This link is to a pdf file If you have adobe pdf app and prefer it
https://www.dropbox.com/s/em1sy3glcxwiojm/Martin Luther.pdf?dl=0
When the battery in the watch they gave you at retirement goes dead, and you can’t find the replacement locally might be a good time to sit down, and make an objective assessment of your old job. Even after all this time your old boss will cast a shadow. And they say there’s no such thing as a ghost. His showed up, and he wasn’t even dead.
Years ago I worked for a company who manufactured a complicated machine to assist accountants in coming up with correct debits and credits. The sales department sold each one with a glowing description that implied, if not stated, maintenance free operation. In its full bloom, the service
department consisted of three office workers, and sixteen men, of whom I was one. Providing that maintenance free operation kept us busy, and my territory was part of south Jersey. There were few accountants in the Pine Barrens so I spent most my time just across the river from Philadelphia. Those
machines were maintenance free, but sometimes I would get calls in Vineland, Bridgetown, or even Salem. Several times I even went to Cape May.
Anyone who has worked under those circumstances knows that a little reverse psychology can be helpful. The Wharton tract was situated centrally, and I liked visiting it. If, with a little detour, I could manage to get lost in the Jersey barrens, to find the best way home was right through that
undeveloped area, my day would be complete. With that ulterior motive I would complain to my boss about having to service a particular machine, which would assure that I would be selected. I would tell my boss the lease car wasn’t running right, and that those Jersey cops were just waiting to bag a
Pennsylvania tagged car. My customers in down state Jersey received the best service I could give, and if one told the dispatcher to send that nice young fellow, I would be sure to have a great day after I took care of business.
My boss never knew where that leased car went. One day I came to a bridge over a stream that consisted of only two pine tree trunks. If the wheels on the car matched perfectly, I could get across and get out of the woods at Atsion. If not, I would spend the night. My com-a-long and cable stayed in the car, and I didn’t get wet. Sometimes when the forest closed in on the two tracks of a road, the leased car would be scratched, but should anyone notice, I would always mention the bad paint job.
One day, on my way between Batsto and Atsion I happened to glance in my rear view mirror and, a big snake was crossing the road. His head was on one side and tail on the other. I stopped to get a better look at this wonder, and he stopped to take a look at me. I’m a bit cautious about snakes, but I knew my niece was going through the nature stage, and that critter had a beautiful and colorful pattern. Not
only that, he hadn’t been told how bad people were, so I scooped him up, and took him home to my niece. Niece, and snake developed a great rapport. Because he was a king snake she named him Martin Luther Kingsnake. Martin and Cathy continued their Mistress/Snake relationship for many years until he went to wherever snakes go when they die.
Over the years I have visited many sites of cold blast furnaces. Most of them in ruins except for the very few that have been restored. None are still operating. Bits of charcoal remain in many places to mark the places where colliers tended their trade, but if anything remains of the furnaces it is ruins, that consist of stones in disrepair. The ruins often harbor snakes and I realized that, when a man who lived nearby told me to be careful “there’s always rattlesnakes in those stones”.
When we lived in New Jersey I never thought about venomous snakes but when we moved here, within the first year I ran across a fine fellow, with an hourglass pattern across his back. Long ago I learned copperheads are not extinct in Delaware. I’ve heard timber rattlers occur in the pine barrens but I’ve never seen them there. I can’t say that for West Virginia.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/em1sy3glcxwiojm/Martin Luther.pdf?dl=0
When the battery in the watch they gave you at retirement goes dead, and you can’t find the replacement locally might be a good time to sit down, and make an objective assessment of your old job. Even after all this time your old boss will cast a shadow. And they say there’s no such thing as a ghost. His showed up, and he wasn’t even dead.
Years ago I worked for a company who manufactured a complicated machine to assist accountants in coming up with correct debits and credits. The sales department sold each one with a glowing description that implied, if not stated, maintenance free operation. In its full bloom, the service
department consisted of three office workers, and sixteen men, of whom I was one. Providing that maintenance free operation kept us busy, and my territory was part of south Jersey. There were few accountants in the Pine Barrens so I spent most my time just across the river from Philadelphia. Those
machines were maintenance free, but sometimes I would get calls in Vineland, Bridgetown, or even Salem. Several times I even went to Cape May.
Anyone who has worked under those circumstances knows that a little reverse psychology can be helpful. The Wharton tract was situated centrally, and I liked visiting it. If, with a little detour, I could manage to get lost in the Jersey barrens, to find the best way home was right through that
undeveloped area, my day would be complete. With that ulterior motive I would complain to my boss about having to service a particular machine, which would assure that I would be selected. I would tell my boss the lease car wasn’t running right, and that those Jersey cops were just waiting to bag a
Pennsylvania tagged car. My customers in down state Jersey received the best service I could give, and if one told the dispatcher to send that nice young fellow, I would be sure to have a great day after I took care of business.
My boss never knew where that leased car went. One day I came to a bridge over a stream that consisted of only two pine tree trunks. If the wheels on the car matched perfectly, I could get across and get out of the woods at Atsion. If not, I would spend the night. My com-a-long and cable stayed in the car, and I didn’t get wet. Sometimes when the forest closed in on the two tracks of a road, the leased car would be scratched, but should anyone notice, I would always mention the bad paint job.
One day, on my way between Batsto and Atsion I happened to glance in my rear view mirror and, a big snake was crossing the road. His head was on one side and tail on the other. I stopped to get a better look at this wonder, and he stopped to take a look at me. I’m a bit cautious about snakes, but I knew my niece was going through the nature stage, and that critter had a beautiful and colorful pattern. Not
only that, he hadn’t been told how bad people were, so I scooped him up, and took him home to my niece. Niece, and snake developed a great rapport. Because he was a king snake she named him Martin Luther Kingsnake. Martin and Cathy continued their Mistress/Snake relationship for many years until he went to wherever snakes go when they die.
Over the years I have visited many sites of cold blast furnaces. Most of them in ruins except for the very few that have been restored. None are still operating. Bits of charcoal remain in many places to mark the places where colliers tended their trade, but if anything remains of the furnaces it is ruins, that consist of stones in disrepair. The ruins often harbor snakes and I realized that, when a man who lived nearby told me to be careful “there’s always rattlesnakes in those stones”.
When we lived in New Jersey I never thought about venomous snakes but when we moved here, within the first year I ran across a fine fellow, with an hourglass pattern across his back. Long ago I learned copperheads are not extinct in Delaware. I’ve heard timber rattlers occur in the pine barrens but I’ve never seen them there. I can’t say that for West Virginia.