SOMEBODY HAD TO DO IT

These yellow-bellied asses knew this was the last day of class and a report to the teacher couldn’t hurt them. Nevertheless, the altercation frightened me. I was a woman alone in an elevator full of angry men.

With a forced smile I said, “I came to this college to learn about hydraulics, and that’s just what I did.” Then I shut up and let them continue their accusations. Why was I being treated like this? I certainly came to the college to learn. What was the reasoning behind all this taunting? Did they feel so threatened by a woman in this field that it took an elevator full of men to harass a lone woman who had no means of escape?

When I emerged from the elevator I was shaking with fright. I walked over to the pay phone booth to hide from the men and to give them time to get their cars out of the parking lot. I didn’t want another altercation like the one in the elevator. I was worried about physical injury to me and perhaps damage to my car if I followed them out to the parking lot.

While in the phone booth I tried to make a long distance call to Wolfram, but there was no answer. I was sure he was outside feeding his dogs, so I tried again and again. Each time I hung up, I got my money back plus a quarter and a few dimes. I called so many times that I had a bundle of money, and was beginning to feel guilty about it. I never did get my husband, but the process got my mind off the altercation in the elevator, so that I was in better spirits.

My final grades were sent to the company. The president brought the grade report into the drafting room. He had a big smile on his face when he said that I got ‘B’ in the course. I could hardly believe it! The men in the plant were wrong about me, and so were the men in the elevator.

Everyone in the company of 35 employees brown-bagged their lunch because of a short thirty-minute lunch period. We all sat around two long tables. Mr. Stark always sat at the head of a table when he was at the plant. He came into the lunchroom on the day I got my ‘B’grade with a big smile on his face. Oh, oh, I thought, he has something up his sleeve. He took his place at the head of the table and then arose and said, “I have an announcement to make.” He asked the men from the shop one by one to say what his grade was in the hydraulics course at Fenn College. As each gave his grade I sat in horror, for not one grade

* * *

me up. I’m afraid of heights, but I did it! If it wasn’t for the bricklayers giggling underneath us, I think I would have gone down again, but they gave me courage. We both knew it was the job supe they were laughing at, for he couldn’t look up. Fran and I were thankful for the new invention, panty hose.

We arrived safely to the top and to my surprise the architect and the engineer were also called in for the ‘mistake’. No wonder the job supe didn’t want us to go up on the second floor. I graciously greeted them and asked, “How in the world did you get up here?” By using the ladder in front,” the engineer said. “Oh, there is another ladder?” I said. Then he showed me the ladder the job supe set up for them. It was a new aluminum ladder and rested on the balcony next to the building; it was only 7 feet from the ground.

I took the engineer to the back of the building and showed him the ladder Fran and I climbed, that was 14 feet above the ground with a deep hole right alongside it. Then to the business at hand. I explained to the engineer that the job supe had set the second floor by using the first floor plans, so there was no error. As I was inspecting the double tee floor slabs, I moved over to the elevator shaft. The shaft didn’t look right to me; it was not my problem, but I thought it should be brought to the engineer’s attention.

“Please come over here for a minute,” I said to the engineer, “I am sure that when I read your plans, rebar extended from the first floor concrete pour to the second floor of the elevator shaft. Am I right?”

“Of course it should,” the engineer said.

“Well look here, where is the rebar?”

I turned around and told the job supe I was ready to go, and walked back to the ladder I climbed. I let the engineer deal with the job supe.

“You’re not going down that ladder are you?” said the job supe.

“Of course I am. You put it there for me, didn’t you?”

I gave him my big white purse and my set of plans to take down, then Fran and I went down the ladder. I was shaking all the way and couldn’t look down. Fran was as satisfied as I was, and we kept the personhood we almost lost with that job superintendent.