Staying in the Camp Whacking Weeds

Due to the bottle of lemonade I had last night at 8:00 pm, I woke up several times last night. I also had a glass of kool aid at dinner. I do believe there is something in that which does not agree with my system. My liquids come in the form of water and sugar-free lemonade. Now I do get the occasional bottle of Gatorade when we go on fire calls and also with the addition of the camelback, water consumption is much more convenient.

I forgot to mention that yesterday my friend “put me in the dirt” (tackling) as we were walking to our job assignment. My friend got approval from the Captain because she knew he was only fooling around. He did indeed put me in the dirt, but it did not hurt since he took the brunt of the tackle as we both went down to the dirt. The strange part about this was my crew members came to my defense and gave my friend a hard time. One crew member went as far as putting my friend in the dirt. All of this was in good fun, but I could tell my crew members were sticking up for me which was nice of them. Even the Captain said to me if I were to “accidentally” push my friend as we were going up the hillside he would probably roll forever. I couldn’t do this even in good fun. He does keep me in check and I certainly did not mind going down to the dirt. All of yesterday, the Swamper (lead crew member) kept coming into our room and giving my friend a hard time for picking on me. We do have a good time and I am surrounded by a good group of guys.

We met our new Captain today who is new to the crew but has substituted a few times. He has been with the fire service for a number of years, but this is his first time leading an inmate crew. If first impressions means anything, he appears to be a good guy. He gave us a little introductory speech and he shouldn’t have any problems with our crew. The real test will come when we go out on a fire call and I sure hope he shares the previous Captain’s philosophy of “safety first”. He doesn’t appear to be reckless so everything should be fine.

After the speech, we received our assignment. Yes, it was the 5th different assignment for the 5th day this week. Instead of driving to a destination, we were already here. The assignment was to cut and weed whack most of the brush on the hill in the camp. This is the same hill I ran on earlier in the morning. Each one of us was armed with a weed whacker. Since we didn’t have to drive anywhere our actual work time was increased. The hill is fairly large and steep and there is enough brush to keep us busy for weeks. There will always be something to whack on the hill. We weed whacked the vegetation and I went all the way up to the top and started from there. I never had much luck with a weed whacker. Even the ones I have personally owned always seemed to jam. Today I was using a gas powered one with industrial strength string and it jammed constantly. I am starting to believe it is me, but as I look around I noticed a few other inmates who have the same issues so it may not be all my fault. This does get frustrating because I would cut for a few minutes, then it would jam. I would fix it and the process started all over again.

I thought to myself that these odd jobs that I have been performing are a lot like a summer job I had in college. Actually, I had this summer job for 3 summers and it was at a local chemical storage facility. My crew members back then were also college students on summer break. We were laborers much like now and some of the jobs we performed did not make sense just like now. Also, some of my crew members back then used to hide out during the day to avoid doing any work just like today. I was not a ball of fire, but I did what I could. My friend is on the other spectrum as he is a workaholic. He was manning a super-sized weed whacker and couldn’t be stopped. I took my time and with the equipment I had, I did my share. The summer job I had was over 20 years ago and here I am back in the same situation. My life has become one of a day laborer which is not where I envisioned myself to be at the age of 41. I made a huge mistake and now I am paying for that mistake.

My friend went on a mission to get us new – actually used – mattresses because these oversized crib mattresses are not working out for us. True to form my friend came back with 2 old style mattresses which are the same type I slept on at Jamestown. The difference here is the bunks have springs on them instead of being a flat metal sheet. The springs makes the mattresses much more comfortable and now at least my sheets will stay on the bed. The other mattresses were an odd shape and each morning I would wakeup with the sheets half off the mattresses. Also, it felt like sleeping on a vinyl shower curtain as I would slip and slide all night. This is all gone and although these new mattresses are a bit thin, they are much better than the previous ones. My friend is working on getting 2 more which would be perfect.

Dinner was over and it was back to the room where I would attempt to write. Even with my friend playing pinochle, I still had visitors. They stayed and we talked for awhile. Finally, I got some alone time and did some writing. I had a feeling fire camp would be like this and I would have less time to write which is good. I enjoy writing, but now I am getting used to talking more with the guys. I am adaptable and will continue to adapt as this journey progresses. My friend returned and I noticed other crew members retiring very early. This is hard work for everyone and the nights are much shorter due to exhaustion. At least I am now contributing something to society in a positive manner. This is not limited to just me. There are 119 other inmates at this camp and each of them is serving the community in a positive manner.