ****ey lamb was stout and firm for a boy of eleven. JB was a bit bigger and not quite as rugged.
They had a stop to make on the way home. The bulldozers had built a new road. Over the summer, it had taken shape. They wanted to scout out the new road. They put their bikes behind a tree. They would walk in from just before where the new road turned off of the “Old Road To Nine Acre Corner” (The road with the longest name in the state.)
They found they had buried a big water line, a storm sewer drain. It was a storm water drainage system for the new road. The out flowing end of the storm drain system was a big apron with a funnel like shape. (To funnel young kids attentions to a big round open pipe going off into the unknown.)
The pipe where the water came out was about three and a half feet in diameter. They got down and looked. ****ey went right up the pipe. He just got in there and sort of crawled up the pipe. First, he was just bent down looking, then he was in up to his waste and then he just scooted up the pipe. He got to where the manhole was on the edge of the street and he could stand up. He called for JB. JB got down on his knees and crawled up the pipe. JB found it a tight fit to come from the prone position, crawling, into standing in a vertical column about four feet across. His partner in crime was already standing there. Over their heads was the storm drain on the edge of the Old Road To Nine Acre Corner. At their waste to ankle level were three lines. The out going, that they had just come in, and two flowing into the manhole. There was no water flowing now, they where however standing in six inches of water.
JB got down and looked at the pipe coming from the new road. He put his head in, with ****ey’s urging he started to crawl up the pipe. The point of no return, when crawling up a pipe, is right when you start into it. Going backwards is very hard. JB crawled along at a pretty good rate. He wanted to get to the next manhole where he could stand up. After he had crawled in so far, ****ey came up behind him. The two of them crawled up the pipe. It was a long section. The pipe had no break in it of any kind until it got up on the new road. It was exhilarating crawl, with no light, no idea where it is leading, with ****ey Lamb at his heels. They took a break at one point and ****ey said he thought he saw light ahead. They crawled on. It was a long way before they really did see light.
They got to the manhole. It was a small one. There was no room to stand. JB could just see the heavy grate, two feet over his head. He could not get his body out of the pipe. ****ey was behind him, he wanted out, they both did. JB got his whole body into the small area of the street drain. With his back against the heavy iron, drain cover. He lifted it off.
No, that is a good way to end it. That was not how the little adventure into the unknown ended.
JB and ****ey yelled, from stuck in the pipe. It got cold and it got dark. Several cars drove overhead. None heard the two boys yelling from the storm drain.
Finally the cops and the fire department came. Someone had started looking for the two missing boys. Their bikes had been found, and soon after, they had been found. The cover was removed. The boys came out. They had another adventure to tell tier kids about.

just a note to deb and britty....when the thread hits 50 pages, it automatically starts a new thread so dont worry.

good news today. there is a program here that is giving out 100 gallons of fuel oil. i called today and should be getting my application soon. please pray that i get accepted for this program. i am almost out of fuel oil and i cant afford any more right now. thank you!