RE: Sam-saturday--Something About.Me
Ooh I so love this story, I love to know family memories and yours are always so fascinating !! This is like the story of your country, your ancestors did built the country and their history joins the big History, it is so great to read! ^_^
I had first to search what crane operator did mean, didn't know this word, and then I was so glad because
there is a building that is built in front of my house for a few months, and we look every morning through the window of the kitchen when we have breakfast, we monitor the progress of work with a lot of fascination indeed ! ;-)
And in particular there is two huge cranes and we are in awe of the very precise work that the crane operators do, and we think of two things :
- they should have a more than excellent view
- they probably have big neck problems and back pain because they have their head bent down to work
.. do you know more about these two points? (I am so happy to have found someone to ask! = D)
PS : I'm just thinking now that this is not the kinda cranes I've seen in your pictures but the giant ones that do not move, so the operator is very high...
I think the principle of the job was probably very much the same. It was a hazardous job in very many ways. My grandfather lost one of his fingers in moving parts while he was trying to do a repair. And my father had a bridge fall on top of him. He was trying to wrap a cable around an old section of bridge decking that he needed to remove when it came crashing down. He was very lucky to survive. Both of them suffered from arthritis and plenty of aches and pains. They worked outdoors in extreme cold temperatures many
winters. And those old cranes had no heaters and no doors.to keep the weather out. I remember when they would be working on bridges often the crane would be on a barge out in the middle of the water, and there would be a rope and a pulley and they would have to pull themselves hand over hand in a little bucket contraption to get out to the barge in the morning and get off the barge at night. I hope you didn't have to look up too many words here 🤔and bravo to your crane operators. It is hard work.