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TELE-Tales

by A.J. Ryan

259 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1830; ISBN 1-4120-1452-2; US$26.08, C$29.99, EUR21.42, £15.00

While it is relatively easy to make an intelligent person appear ignorant, it is impossible to feign intelligence.

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

About the Book

True tales of situations met and often endured while living a wandering life, the story describes the career of a Bell Canada employee through promising beginnings to humiliation, defeat and revival after his shock is mistakenly understood as his standing in the way of a plan to cover up a tragic act of negligence.

Work takes him on the road from day one, and the nature of travel as a condition of employment is demonstrated by a close look at the people met at work and in the town of the week.

To everyone who uses a telephone, its time to meet the people behind the service.

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About the Author

Born in Old Perlican, Trinity Bay NL in 1954, the author grew up through the advent of electricity in a era when fishing was, in some ways, largely carried on using 17th century methods.

Forever grateful for humble beginnings, an early interest in radio led to an education in telecommunications technology.

After graduation from college, there were jobs everywhere in the ever expanding communications industry. A dream came true when he started work with Bell Canada after three years of working toward that goal.

The story continues worldwide with work dedicated to the expanding internet and high-tech fiasco ending in Dec 2001.

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Excerpts

1

On return to Red Lake, we heard the whole crew from the Big Trout Lake headquarters had evacuated and were staying at the Red Dog Hotel. I met them all for supper and they explained when the Bell Hotel at Big Trout went up, the contractors neglected to use the steel ductwork allocated for heat distribution. They did however use the rigid fiberglass insulating cover that usually attaches outside the ductwork to keep the air hot thus saving energy. It was expensive to fly light yet bulky materials into Big Trout so improvisation helped cover the gaps as some key material, like steel ductwork, remained behind. That was great for economics but meant every time the furnace blower turned on, it blew a fine fiberglass dust all over the building giving everyone nosebleeds, rashes, coughing, itching decreased libido, etc. For a more personal appraisal of conditions caused by this oversight just throw a fine layer or two all over after your bath and in your bed, while breathing half of a teaspoon a day. Unbelievable but true; I experienced it myself every time I was there in the winter. It was on your furniture and of course, the bed.good for a nosebleed every morning and a little hacking and phlegm but nothing swiftly terminal. Since winter starts in September and summer starts in July, the condition was prevalent most of the year. To my colleagues from the bush, the respite was a breath of fresh air, but another of those Bell inspectors decreed there was no problem and everyone moved back still correct, pleading, confused, and bleeding but defeated. Breathing fiberglass dust suddenly seemed good for Bell people and this is probably why the manufacturers and government safety guidelines recommend wearing a fine dust mask when working with the stuff, even for a short time. The difference was, I heard, the nasty one is insulating-construction fiberglass and this one was construction-insulating fiberglass, there is quite a difference here. The construction type is pink, this is yellow and being yellow means it is good to breathe, and there was a time when people considered bleeding a panacea.

On the road, there were no clubs with the usual friends one met there, no regular girl friend, no chair to kick back in, and generally not much else people enjoy as part of everyday home-life and I had listed in my pile of expectation. Nevertheless, there was always home base. Being back there for a weekend once every month or so seemed little more than a waste of time but the trip itself was something worth the effort.

I would usually drive while the other five or so in the car would drink beer. Drinking during any ride is a Newfoundland tradition enjoyed by most travelers, too many times by drivers as well. By the time you were halfway home, some of the passengers would have sneaked in some pot during the two to four rest stops at some of Newfoundland's cultural oddities...gravel pits.

The radio would be blasting the latest in proximity to any town you were cruising by, only to resort to a constant hiss as the ride continued into the larger setting where radio signals and road signs were non-existent. Those wilder spots demanded some form of conversation with topics, starting at silly, downgraded to mindless after an hour or so. However, I always found it entertaining to hear minds at play, noticing I was not alone in being imaginative. Sometimes a songfest started, in no time becoming complicated for chemically altered perception and the less responsive lips of my passengers forcing reversion to chatter.

It seemed to me the living-on-road routine overcame a person's better judgment making any other lifestyle unacceptable as foreign and dull. I noticed some of my friends from college, already indistinguishable from twenty-year veterans. It appeared sometimes it took awhile to settle in completely but after it had taken hold, it fashioned a personality unwilling to fight further change. The result was obvious especially if you met someone you knew well, after going in different directions for a few months. Changes were unbelievably similar but still depended a lot on each character for those final touches.

2

As sometimes happened, I got one particular call to meet the ferry with a four thousand dollar check (in 1974 terms) one Wednesday morning to find two truck drivers with a ten-year-old they picked up just outside Toronto.

The Kid was a good-looking young boy who never spoke while carrying on his face a look I have seen on many who grew up with abuse, without a word from him in three days on the road nobody knew his name or why he was running away. The older trucker acted as thought he was the boy's father and generally took it easy on him while ensuring everyone else did as well.

We returned to the office and outside met the usual bunch of girls plus Dee.

Dee, Dee was a little like a general all-purpose party girl looking odd, smelling very badly, and rarely seen without two to five sailors from the US Argentia Naval Base around her. This time she was alone, and shortly after they had finished the first bottle of Screech, the drivers started to entertain her in the back of the truck. After a few more hours, when Dee started talking crazy, they thought it should be time to get her home.

I warned against it, telling them she could find her way at four in the morning in such a shape so three in the afternoon was no sweat. Next, I offered to drive but they turned me down and decided to deliver Dee to the bar in their truck, her sister Linda was to show them the way then return to socialize.

She came back all right but walked, seems the truck did not fit down a narrow lane and destruction of phone cables and electrical wires preceded relocation of a fence, causing a few hundred calls to the police who were on the scene when Linda slipped away. The drivers soon came back without arrests to send a telegram for money to cover the damage.

3

There was a younger Bell Man in the Kenora Bell center, I can't recall his name, but I found out most of the other members of the crew disliked him, complaining his biggest fault was being from Southern Ontario. The rumors and stories I overheard about him were inclined to make him a lyin' theivn' dope-smokin' sexual deviate who was giving the company a bad name.

Funny, but Bell people did the things this one suffered for but in their case it seemed to be ok. Bill Blower explained it this way, "The guy is from god-only knows where down south, probably thinks he is better than we are, and he lives in a trailer park."

"You live in a trailer park too, the same one I believe."

"Yeah but I'm not married."

"Not anymore."

I felt assured Mr. Outsider would take the hint soon and move back South or quit. It made me uneasy to see someone be a target, he was not Bell quality, therefore doomed. There seemed to be none of the good-natured assault I witnessed and was subject to on the CNCP installation crew, this was base and deplorable. I asked Bill about this man's work as an installer/repairman, he answered, "Anyone can do this work, and if he did it poorly he would have been gone a long time ago. It's not the work it's whether you deserve the job or not."

As was the case for Bell people in Roy Alder's profile, most possessed little education or talent allowing them to get all that far in a non-Bell environment so they failed to look for opportunity. It was preferable to stay and act justified in concentrating on potential in hope of advancement than to assure yourself you were replaceable. Just as Roy predicted, I saw people in technology jobs who would have better suited doing line-work but mine was the only case where the opposite would be true. I felt badly about having stolen the line crew job from some high-school graduate now forced into university.

Nepotism was a treasured Bell Canada practice ("Don't forget to tell about jobs at Bell.") and a lineman's position was not at the bottom of the ladder, it was something best concealed behind the stairs. My co-workers grew up, learned, and lived with racism at the level most people in Kenora accepted so foreigners and local minorities were acceptable as linemen and not for much else. Cracks about the "Token Newfie" came out when I was not around to hear them but I came to know my place. Having no relations at the center and a landed immigrant equivalency had gotten me a job nobody wanted their relations to be seen doing. Everyone should have been happy; it was the perfect place to put an inbred east-coast welfare-case like me.

Still some failed to see it that way...I could tell. A couple of people were still reeling from my visit two years earlier but I had worked full days and never missed a shift. Therefore, out of the Plessey bunch on that job, I still had some credibility and was happy knowing doing your best counted but was still on the outs with some from over-familiarization back then. They never missed a chance to remind me of how they considered me strange, this was not the good-natured push to conform I handled so well as an installer years earlier neither was it all out war so living with it was part of the package.

Being a contractor when I met these people earlier meant I had no problem speaking my mind, often being critical and particularly satirical about the attitude of superiority of some people I was directly involved with. Back then, I simply said whatever pleased me knowing few were grasping the tan-deep humor in my commentary, preferring to see me as a blaspheming whale hunter.

4

The Beaver pilot delivered me to the dock in the truck and before getting out, I asked him to confirm whether I should be leaving in such a snowstorm. "I don't like the looks of this, not more than a hundred feet and an eight of a mile at best. Whattya think?" I wasn't a commercial pilot but had flown enough to know it was out of range of a small plane and rookie pilot.

"Yeaaah...it's clear just south of the lake," he answered. I could only take him at his word; I had not called the weather station myself.

I met the pilot and thought the scent of oil and powder from his recent diaper change was a nice touch. His name was Tony; he had been in Trout for a long time and seemed more than eager to get to civilization as soon as possible. As we sat warming up the plane, I asked this fresh-faced commercial pilot about the weather and received the same answer as Jerry gave me, "Clear just to the south." I had flown a lot before Bell and before Ontario but I was now confronted by the arrogance of one pilot who believed only he knew what is right or wrong and the desperation of another who had not been out of Big Trout in over five months. Each assured me we would be in the storm only a few seconds after takeoff and in Red Lake after a few hours. While I doubted the reasoning behind leaving at all, their identical answers swayed me.

I pointed out our little plane had no instrument flight system and was illegal for even temporary flight in these conditions but was ignored with a chuckle. As we cleared the ice, we instantly lost sight of the ground in a flurry of snow with flakes as big as saucers. After climbing in an attempt to get on top of the clouds, we leveled at seven thousand feet, still without seeing the sun. The brilliant, young, and in my opinion soon to be decapitated, pilot decided we were in a much worse situation than he thought.

This craft had no wheels only skis, we had the minimum of electronics on board, which meant we could not avoid towers and do an instrument landing but Captain Tony had no instrument rating anyway as toilet training is a course prerequisite.

He started making two-minute turns, slowing down as we gingerly descended through the storm. Whenever the stall warning sounded, he pushed the throttle wide open, leveled the wings, and then started to circle in the other direction. He did these figure-eights eleven times and then decided to fly just above stall in a straight line north hoping to settle in the channel by the dock before loosing the last two hundred feet. Everything was whiteout so he flew slowly to hit the trees, ice, wires, tower, or Moses Mosquito's house at a speed more likely to leave us in a reasonably open casket condition. It was good to know there was now concern for safety from the pilot, as well as I. It was a little late by my watch though.

Ever ready to witness a good accident, the crew on the ground was eagerly trying to listen for us to approach or pass overhead so they could tell us where we were going to impact, letting them find our bodies before the ravens and wolves ate my wallet.

Tony (the pilot) was yelling at someone on the radio ineffectively trying to hide the tears in his eyes when we broke out running 045 degrees toward but below the treetops over the ice a little south and east of the runway.

I was fucking amazed.

It took a second to localize but he quickly turned north toward the channel to avoid the pines to line up with the ice-strip. In front of the base, there were six snow machines pointing their lights southward, three on each side of the ice-runway, what for...I do not know. It was hard to see their lights even from our now more hopeful position. Our flight, now squeezed between ice and cloud, had enough room for the turn just before the most disgraceful example of flopping onto a strip I had ever witnessed.

This aborted abortion of a trip lasted more than an hour and a half. There was a tremendous amount of luck used up in that time, no skill or calculation available in the universe could get us back to that point, none at all. He did a lazy-eight maneuver, or shall we say exercise, designed to sharpen the flying skills he should never have lived to use again. I never have to win a lottery, having broken odds making those against my own existence seem minimal.

5

Of course, his first name was not really Creeper it was Jerry, but because of his love of Teepee Creeping, or generally his voracity for Native women, he was Creeper, and no matter what event gave him the name he was stuck with it. He was a short rough dirty little person who had just one tooth left sticking from his front upper gum attached by a black stub about half as wide as the tooth once was, apparently strong as steel.

At sixty plus years, he was a fine Beaver Pilot with a flying style similar to Ken Race's without the looks, finesse, personality, clarity, sensibility, intelligence, vocabulary, or rustic charm of my good friend.

Incomparable to Lyle Gill in any aspect, he would have to be happy just to be in the same seat Cappn' Lyle once used to make winter flying passable in their fifty year old garbage, the icon of Bell's dedication to Northern Service and aviation history.

There was one skill Creeper did have, flying while drunk. He was constantly drinking until five in the morning and then taking on a full day's work. This got the attention of a few folk at Bell, and he already had a report for trying to fly while drunk one morning...AND HE WAS FORGIVEN! He simply promised never to do it again, good enough for the people running the show. Even Night Maier had caught him in this condition but the excuse of the plane's gas operated heater being broken made space for a few extra hours of sobering sleep.

Still, Bell people and the Beaver's operators knew he was flying drunk but nobody, with the experience Bell needed, would take the miserable wages and constant rejection considered part of the job. Word was getting around of pilots treated like shit and the pay, even in summer, was skimpy at best. They would hire whatever was willing to fly now and meeting criteria with valid documentation seemed secondary.

"Jesus! They get free food, what more could they want?"

Lyle had given up flying the Beaver and had started his own airline after Bell had sold TYX and except for Lyle's plane, Bell was asking us to take our chances with anything or anyone in the air. There were rumours this was the last contract for the Beaver, and its owners were trying to squeeze those last few hundred thousand dollars out of it. I made comments on seeing another disaster but nobody listened and thankfully, nothing happened.

I flew with Creeper one day from Pickle to Muskrat after Bob had left, and the DMS was in for a babysitting period. An hour out of Pickle I noticed while I had been supposedly sleeping, he was drinking whisky from one of two flasks hidden in his parka pocket. "I can't get the skis down," he told me, "I gotta put ya on the river instead of at the airport." He had not attempted to pump down wheels, as the action would have awakened me from my not so deep sleep.

At the airport, someone might have seen him and reported him as he was slurring drunk now. I had a huge pile of gear I had to leave on the ice to make my way to the site for a snow machine. It took forever to get to the site, as he had seen it from the air but on final, slipped past the trail I had him aiming for. After unloading, I waved goodbye hoping it was the last time I saw the one-toothed son of a bitch again.

It took me almost an hour of floundering in waist deep snow to get home.

After my little vacation, I was on my way to work on a Monday morning but stopped in at The Winston to have breakfast with a group of ten Bell types heading north for the week. Gord from Dryden was one; he and the others were sitting with Creeper Cole who was being a drunken pain in the ass at seven in the morning. He was pinching waitresses and yelling his Yahooooooo much to the delight of none of the other customers.

I left the restaurant and rode out to the airport where I screwed the heater on the Beaver up so badly it could not possibly work for two days. I returned as they were getting set to go out.

"Gord are you going flying with this guy today?" I asked.

"What's wrong with him?" Gord replied with a virtual serious look on his face.

"He just said he hasn't slept and he was drinking with you till one then by himself till six. He's not sober, he's gonna kill ya."

"He's not drunk. He's like that all the time, just a funny guy."

"He's drunk!"

"OH! You just don't like him that's all. He flies hung-over all the time, you'll get used to it."

"Hardly!"

I went to the office and called Mosbecks, not having any luck getting Chuck I got the old man instead. I said, "If I was required to fly with your pilot today, I wouldn't. Some people think this is a joke but I want to survive this thing and it is almost over for me...so whattya gonna do?"

I mentioned Bell would want a breath test and other evidence requiring a lot of time and maybe a few lives. I explained my work on the heater and then Mr. Mosbeck decided to send our new old man to Redditt where Ken Race would fire him.

That night Ken called me and before I could explain, he asked, "What did you do to my pilot?"

"Fuck Ken I..." I was struggling to find something to say as I valued Ken's opinion and thought he was really pissed because I got rid of the guy but Ken continued, "He landed on my lake here, I waited for him to come up to the house, but he just stayed in the airplane. I walked down to see what the matter was; he opened the door, flowed down over the side of the plane and landed in a pile on the ice. He was so drunk I fired him."

6

The summer of '87 was beautiful in the North, on a hot clear day we were returning from Kingfisher Lake aboard TYX.

Just outside the Pickle Lake zone, we were behind Frank Kelner in his Twin Otter, ahead of us was a Manitoba Air DC-3 fresh up from the airport testing some kind of repair work; it was to do this one circuit then land again to prove everything worked. For some reason it was fully loaded with groceries and typical freight for a North run next morning.

Ross Woodward and Hutch were flying TYX, I sat up front at Ross's invitation to come listen as they were conversing with the pilots of both planes making jokes about DC-3's that get in the way. Everyone became silent as we entered the zone and the DC-3 called in to Thunder Bay Radio with the usual information. A second later, they were lowering the flaps on the DC-3 as it slowed down and, for some reason; undetected cracks in the structure caused the right wing to come off. The rest of the machine folded into a marsh a few hundred meters from the North West corner of Pickle Lake right before our eyes.

The broken wing first tumbled toward Frank Kelner and crew who made a sharp turning dive to avoid it by meters. If it had hit Frank's plane it would have been a mid-air collision in everybody's book, and nobody would have believed anything else even with eyewitnesses. People in the know, tend to be sceptical about wings falling off airplanes. Luckily, Frank made it to the airport, while we flew the crash site to circle, hanging in the afternoon air until a helicopter came over to get some people closer to the wreck. At one point the pilot of the helicopter was asked if he saw any signs of life to which he replied, "I can't even tell what type of plane it is."

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