1228: Frenchy
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/22
I knew a guy one time at the construction site as a teenager.
He was French, so a French-y kinda guy.
We used to all sit around having lunch at a 3-storey building.
Just a bunch of random guys, working, sort of,
a lot of nonsense talk havin’ fun,
just pissing around putting a frame on air.
People are big on that,
enclosures.
I learned that pretty young.
We yearn for the forest trails,
a lake to fish,
a starry night to gaze.
A thoughtful comment at sunset,
to genuflect.
Frenchy used to walk with a limp.
He’d have his belt around his waist to carry tools.
His toolbelt.
Many men used to die during construction projects.
Many still do.
Safety harnesses, hardhats, spotters, safety personnel.
These help.
Ol’ Frenchy one time started slipping at an older site,
story goes.
Slipping off rooftop, no harness, missed the grip,
whoosh!
Off he went.
He fell several stories.
He landed on a bump of rocks that are crushed called ‘crush rock.’
Common in construction of the time, probably now.
Frenchy snapped his back.
Ever since,
a limp.
That’s life.
Concrete forms,
the walls that make the frames for air, boxes for air.
You know, the stuff people like.
As the concrete is poured, it gets vibrated to remove air pockets.
Clamps hold the wooden framework.
A wooden framework holding the poured and vibrated concrete.
Those are held together by steel clamps.
They get piled.
Beside the pile of crush rock,
was a pile of steel clamps,
Frenchy just missed it.
Likely outcome, if a little over on the fall,
he woulda been dead.
That’s also life.
So, he had a limp.
We all had something like a limp.
just our limp wasn’t a limp.
We didn’t get asked about our limps.
We got asked about progress on the air boxes.
You know, the stuff people like,
care about.
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