{"product_id":"2940012923097","title":"Hippie Boss","description":"I was one of the idiots. New, bright yellow hardhat with a cross of day glow orange tape on the top. This tape meant anyone – from the lowest worker to the highest boss – could stop and order me around. The logic was as temporary summer help, an idiot like me, was a major safety concern to myself and all others. And the Bethlehem Steel was a dangerous place.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIt was the summer of ’69 and a summer job at “the Steel” was a major coup. As a Lehigh University engineering student about to enter his senior year, I must have been attractive to the “Steel”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMy first job was to assist an experienced union worker on top of the soaking pits. The soaking pits were where steel ingots were heated to a couple thousand degrees prior to being rolled to make I-Beams and assorted shapes. My job was to assist the experienced union employee to adjust the retractable steel top of the soaking pits. These heavy steel tops often got off track. The temperature we worked in was well over 120 degrees. I was scared to death. If you stood too long in one place your shoe soles started to melt. To fall on the pit top \/ into the pit was to be fatally burned \/ die. My fear was apparent. I was no help, just the opposite. The experienced guy told me to stay away from the rolling tops. I was making his job more dangerous. I hid nearby. It didn’t take long for me to be assigned elsewhere. Thank God!\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNext stop was the 42” rolling mill. It was a swing shift day– 4 PM till 12 midnight. The mill conveyor was running getting ready for the super hot ingots to be rolled. About 20’ from me  I heard a terrible grinding of gears. A guy in my work crew had thrown a crow bar into a gear box of the rolling mill. The mill ground to a stop, alarms sounded, 200 guys sat down. That how the entire shift was spent, sitting down.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNext day I was called into a management office for interrogation. Just before my name was called to go into the office, another experienced guy turned and said to me, “You better have not seen anything”. I didn’t. Despite repeated management declarations that they knew I was “right there” and must know who threw the crowbar – I claimed ignorance. I was turned the other way. I didn’t see it, etc, etc. BS. I knew who did it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eApparently my “vision” problem made me “popular” with my union mates. I was told I would be taught how to use a cutting torch. Not welding, just cutting. I was an idiot and idiots aren’t taught to weld. Only a few were taught cutting. After a week or two of instruction and practicing on all kinds of metal, I was told it was time for a “test”. It was swing shift and the temperature must have been 100 outside. I was told the object of my test was to cut a soda machine in half. But not to damage the soda cans inside. When I protested that I would be fired if caught, my protest fell on deaf ears. A soda machine was tilted over and away I cut. Slowly, carefully I cut away.  My co workers congratulated me on not cutting the soda cans and helped themselves to all of the “cold ones”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNext day I was called into a management office again and asked if I knew anything about destruction of a soda machine. I denied any knowledge. “It must have been you”, I was told, “You’re the only idiot learning to cut.” I stood firm in my denial. It was a rite of passage. Getting to cut a soda machine was a privilege not granted to many.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot long after my soda “test” an experienced worker pulled me aside. “I want to show you something” he told me. “If you come back here as a looper I want you to remember this.” A looper was the loop course run by the Steel for new management hires.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWe were at the end of a mill in an elevated spot. “Look down there, see “Hippie Boss”? Hippie Boss was a well known new Steel management hire. He was a “looper”. Hippie Boss had long hair that came down to his shoulders. My union co workers did not like Hippie Boss. They did not like hippies in general and this guy in particular. Getting ordered around by a hippie was not to be taken lightly.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHippie Boss was waking away from us down the mill. It was easy to spot the long hair under his hardhat. Above Hippie Boss a crane carried a white hot ingot passed Hippie Boss. The crane stopped then moved over and right behind Hippie Boss. It moved up behind him and almost on top of him. The crane released the ingot and it fell to the concrete floor. It tilted and fell sideways, but away from and not on top of Hippie Boss. Hippie Boss started running. He disappeared out of the mill. I never saw him again.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSummer ended, none too soon. I was called into a manager’s office. I thought I wa","brand":"Jay Helwig","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145587179760,"sku":"2940012923097","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012923097","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}