Winter 2009-2010
Late December 2009:
Word comes down that one of the hearing technicians has a health issue
and will be seeking treatment in 2010. His
wife will continue to work so that they don’t lose their health insurance. She
and I will work together.
This is my job. I am a member of the fleet department
of a national hearing testing company. (OSHA mandated hearing testing in
industry.) It is part of my job to work with technicians and/or cover for
technicians who are on an excused absence. This is not my first rodeo.
Lora and I converse by telephone. We are to go to the nearest hearing van in
early January. We will retrieve the hearing van from a local truck repair yard
and make our way toward Iowa for the duration. We do not know how long we will
work together. We will meet at Lora’s
daughter’s house in a western suburb of Chicago, spend the night there, and
make our way to the hearing van in the wee hours of a cold January day.
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| generic photo |
Lora’s daughter graciously invites me to share their
evening meal. She opens a cabinet door
and invites me to add whatever spices I like to her delicious (without the spices)
stew, while pointing at her mother and announcing, “meet Mrs. Bland.” Lora doesn’t like spicy foods, but will refrain
from adding any spices at all, including salt and pepper. At the time I did not
like spicy, but realistically did add onion, garlic, salt, pepper, as needed to
whatever I was eating. As we would be dining together frequently for the foreseeable
future this lesson was necessary. Noted:
“Lora does not like spices.” Working together
is about getting along, so I just kept that mental note, and hoped for the
best.
On to Iowa, not without the occasional hiccup. Cold
weather, normal January, not above 27F the entire month, except for one day in Cedar
Rapids. It was a Saturday, and it was 34F, and everyone was walking around
without coats! Because that is what winter is like north of the 40th
Parallel… oh, did I mention that our heater in the van wasn’t working? It was a small propane furnace, and we could
not get it to light. We were relying on
small space heaters for any heat or comfort at all. It was COLD and it was horrible! One place near Cedar Rapids we parked inside a
warehouse, and it got the van and heater warm enough to light – heat at last! I
broke a rule and drove to the next testing site with the heater in the van
turned on. Heat for a day! And then we
froze again. Then, someplace in northwestern Iowa, at a grain processing plant
a safety director took pity on us and arranged for extra electrical cords to be
run out to the hearing van so we could run the electric space heaters and keep
it at a toasty 60F in the van for 3 days.
This all comes with travels back and forth across
Iowa. I do not remember from where we
came, but heading for Des Moines in a raging snowstorm. Doing about 35mph on Interstate 80, because
no one could go faster without losing control of their vehicle. I found that ANY change in speed caused the
trailer to slide sideways,… so 35mph we went, westbound, for over an hour. At our
exit there was a jackknifed semi on the overpass, but no matter, as we were going
the other direction from there. The next
customer would not let us plug the tractor in over night, it was snowing heavily,
and we got the last hotel room available in Ankeny, Iowa. I mean THE LAST single hotel room, and found
ourselves forced to share a room for the first, and only time in our travels
together. Yes, a normal hotel room with 2
beds in it. Okay, we made the best of it, at least it was just us two
gals. We watched the weather channel to
keep up on what was going on, and fell asleep with the television on. Awakening around 2:30am, I suggested that we
go out for a drive and see what the situation really was. And it was this: I-35 northbound was ice
covered, and looked like a mirror. The nearest
rest area was full up with semis, prohibiting any more vehicles from entering
there. We made our way to the next exit
and turned around. Back to the hotel, where I called my supervisor and told him
that there was no way I was going to even attempt to get to the next job, even if
we could start the tractor, which was an unknown at that moment. Okay, he got
off the call, and called the scheduling director to discuss… they called our
next job location and the safety director there said: “tell them not to come.” So we quickly got the call instructing us to stay
put for a while, then proceed to our next scheduled job in Nebraska the
following afternoon. We napped for a
while. Then back to the hearing van, at the customer from the previous day–
snowed in, and dead engine due to the cold.
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| generic photo, not even the U.S. |
Penske sent a guy out and he got it started. On to
Nebraska, which is another story.
Finally, near the end of February we got the call we
were waiting for: “you’re going to Texas”.
Hallelujah! We’re leaving winter behind!
Tune in next week for more adventures with Suzanne and
Lora, and Lora and Suzanne. Jirl
Power! wink wink!
this was just the "bare bones" of the Iowa 2010 adventure.... there were details....
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refer also to my previous blog post "baby. it's COLD outside (memories of previous cold winters)" from January 5, 2018, where mention is made of Iowa in January.
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