The Eternal Question
January 11, 2009
There is not much time to talk when you are swinging a pick or loading an ore cart, but we do get a half-hour lunch every other day, and like most workers we like to chat while we eat. We don’t really follow current events, so there is not much talk about the “news of the day”, although we all thought Sarah Palin was hilarious, and we think she should do more of those skits with Katie Couric, and less of those lady movies like Baby Mama, and we are all hoping that President Obama gets us some health insurance that covers Devil’s Rot.
No, we mostly talk about our work in the mines. Our favorite talk is to argue about which is the worst job hazard. We have three main job hazards at the sulfur mines (four if you count deep crows, but I think those are myths), not counting Devil’s Rot, which is more of a job nuisance once you learn how to make the poultice.
One main job hazard is the whip of the overseer. I don’t understand how it is okay for them to whip us – Pavel says it has something to do with our union being crooked in the 1930′s. Our overseer, Grigalt, isn’t really so bad with the whip, because he spends most of his time with his other detachments – Yevgeny says it is because he doesn’t want to see my ugly face, but I say it is Yevgeny’s face that is ugly.
The other main job hazard is fire. I understand that this isn’t a hazard in most sulfur mines, but I work in a white sulfur mine. White sulfur is mainly used for making brimstone, I guess, and sometimes it likes to catch on fire. These are not good times to be in the tunnels.
Our third hazard is cave-ins. I don’t worry about these so much, because I know that the other miners would come to get us out sooner or later, and if we were down here for a while we might have to eat Yevgeny to survive.
Most of workers say that fire is worst hazard – we have the saying “the whip finds the lazy ass, but the fire she burn everybody some time”. It’s a pretty wise saying, if you ask me. Yevgeny says whip is worse, but that’s because he has never fallen into a flame-spout…yet. You just wait, Yevgeny.
You just wait.
