No One Forgets Uncle Russ
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Image by Jean Martinelle from Pixabay
You meet all types of people working in the trades. Every one of them is as interesting and unique as the dark depths of the cosmos and some of them are as odd as a parade of drunk carnival workers. Here is one of our favorites.
UNCLE RUSS
I met the man we affectionately nicknamed ‘Uncle Russ’ as an apprentice at a really busy fabrication shop and spent a year under his wing. Uncle Russ is still to this day one of the hardest working guys I have ever seen. He put his all into his work, and prided himself on always being able to keep up with us “young punks”.
Uncle Russ was so high strung about keeping us young punks in check, that he did most of the work himself, relegating his apprentices to be little more than ‘go-fors’ that would grab him tools, chunks of pipe, and cut supports for him. He really was a nice guy, good-natured, witty, and funny, but super hard to work for, if you’re the kind of apprentice that is starving for experience and practical knowledge.
When apprentices would return to work after their last year of school, they had a glow about them, as they knew they would never have to take mundane marching orders from Uncle Russ ever again.
He’d Show You Up
Uncle Russ was always our favorite guy to amp up. On more than one occasion another worker would bet Uncle Russ that there was no possible way he could carry two full propane cylinders across the whole laydown yard, which was about five hundred meters from the shop where we had to return to at the end of the day. Uncle Russ would yell, “Like fuck I can’t, watch this you little bastard!”
He would snatch both cylinders and briskly walk back to the shop, scarcely out of breath. For a guy in his mid-forties, Uncle Russ was indeed in impeccable shape.
The Wrestling Match
We once built a covered deck around one of our remote fabrication buildings to keep our full lengths of pipe and our threading machines out of the rain and snow, and after it was done, we noticed it had a healthy amount of spring, like a professional wrestling ring…. So I wrestled Uncle Russ.
As I knew there was no way that I could match his upper body strength, I went low, trying to take his legs out from under him. My strategy was to get him on the ground where we might be a little more even.
Uncle Russ had calves like tree trunks. He let me waste my energy for a couple of minutes until I tired myself out, at which point he picked me up and put me in the greatest bear-hug I have ever felt. At first, I thought it was funny and was laughing. As each laugh left my lungs, Uncle Russ would squeeze a little tighter until eventually there was no room in my ribcage left for my lungs to expand and I passed out. I came to with Uncle Russ slapping me awake, saying in his earplugged-loud voice, “That’ll teach you, you little bastard!”
He helped me to my feet and we had a good laugh, even though I knew he probably could have killed me.
Dad jokes Daily
He told jokes that were hilarious to him, relying on the old simple one-liners. If you started a sentence with the word “So,” Uncle Russ would respond with, “Sew? No, but I knit and do a mean crochet!”
Uncle Russ would make wild accusations. He once blamed me for needing one of his teeth filled. I never could wrap my mind around how that worked.
Uncle Russ was also an accomplished singer and a massive Jerry Doucette fan. It became a tradition to have new hires approach Uncle Russ and mention that they heard he, “Does a mean Jerry Doucette,” at which point, Uncle Russ would haul them out to an empty building in the back forty, one that he chose for its good acoustical properties, and proceed to give the poor bastard a personal a cappella version of the whole song, complete with a guitar solo.
Every new hire came out of that building with a story of the most awkward experience of their lives.
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