TUE 10 Jul 62
The Labor Advocate
LAUGHING COYOTE MOUNTAIN ORGANIZED!!! A.F.L. – C.I.O
Chaotic, disorganized confusion turned into systematic efficiency as Sam Gompers, John L. Lewis and Joe Hill come out of the bushes and sign up lost souls along craft lines. Progress Reports as follows:
Sanitation Union, Local 13.7: “99% is not passing in Mountain Survival. All food and water intake is subject to unsuspected contamination. Thus perfect preparation and handling is vital and lest epidemic break out and collapse part or all of camp. Aside from oral contagious diseases, our main pesky bacterial varmint is called E-coli – a special brand of killer grown in mammal colons. Thus we wash dishes, knives and hands in hot soap water, then in three clear rinses. This is 99½. Perfection comes in one final sterilization of each dish before eating, and 2 individual pure water rinse for hands, untouched by previous hand-washer. Our Union consists of 2-man Scrub Team and 2-Man Water-Haul Team.
“Soap is our trade tool. It has the unique chemical quality of having two dangling arms, one which wants to attach to dirt and grease, the other of which grabs a molecule of water. Then it marries them together and they sink to the bottom happily forever after as we sneak the cleaned dish or hand away from them.
“We also maintain the Epidemic Bags, water bags, which if drunk from directly are a real dandy spreader of whatever is around and ripe. This is because a person drinking from a water bag reflexly spits a bit of saliva bank in. The spit carries possible bugs.
“General Patton is our hot water tank. General Twaddle is our drinking sterilizer. Red Maggie is the dish washer. Uncle Buddy is rinse #1; Yohann is rinse #2. (What’s union pay scale and hours for this job? How long before we can strike for something?)”
Carpenter’s Union, Local 1: “Food and other cooking debris piled in the center of the wilderness. Needs a separate building. Open framing with living trees as corners; cross-pieces and ridge-pole. 16’ x 12; tarp over for pitched roof.
Problem: Building site on steep slope. To determine pitch of slope, set straight line rope with bubble level from uphill end of building to proposed downhill entrance. Distance of drop was A2 of Pythagoras Theorem: C2=A2+B2. A=4½ ft. Other dimensions calculated. Blueprints drawn. Construction started. Limiting factor: All joints cut to dove-tail and rope tied. No nails. Doubled dimensions. Entrance 9 ft; back 4½ ft. three standing trees form necessary rectangle. Fourth post position surveyed, 3 ft hole dug with sledging of obstructing boulders, soupy concrete mix (5:1) poured and rock back-fill. Tarp overlayed and tied down. Slight error of construction: instead of standard 45° angle pitched roof, variable pitch roof came out. In fact, one might even call it a hyperbolic paraboloid with an up-twist at the end.
Brotherhood of Hydrologists, Ground-Water and Cesspool Engineers: “Vein of water oozing out of water bearing gravel and collecting in putrid swamp pools. Accumulation of decaying organic material, mostly leaves. Dug back in and shoveled out stink and poison producing foreign material. Sifted pile of pit-run concrete sand and separated several wheelbarrows of coarser torpedo sand and rice gravel. Back-filled for cleaner filtration after first washing out soluble dirt. Discovered two bottles of home brew buried in spring since purchase date of LCM: 1958. Water now coming clean.
-- Pay dues at front door before leaving union hall. –-
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