It took off like a missile on a trajectory aimed at the upper forehead of a young construction worker.
He had the perfect cadence for story and joke telling, and also operated almost every kind of truck and heavy equipment, along with being a decent mechanic and welder. He could figure out almost any job in a snap. Little by little, his name morphed into Troubleshootin’ Tom (TST). While it was obvious that his IQ surpassed his pay packet, considerably, there were times when Tom would make critical life errors that would cost him dearly. From time to time, over the years, I wondered what a university-educated Tom might have become.
Given his quick recovery in arguments, becoming a courtroom lawyer was a possibility. He could figure out people’s quirks in a heartbeat—maybe a psychologist. That exact situation happened many times when I was with him and we would meet someone for the first time. Later he would ask me if I had noticed any distinctive attributes about the person. Of course, I usually answered in the typical fashion of a dullard: “Duh … well, no, I didn’t.” Is it any wonder why some brilliant people are addicted to stimulants?
I hadn’t known him long when I got the bright idea to get a driver’s licence to drive a big truck. With the lack of truck-driving schools in Whitehorse, I decided to buy a truck and teach myself. Tom gave me one quick lesson and I instantly became a rudimentary truck driver. It would have been nice if he had mentioned that driving an empty truck in summer is far different than driving a loaded truck on icy hills. I would learn a few lessons the hard way over the years.
I had a harrowing experience where Tom had to come to the rescue a few years after I had my driver’s licence. I was backing into a backyard with a heavily loaded gravel truck, but, unfortunately, the landowner never informed me that he had filled a large hole with brush and covered it with dirt. One moment I was backing in, and the next moment there was the horrendous sound of steel breaking and my truck was lying on its side.
My first thought was Ka-ching, ka-ching! I visualized many thousands of dollars in repair bills, or worse—a twisted frame. I may not be the brightest candle on the cake, but I figured out instantly that the solution to my situation was above my pay grade. After I looked the truck over quickly, I took off to find Tom. He showed up and walked around my perceived disaster. He then took a couple of steps back and reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a can of Copenhagen. With two quick taps and a smooth twist of the lid, he then scooped up a generous helping of snoose and lodged it into his bottom lip. In about three minutes flat, he had a game plan in place and the truck limped back to the shop in less than three hours. We had the old girl fixed up in a few days for a few hundred dollars.
In the late summer of 1989, Tom supplied the mechanical services for a small construction job on the Dempster Highway. One evening after supper, he was asked to investigate how a young construction worker got injured while a truck was being repaired. Tom discovered that the truck owner, who was new to trucking, had been replacing a brake maxipot diaphragm. Unfortunately, he started to remove the wrong clamp. Bundled up behind that clamp was a spring that produced 1,300 pounds of pressure. When it let go, it took off like a missile on a trajectory aimed at the upper forehead of a young construction worker. Folks, you could replicate the same procedure 100 more times and that young fella would be stone-cold dead every time.
On impact, the kid was sent somersaulting ass over brainbox, landing flat on his back. He lay there for a few moments and then struggled to stand up. The stunned crew could only watch as the wobbly victim kept having convulsions and resembled a gibberish-speaking rubber chicken. With no medical staff on-site, there was nothing that could be done for his scrambled brain. The only medical diagnosis came from a smartass co-worker who probably borrowed the term from the then-recent Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
“He’s having a cognitive meltdown.”
Luckily, after a good night’s sleep, his brain reprogrammed and he was back to normal the next morning. The kid immediately received a new name—Maxipot.
Near the end of October, with the overnight temperature hovering around minus 28 on the Dempster Highway, Tom was left alone at the construction site to finish picking up a few small things that were still lying around. His last task was to load all the plastic cans and jugs that were lying in a pit and load them onto a trailer, so they could be hauled to the Whitehorse dump. The troubleshooter was always looking for ways to make jobs as easy and efficient as possible, which coordinated perfectly with his lazy streak. The lazy streak was probably the culprit that made him decide to kick all the cans and jugs in a pile and set them on fire. There were a few times when the troubleshooter made decisions that (excuse the pun) backfired.
A few minutes later, a land-use officer drove onto the site. The officer drove up to Tom and rolled down the window. After morning pleasantries and comments about the cold weather were dispatched, the officer asked him what he was doing. Tom was already going into damage control. Whenever more time was needed, it was always Copenhagen to the rescue. His right hand had already reached into his left shirt pocket and dug out the miraculous substance. He was going to need a big wad to get himself out of this one. With a poker face that always included a bit of a squint in one eye, he said, “Well, they tell me if you burn this stuff it causes global warming, and we sure as hell need it today.”
It was one of those times when taking responsibility for one’s actions paid off.
To be continued…
