A survivor’s guide to working the Patch- Undercover as a “welder’s helper”

CHAPTER ONE: Heeding the call

“$25 an hour…12 hours a day…21 days on…let’s see,that would be…” I get out my iphone and put in the numbers…

” Holy Crap! $6,300!! In three weeks!” 

A big smile forms on my lips and my imagination takes flight…Literally, I was on a plane to Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia…then images of dehydrators, a road bike and new shoes started flooding in and then finally more practical uses for it, like paying my rent all at once for a change, maybe even re-paying some loans…

Oooo, back to Mexico…

“Fuck! I’ll do it! Where do I sign up?” 

I mean, I’d be a welder’s helper. How hard could that be?

First off was getting geared up but luckily, we were in Edmonton, the biggest city south of the Oilpatch, and I was able to pick up my gear in a day, from Mark’s Work WearHouse and another specialty store, humourously located next to HUSH sex store.

“One store sells “coveralls” and the other store sells “cover barely anythings!” I remarked as we walked past the mannequins in sequined bikinis to the mannequins in hardhats and safety vests.

For courses, I needed H2S Alive,Standard first aid and the CSTS (Construction Safety Training System). The first two I was able to also do in a day, with this guy Colin knew who lived about an hour outside of the city in one of those teeny little dots on the map. I called him from the road to confirm the meeting place and got an earful for not “honouring our agreement to call him at 9 am. Not 8:45. Not 9:01. 9:00!” click.

“Ooo, this was going to be fun!” I thought, gripping the steering wheel of the welding truck tighter as I guided it through the small blizzard that hit the outskirts of the city that day. He met me at the local recycling station in town, and asked me to follow him. The town had maybe 2 streets but somehow he felt like he needed to personally guide me back to his house. It was just me and him, and his dad watching TV upstairs. I had to leave my coffee in the kitchen because he’d just got new carpet in his mini classroom in the basement. This stern, overweight safety instructor had been in the industry for years and it had taken its toll on his body, which is what drove him to start his own training company. Sore back, legs, shoulders, he was hurtin’ and wasn’t shy about sharing his desire to “wrap this up as quickly as possible” so he could hit the hospital for some morphine! Luckily, I catch on pretty quick, and pretty much aced both courses. I mean, I must have taken over 20 first aid courses in my life, and the only thing I learned that was new to me was 30 compressions to 2 breaths, instead of 15 and 2.

“Got it. NEXT!”

The CSTS course I took at the CLAC building, just off the Yellowhead Hwy up in the north of the city. It consisted about 30 modules, all online and took about 6 hours to work through with your mouse and multiple choice questions. Some of the modules were comically simple, like dressing a construction worker for work. Click on the appropriate clothing.

Coveralls- good

Hardhat- good

Flipflops-?- Try again.

The course was actually set up so you couldn’t fail it. You just had to go back and do it over and over until you got it right. After blowing away my first examiner, I figured I’d break records on how quickly I was going to ace this one, and was totally shocked and pissed off when 2 young guys got up at 5 hours and 45 minutes and were declared passes! It was the trench building module that threw me off. My trench was too deep, with not enough exits, apparently.

With my courses taken care of and shopping done, I was ready to work.

I ended up with steel toed work boots, steel toed rubber boots, lightweight coveralls, thicker overall-style, soft suede gloves, neck warmer, wool socks and a fire retardant hoodie. The pink hardhat I found was tempting but I decided if I was going to try and blend in, that was NOT the way to do it.

The protective eyewear and hardhat would be given to me on site I’d been told, so I added my super cool technical winter running tights and long sleeved undershirt,  some cheap sweat pants for hanging out in the camp in, jeans, yoga wear, a few t-shirts, toothbrush, books, laptop, journal, supplements, road snacks and I was ready for a road trip!

 

Crop circle makers! Take me with you!!

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could move planets?

I don’t mean “pick up Earth and put it somewhere else”, but “move OFF Earth TO somewhere else”

Human beings have been talking about life on other planets  for millennia, I’m sure. Even more than millennia, BILLENNIA!

From all over the planet, the earliest cavewomen would’ve looked up, from the skylight in her cave, at the stars and planets,  (having no electricity ANYWHERE, they woulda seen MILLIONS more back then, eh?) and pondered what life was like out there, and if THEY had to deal with carniverous sabertoothed tigers on the prowl and hunchbacked, toothless hairy males, wanting to mate,  who liked whacking you on the head with a club and dragging you around by your hair!

It’s not that I don’t LIKE it here! I do!

I mean, compared to Mars, Earth is awesome!

But, the planet’s been done. Everywhere has been claimed. What’s left to discover?

Words like Borneo, Kuala Lampur, Zimbabwee, just don’t thrill my generation, like they did my parents.

Timbuktu, Bimbuktu, Shmimbuktu….. that’s what I say! If you can “Google” it, it’s too late!

For those of us, ready for adventure on a galactic scale, Earth Travel is like going to  an “all-inclusive”.

A comfortable choice, if all you have is 2 weeks vacation time.

If you’re like me, however,  you’re ready to travel “donkey-class” on a Trans-Galactic freighter on its way to the Crab Nebula, just for some kicks.

I don’t know about you, but I’m only bringing a carry-on with me.

One thing I’ve learned travelling, is that we ALWAYS bring too much stuff!

 

Summer is over! An ode to my motorhome

Sung to the tune of “Mona Lisa”

“Mamacita, Mamacita, I have named you.

You’re so like a woman with a big booty. You were plucky but I’m lucky and  I tamed you

And you took me on a magical journey!”

Okay, I tried! I’m not a poet AND I know it!)

Today I said goodbye to a friend and in an attempt to express my feelings in the most poetic and loving way possible, I began saying her name and that tune came to mind.

Ma-ma-ci-ta, Ma-ma-ci-ta.

She is my little Mama. She took me into her heart and kept me safe, all the way from Alberta, Canada through the mountains of Montana and Idaho, the deserts of Nevada and  California, the wild coast of Oregon and Washington, the deluges and snows of British Columbia and back to Alberta again, almost 6 months to the day.

A kind of gestation period of sorts now that I think of it.

And I do feel re-born in a way. Is that weird?

 

Joe Woodcock- TransCanada Rickshaw Driver

“What’s the Rush?”

Joe inspired us from the moment we whizzed past him at 100 km/hr on the Hope-Princeton highway, and just caught a glimpse of something unusual and very brightly coloured out of the corner of our eye.

“Did you see that?” Sheldon asked as he looked back over his shoulder to the rapidly fading figure on the side of the road.

“Was that guy carrying his bike on his back?” I asked, having never seen before what I was about to discover that day.

Ken, the driver, obligingly turned the car around at the nearest, safest u-turn, and back we went to get a better look at the strange contraption we had passed.

When we made our turn and slowly came up behind this unusual but somehow familiar looking machine, we knew we had to meet its driver, so we parked the car and ran up to meet him.

Joe was walking along at a comfortable clip, towing what looked like a large cart behind him, heaped with soo much stuff, I, at least, was expecting the tower to be pretty buff. Not that he wasn’t in good shape, but Joe was having the time of his life with not a drop of sweat or look of strain on him in the least. He looked pretty darn blissful and he had all the time in the world to tell us his story.