Some of the funny things that linemen say. For instance, when asked “How is your wife doing?”
My wife knows when its payday and she won’t open up to let me in the house until I slip my paycheck under the door. Or “Oh she’s good, just like the County Fair, she gets bigger and better every year!”
We were working off the pole one day and decided to take five. Instead of climbing down, I had the Grunt send up a banana out of my lunchbox for a snack. The other lineman is standing there watching me and finally says, “you sure look natural standing there eating that banana. “
Once the line crews were all angry and having a bitch session about something management was doing. Someone asked one of the old Foreman what he would do if he were in charge? He says angrily “If I were in charge, I would fire everybody and then quit!
I was an apprentice. I don’t remember what I did wrong but my lineman, totally disgusted, looks at me and says,” The only way you could be dumber is if you were bigger.”
We were sitting in the bar having some beers after class at Hotline School. We were talking about climbing and I said something about me being a “natural climber” One of the linemen at the table said, “On the day I was born, the minute my Mama squeezed me out, I climbed to the top of the bedpost and belted off with my tail!”
Byron Dunn – Lineman-Retired; Editor