Jammed!
Jammed – positioned tightly between bodies or surfaces so that motion or extrication is made difficult or impossible. Jammed – caught between a rock and a hard place. I’ve written columns like that …! Taberduker! But, you won’t get “jammed” if’n you know that “in it’s class” means basically nothing. Crack me on the noggin’ with a pogamoggan! And, if you don’t let your cyclist physlist psych you out! And too, avoid peripatetic itinerants and/or lugubrious peripeteia in columns.Also, you won’t get jammed if’n you know when its time to “pull the plug” PDG, or, if you’re “in omnia paratus” (Prepared for all things by having anything from a needle to an anchor and/or everything from a Ladies burp to a clap of thunder readily on hand.). Nor, if’n you forgo seamless thought diversity when expanding your preferred doctrinaire to a mnemonist! Nor too, you won’t get “cashiered” (Jammed!) if’n you know the difference between cashmere and mere cash in choosing that sweater for your sweetie! Or, if’n your cashier knows the local “1-egger” BS (Breakfast Special) talk. Of course, simply living life can get us “jammed” …
Jammed
T’was plain to see come morning
That the “drive” would be a “slog”
Half an inch of slushy snow
Had settled on each log,
They donned their well worn calk-boots
Macinaws all buttoned tight
Ear-tabs pulled down o’er ears
Against the cold winds bite,
Every man was taut and edgy
You could smell the sense of dread
As the stream was rushing faster
Towards the rapids up ahead,
They put that scourge behind them
But then – the day be damned
A lunker-fir went cross-eyed
And everything got jammed,
The crew picked him to “do it”
He was sure-footed as a cat
He could ride a log and roll a smoke
Kick ass in nothing flat,
Two big sticks of dynamite
And a thirty-second fuse
You set it then you lit it
And if you slip – you lose,
So, you’ve got to find the “key-log”
Though its awfully hard to tell
But if you botch the bugger
They’ll set another place in hell,
Many thoughts went thru his head
The little house upon the hill
Where his dimpled Darling waited
– Did he have the will and skill –
The mother of his children
As a woman – she’d foreknow
With fearful heart she kissed him
As she begged him not to go,
She had been his pride and joy
Since the day that they were wed
He could see her hug the little ones
As she tucked them into bed,
He could see her smiling face
Almost feel her female touch
She’d be maybe baking biscuits
He missed her oh so much,
Youth is but a moment
It passes thus – and then
Boys will be boys – in boyhood
And later – men will be men,
No matter what the line of work
He does the best he can
And when his world’s waiting
A man must be a man,
He picked up the cruel explosive
Looked out across the mess
Realizing if he fluffed it
There’d be one “driver” less,
Now, danger is a fact of life
No matter what some say
So when the job depends on you
You do it – come what may,
The jam lurked high above him
The thing was put – and lit
Back on shore they held their breath
For him, this all-in-all was “it”,
The BANG the BLAST was awesome
There was no one to blame
They nailed his boots high on a tree
In memory … of his name!
They could’ve grown old together
He still might be alive
But – he left his home and family
For the adventure of … spring-drive!
D.C. Butterfield
1921 – a spruce yarded at Two Brooks camp on the Upsalquitch scaled 1,507 feet. 1922 – “… $35 a month and found has been offered for work in the woods this winter …”. 1927 – a record load of 4,437 feet of hardwood weighing 23 1/2 tons hauled in to Napadogan. (By team, I wonder?). Then, I know where Tracy’s Hole is, but, not where Webster’s Brow is/was. If any of you true Tobiquers know could you please tell me – with my thanks!
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Have Pen – Will Write
